Reykjavík Grapevine - 20.04.2018, Page 40

Books 40The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 06 — 2018
Tomorrow Will Be
Worse
Kristín Svava Tómasdóttir’s ‘Stormwarning’
published in the U.S.
Words: Björn Halldórsson Photo: Guðrún Elsa Bragadóttir
Although Icelandic literature is
today widely available in other lan-
guages, translations of Icelandic
poetry are a relative rarity—this
despite the vibrant Reykjavík po-
etry scene which has recently seen
an influx of younger poets due to
the efforts of grassroots publish-
ers and festivals. When local poet
Kristín Svava Tómasdóttir was
contacted by Canadian poet K.B.
Thors due to the latter’s interest
in translating Kristín’s poetry,
she consented with the expecta-
tion that at most it would lead to
one or two poems being published
in overseas poetry journals.
“I never thought it might lead
to the publication of an entire
collection,” Kristín explains. “Ice-
landic poetry collections rarely
get published abroad, especially
ones by writers who have never
published a work of prose.” After
several poems had appeared in
English in journals such as the
Harvard Review and EuropeNow,
Thors’s translation of
Kristín’s third book of
poetry, ‘Stormwarn-
ing,’ went on to win
the American-Scan-
dinavian Founda-
tion’s Leif and Inger
Sjöberg Award. This
month, ‘Stormwarn-
ing’ will be published in a bilin-
gual edition by Phoneme Media.
A cross-continental
cooperation
Thors, who hails from rural Al-
berta, has a unique connection
with Iceland through her paternal
grandparents, who immigrated
to Canada from Iceland some 60
years ago. The two poets worked
over email and later performed
together at a reading event in a
bar in Reykjavík, taking turns
reading the original poetry and
the translations and also deliver-
ing found poems that they discov-
ered in the bar’s bathroom stall.
“We had an immediate connec-
tion,” Kristín reminisces. “I an-
swered any questions that she had,
read her translation and made
comments if I found something
required more specificity. I’m a
translator myself but I’ve mostly
translated dead writers, so this
was an enjoyable change of pace.
Going through that process with
my own poetry is always interest-
ing—weighing individual words
and phrases that have sprouted
naturally in Icelandic, having to
explain myself and consider my
attempts at mood and meaning.”
Taking poetry off its
pedestal
Although 'Stormwarning' is in
many ways a more meditative
work than Kristín’s previous
books, it is nevertheless branded
with her unique balance of so-
cial criticism and the scathing
wit and humour that she uses
to unravel the old-guard con-
servative rhetoric often over-
heard in Icelandic hot-tubs. It
also touts a self-awareness that
is sometimes lacking in to-
day’s online call-out culture.
“I like writers—and people
overall—that can laugh at them-
selves while sticking to their po-
litical and artistic
principles,” Kristín
says. “I’m a great
supporter of using
humour in literature
and prefer books
that are fun
to read—at
least on
some level. I don’t mean
that all writers should
turn themselves into
jesters, but I tire eas-
ily of authors that
take themselves
too seriously.
People have this
tendency to put
poetry on a ped-
estal, which
I really hate.
For example,
Icelandic poetry transla-
tions often use formal or outright
pompous language even when
the original text doesn’t war-
rant it, which does
a disservice to the
poet and alienates
readers. A decent
work of literature
has to work on multiple levels,
but I want my writing to also
work on the most basic of lev-
els so that the reader can find
some enjoyment without having
to steep themselves in context.”
The historian and the
poet
Kristín is also a historian; her
book on the history of pornogra-
phy in Iceland is due to be pub-
lished in the fall. The two fields of
her writing career inform one an-
other while remaining separate
identities of her author’s persona.
“History and poetry are both
concerned with textual nuances
and emphasis and the construc-
tion of meaning,” she explains.
“I´m interested in many of the
same themes in history and in
poetry: the gap between the past
and the present, obviously, but
also the gap between theory and
action, the physical and the in-
tellectual, the spiritual and the
material. Still, the forms are so
vastly different. In history, you
present your case in an organ-
ised fashion, put it in context
and argue the point. Poetry is
raw, chaotic, ambiguous. There’s
a level of gut-feeling in my po-
ems that I try to keep intact.”
Distorting meaning
through found
language
Perhaps in a historian’s attempt to
document our current moment,
the references that 'Stormwarn-
ing' pulls into the text go far be-
yond literature and poetry, reach-
ing into the chasms of online
debates and comment sections to
pluck out phrases and sentences
that Kristín weaves into the im-
agery and structure of her poems.
“The randomness and famil-
iarity of that type of language
suit my purposes,” she says.
“Taking common
rhetoric and
subverting it,
putting it into
an unfamiliar
context and using
it to distort the po-
etry itself, you can’t
do things like that
so easily as a histo-
rian.” Her prized find-
ing was the quote that
inspired the collection’s
title: meteorologist and
weather reporter Birta
Líf Kristinsdóttir’s com-
ment in the dark of the Icelandic
winter that “tomorrow will be
worse but that does
not mean that to-
day isn’t bad,” which
captured Kristín’s
i m a g i n a t i o n .
“It’s such a fantastic sum-
ming up of Icelandic weather!”
She laughs. “Any meteorologist
worth their salt should be proud
of coining such a phrase.”
gpv.is/lit
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Kristín Svala feels good
“People have
this ten-
dency to put
poetry on a
pedestal.”
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