Orð og tunga - 26.04.2018, Page 60

Kendra Willson: Splitting the atom 49
The generation of poets who introduced free verse and other as-
pects of modernist aesthetics in Iceland are known as atómskáld ‘atom
poets’, a term coined by Halldór Laxness in his satirical novel Atóm-
stöðin (1948), where an atom poet is one of many fi gures in the tumul-
tuous milieu of post-World War II Reykjavík. The term was appropri-
ated by a group of poets most of whom came of age around 1950 and
who were associated with the journal Birtíngur (named aft er Halldór
Laxness’ calque of Candide (Voltaire 1945)).
Eysteinn Þorvaldsson (1980:312) uses the term atómskáld primar-
ily for a core group of fi ve poets: Einar Bragi (1921–2005), Hannes
Sigfússon (1922–1997), Jón Óskar (1922–1998), Sigfús Daðason (1922–
1997) and Stefán Hörður Grímsson (1919–2002). Other names have
been connected with the atom poets, such as the slightly older Ste-
inn Steinarr (1908–1958) and Jón úr Vör (1917–2000) and the slightly
younger Vilborg Dagbjartsdótt ir (b. 1930). It has been pointed out
(Soff ía Auður Birgisdótt ir 1989, Kormákur Bragason 2007) that Ey-
steinn Þorvaldsson’s discussion excludes women and that numerous
other writers could also be connected with the movement. The term
has been used in common parlance to refer to free verse and modern
poetry more generally.
There are substantial diff erences among even the central atom
poets in their techniques and concerns. Eysteinn Þorvaldsson (1980)
emphasizes that the atom poets did not present a unifi ed ideology or
movement. Atom poet Hannes Sigfússon is quoted as saying, “Við
vor um engin framúrklíka sem var að reyna að koma af stað nýjung um.
Hver fór að leita á sínu einstigi að sínum skáldskaparmálum” (Silja
Aðalsteinsdótt ir 1989:22, quoted in Silja Aðalsteins dótt ir 2006:41) [We
were no avante garde clique that was trying to bring about innova-
tions. Each undertook to seek his own individual path to his own
poetics].
Modernism in poetry has been understood and realized in many
diff erent ways, and discussion of the nature of modernism continues
in Icelandic literary scholarship (Þorsteinn Þorsteinsson 2005, 2007;
Örn Ólafsson 1992, 2006). Modernism is not necessarily a single aes-
thetic, and is partly defi ned by its relation to earlier traditions, the
“aesthetics of interruption” (Ástráður Eysteinsson 1990:179). Ey-
steinn Þorvaldsson assesses in the English summary to his book:
One might argue that Modernism in poetry is a composite of
surviving qualities from all these revolts against traditional
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