Reykjavík Grapevine - 15.06.2018, Page 46

Books 46The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 10 — 2018
Language Is
A Weapon
Elías Knörr on poetry and prejudice
Words: Björn Halldórsson Photo: Gulli Már
If you have attended a Reykjavík
poetry reading in recent years,
chances are you have been lucky
enough to catch Elías Knörr per-
forming his poetry with his signa-
ture flair. While other performers
tend to hide their eyes in notebooks
and printouts, he addresses the
crowd with an intense sincerity,
at times lapsing into closed-eyed
song if the structure of the poem
and the traditions surrounding it
calls for such. Certainly, any reader
choosing to take the printed ver-
sions home with them at the end
of the show will have found Elías’s
voice echoing in their head through
further readings. “I have a fetish-
istic attachment to printed paper,
but I have texts which I only con-
vey live or in a private service,” he
explains. “Orality and theatre can
be very important in surviving.
You need to step on stage if you
want your work to be read, under-
stood and taken seriously – even
if that’s pure anorgasmia for you.”
Fighting labels and
assumptions
Elías has been writing, perform-
ing and publishing poetry on the
Icelandic scene for close to a de-
cade now, but when put on the
spot he is rather vague about his
origins, stating simply: “I come
from a vagina—as most poets
do.” Such flippancy is his means
of disarming the island-mentality
common to the insular Icelandic
community, where immigrants
find themselves faced daily with
the question ‘where are you from?’
“I still have to fight against
the fact that people assume that
my texts are translations,” he la-
ments. “Some people will actually
ask who wrote my texts for me.
First time it happened I cried like
a baby, but nowadays I take it as
part of my fiction. I try to recycle
prejudice as opportunity. The more
stupid assumptions people make,
the deeper my alter-egos get.”
An interloper on the
scene
In fact, the last name ‘Knörr’ is a
pseudonym (or a heteronym, ac-
cording to Elías), rather fittingly
derived from an old Icelandic word
for a ship. The name helped in-
form his poetry, but it was also a
means of fighting the prejudice
that accompanied his taking pos-
session of as cherished a cultural
artefact as the Icelandic language.
“My plan was always to use my
name to hide within the local scene,
allowing my texts to attain objec-
tive success regardless of my face
or my persona,” he explains. “You
can ask Polish-heritage Icelanders
how their surnames have helped
them find jobs that corresponds
to their university education; it’s
hard! Instead of going down that
road, I decided to twist Icelan-
dic prejudices, and
it worked perfectly.
It was like a Trojan
horse that opened a
new way into a locked
system. People should do it more of-
ten—foreigners as well as natives!”
A forthcoming English
translation
This summer will see the forging
of yet another incarnation of Elías’s
identity, with the publication of an
English translation of a selection of
his poetry by Reykjavík/Manches-
ter publisher Partus. The trans-
lator is Icelandic writer and poet
Kári Tulinius, who has previously
worked with Elías through Par-
tus’ ‘Meðgönguljóð’ poetry series.
“I can be very perverse when it
comes to language, so I was really
lucky to get somebody like him to
translate me,” Elías admits. “We’re
of the same generation and have a
similar cultural background, and
he also has a good knowledge of
medieval Icelandic concepts, which
I sometimes misuse and abuse in
my poetry. He’s very creative and
always eager to get out of his com-
fort zone. There really is nobody
better suited than him to solve
the riddles of my translation.”
Culture is everybody’s
responsibility
Being a man of many languages,
Elías has himself worked as a
translator. He makes no qualms
about the importance of such work,
especially within the modern Ice-
landic literary scene, which is seen
by some old-guards as the final
stronghold of the Icelandic lan-
guage; a haven in need of constant
defence against outside influences.
“A good counter-example to
the anal-retentive besserwissers
who purport to be protecting our
pristine Icelandic tongue would be
translators,” he points out. “Nobody
has to be more strict and know-it-
all when it comes to language than
translators, and yet they’re the most
creative and open-minded people
you can find! Culture does not come
from romanticisms about blood
or nature; it’s a matter of sharing
and cultivating knowledge, and it’s
everybody’s respon-
sibility.” He shrugs.
“The Icelandic
idea of ‘foreignness’
will probably change
drastically in the next 25 years, when
newer generations of Icelanders will
be used to a different human real-
ity, but the problem goes deeper.”
A tool for change
Elías is admant about the power
of the written word as a harbin-
ger of such changes: “Real litera-
ture always breaks preconcep-
tions, that’s why we have to make
use of it. Language is a weapon
for change, and it belongs to us.
I hope younger Icelandic writers
are aware of that and are not afraid
to use that weapon.”
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