Orð og tunga - 26.04.2018, Page 69

58 Orð og tunga
list armennirnir jafnvel „atóm-málarar“” (Eysteinn Þorvaldsson
1980:162) [The innovative poets are sometimes called “abstract poets”
and visual artists even “atom painters”].
The fi rst att estations for atómljóðlist ‘atom poetry’ and atómstefna
‘atom movement’ appear in Sveinn Bergsveinsson’s (1952:51, 55) dis-
cussion of the atom poets. While the former does not appear to be at-
tested elsewhere in ROH, the latt er also has att estations e.g. in Ólafur
Jónsson (1979:42, 95) and Eysteinn Þorvaldsson (1980:103, 164). A few
other compounds appear only in the journal Birtingur:
(8) Kannski áþekkt því að ungt skáld sem alizt hefði upp
við kvæði ykkar Stefáns fengi allt í einu handrit að atóm-
ljóðabók upp í hendurnar. (Einar Bragi 1957:3)
[Perhaps as if a young poet who had grown up with
poems by you [Jóhannes úr Kötlum] and Stefán [frá
Hvítadal] suddenly got his hands on the manuscript to
an atom poetry book.]
(9) Hann [“Birtingur”] hefur aldrei hirt um að dekra við
atóm ljóðafjendur, abstrakthatara né handhafa neins
konar annarra átoríseraðra sjónarmiða. (Til lesenda
1961:62)
[Birtingur has never cared to coddle atom poem enemies,
abstract haters or the bearers of other authorized views
of any kind.]
Hence the atóm- label is seen to be used within the modernist move-
ment in various ways. However, similar atóm- compounds are also
used by others, sometimes derogatorily, as described in the next
section.
8 The image of the atom poet
The word atómskáld and other compounds in atóm- are used by Icelan-
dic writers contemporary to the movement and later, oft en ironically,
to refer to a particular, self-consciously cultivated image of a poet:
(10) Hann [þorskurinn] var býsna langur, en ósköp horaður,
og melankólskur á svipinn, eins og atómskáld. (Jónas
Árnason 1956:125)
[It [the cod] was awfully long but terribly thin and had a
melancholy expression like an atom poet.]
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