Orð og tunga - 26.04.2018, Page 66

Kendra Willson: Splitting the atom 55
[“And who are your people, boys?” “We belong to the atom bomb”,
they said (Halldór Laxness, transl. Magnús Magnússon 1961:166)].
Jón Óskar (1971:142–151) suggests that the image of the atom poet
was based on Jónas Svafár (Jónas Svavar Einarsson), who was sup-
posed to have become a poet aft er hitt ing his head in a fall (1971:144).
The only poem by the atom poet which in its form is “modern”
evokes the atom bomb through its phonological structure, as well as
being overtly connected with it in the prose frame: “benjamín sagðist
hafa ort atómkvæðið ó tata bomma, tomba ata mamma, ó tomma at,
sem væri í senn upphafi ð á nýrri sköpunarsögu, nýum móselögum,
nýu korintubréfi og atómbombunni” (1948:159) [and Benjamin said
that he had composed the atom poem ‘Oh tata bomma, tomba ata
mamma, oh tomma at’, which was at one and the same time the be-
ginning of a new Genesis, a new Mosaic Law, a new Corinthian Epis-
tle, and the atom bomb (Halldór Laxness, transl. Magnús Magnússon
1961:115)]. This nonsense poem, a parodic representation of modern
poetry, simultaneously evokes child language, Western stereotypes of
African languages (cf. Adrjan & Muñoz-Basols 2003:243–244) (which
were already mentioned in relation to the children’s reduplicative
nicknames), primordial murmurs and omega. It is comprised entirely
of sounds found in the word atómbomba ‘atom bomb’.
The sound similarities of atóm to other words may also enhance the
connotations of atóm. The word atóm also evokes tóm (n.) ‘emptiness’,
reminding one that “atómið sjálft – frumeind efnisins – er að mestu
tómarúm” (Lapp 1968:9) [the atom itself – the basic unit of matter – is
mostly empty space].
Although Laxness coined the term atómskáld, he was marginal to
the development of free verse in Iceland. Halldór Laxness’ views of
modern poetry were mixed. In a review of Hin hvítu skip [The white
ships], (Guðmundur Böðvarsson 1939), Laxness (1942:138–140) ex-
pressly spoke out against free verse in Icelandic (Jón Yngvi Jóhanns-
son 2006:400). In the 1930s Laxness mocked both the Icelandic compul-
sion to rhyme and poems in prose form (Örn Ólafsson 1990:126–127).
Laxness published one volume of poems (Kvæðakver [Thin volume of
poems], 1930), but he is mainly known as a prose writer. Jón Yngvi
Jóhannsson views Laxness’ poems “as isolated events in Icelandic lit-
erary history … that did not have a lasting impact on the evolution
of poetry or poetic form as such” (2006:396). Kvæðakver contains one
poem in free verse, “Únglíng urinn í skóginum” [The youth in the for-
est]. Jóhann Hjálmarsson (1971:16–20) discusses this poem as “eft ir-
tunga_20.indb 55 12.4.2018 11:50:37