Reykjavík Grapevine - 12.09.2014, Side 29

29The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 14 — 2014 LITERATURE
The Way We
Live Now
'News Muse'
by Vala Hafstað
Taking its inspiration from idiosyncratic headlines around
the globe, 'News Muse' by Vala Hafstað combines two
very Icelandic interests—the daily news and poetry—and
uses them to paint a sometimes amusing, often ridiculous
portrait of contemporary life.
Words
Larissa Kyzer
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With a few notable exceptions, the 33
poems contained in 'News Muse'—all
of which, cleverly, include hyperlinks to
the original news stories in the e-book
version—are composed of uncluttered,
whimsically rhyming couplets. Stylisti-
cally, these are reminiscent of nursery
rhymes, with the overall effect being
that the (factually-based) content seems
even more absurd than it already is.
Take, for instance, the poem “A Life
of Luxury,” which skewers the growing
market for luxury pet products, such
as epicurean dog chow or myrtle-and-
fennel-scented “Fart and Away” pet
candles:
I’m neutered, but to my amazement
I’m blessed with equipment replace-
ment:
Prosthetic and custom-made nuts
That boost both my ego and guts.
Vala’s current event inspirations are
varied, with subject matter ranging
from dog weddings in Sri Lanka (“The
Dogs’ Wedding Vows”) and that time
that Icelandair flight attendants physi-
cally restrained a drunken, violent
“air hooligan” with
duct tape (“Tied
Up”), to Church-
in-a-Pub meetings
in Texas (“Diwine”)
and the death of a
37-year-old man
who was attacked
and drowned by a
flock of angry swans
(“Swan Song”). Nev-
ertheless, it’s clear
that she particularly
leans towards a few
specific flavours of news story.
For one, with eleven of the collec-
tion’s poems about animals, it’s obvious
that she enjoys quirky creature bulle-
tins, and gets a lot of joy writing from
an animal’s perspective. (One of the
book’s more laugh-out-loud lines can
be found in her poem “The Cheetah’s
Response,” which relates the struggles
of mating in captivity: “Attraction is
sudden, complex. / Survival depends
on wild sex.”) Vala also seems to enjoy
more improbable factoids, news stories
which reveal surprising bits of trivia
like those one might read on a Snapple
“Real Facts” bottle cap. For instance,
that upon consuming a great deal of
starch, people with “auto-brewery syn-
drome” will basically brew beer right in
their own bellies, as related in her poem
“Auto-Brewery.”
But although it never veers into
outright criticism or political commen-
tary, 'News Muse' is at its best when it
pokes fun at the extremely decadent,
the downright bougie, and the crassly
materialistic. Thirty-dollar cups of Kopi
Luwak coffee made from beans that
have been extracted from the excre-
ment of small mammals called civets
(“Hospitality”). Having one’s cremated
remains turned into diamonds for your
loved ones to wear (“Diamonds to Die
For”). The Chinese
couple who “sold”
their newborn to buy
an iPhone 5 (“Eye-
Phone”); the German
bishop (nicknamed
“the bishop of bling”)
who took a first-class
flight to visit the poor
in India and spent mil-
lions renovating his
home (“A Prayer”).
Despite the playful
tone, it’s in these mo-
ments that Vala’s project is at its sharp-
est and most incisive. It’s a bit depress-
ing, but it’s funny—because it’s true.

“Vala also seems to
enjoy more improbable
factoids, news stories
which reveal surprising
bits of trivia like those
one might read on a
Snapple “Real Facts”
bottle cap.”