Lögberg-Heimskringla - 01.07.2015, Side 15

Lögberg-Heimskringla • 15. júlí 2015 • 15
ONLINE MAGAZINE: WWW. HEIMSKRINGLOG.COM
Stefan Jonasson
In one of the older sections of Winnipeg’s Brookside Cemetery, canopied by trees, stands a grand memorial that one might imagine marked
the final resting place of some important statesman or
military hero. What a surprise, then, to discover that it
marks the grave of a simple carpenter, until one learns
that this workingman was also one of the finest poets
to ever call Winnipeg home.
Kristinn Stefánsson was born on an isolated
farm, Egilsá, in the Skagafjörður region of northern
Iceland, on July 9, 1856. He was the son of Stefán
Tómasson, a farmer and physician who was known for
his outstanding intellect and poetic gifts, and Vigdís
Magnúsdóttir. Immigrating to Canada in the summer
of 1873, as part of the first large group to leave
Iceland, he settled first in Rosseau, Ontario before
moving west to Winnipeg in 1881. After establishing
himself in his adopted homeland, he married Guðrún
Jónsdóttir in the summer of 1884.
Robert Graves commented that, “to be a poet is
a condition rather than a profession.” So it was that
Kristinn earned his living with his hands, fashioning
works in wood even as he created works in words. He was
frequently called upon to compose poems for recitation
at events around the province, defying C. Day Lewis’s
wry observation that, “a poet is not a public figure. A
poet should be read and not seen.” On ten occasions,
he was one of the featured poets at Íslendingadagurinn,
the annual Icelandic Festival of Manitoba, a record
unsurpassed by any other individual.
Kristinn’s earliest published poetry appeared
in the pages of Framfari (Progress), which was
produced at Riverton, during the fall of 1879. He was
the most frequently featured poet in the pages of the
Winnipeg newspaper Leifur, contributing twelve of
the forty-one original poems published by the paper
during its brief three-year run. When the pioneer
women’s suffrage leader Margrét Benedictsson
launched publication of Freyja in 1898, which billed
itself as “the only woman suffrage paper published in
Canada,” Kristinn quickly emerged as one of its most
popular contributors.
In 1904, Kristinn joined the editorial staff of
Neistinn (The Spark), a periodical produced by the
Hekla Lodge of the International Order of Good
Templars (IOGT), an American-based temperance
society that had gained a strong foothold among
Scandinavians on both sides of the Atlantic. That
same year, he began contributing to Heimir, the
monthly magazine of the Icelandic Unitarian
Association. Despite their affiliations, like Freyja,
both of these publications were noteworthy as much
for their literary qualities as for the social or religious
positions that they represented.
Vestan hafs (West of the Ocean), his first volume
of poetry, was published in 1900 but his most popular
work, and some would argue his best, is found in
his second collection, Út um vötn og velli (Out Over
Lakes and Plains), which appeared sixteen years later,
just two months after his death. Alongside the nature
poetry for which he was most loved, Út um vötn og
velli contained tributes to various individuals, both
great and humble, verses celebrating both his native
and adopted homelands, social commentary and a few
interpretations in Icelandic of the works of others.
Some of his poems betray the emergent bilingual
culture of the immigrants, which was most strikingly
illustrated by the English title he gave to an Icelandic
poem – “Gravitation.”
Although unschooled in a formal sense, Kristinn
Stefánsson possessed a scholarly knowledge and
understanding of the literature of both Scandinavia
and the English-speaking world. While steeped in
the Icelandic skaldic tradition, his own poetry was
influenced by the work of Longfellow and Lowell,
Byron and Tennyson, Bjørnson and Ibsen. The
Icelandic American literary scholar, Stefán Einarsson,
commented that, “he was a radical socially and in
church matters, as several of his satirical poems testify,
but he also loved to describe and contemplate nature,
notably in its spring and summer garb.” While much
of his verse was inspired by the Canadian landscape,
social reform also figured prominently. Satire and
irony blended with sympathy and contemplation. His
poetry ranged from rugged verses that “move like
iron-clad legions” to the more purely lyric, which
painted landscapes with words.
Kristinn was instrumental in launching the
campaign to raise funds to erect a statue of Jón
Sigurðsson, the father of Icelandic independence,
on the grounds of the Manitoba Legislature. It took
a decade to accomplish the goal and, while Kristinn
himself did not live to see it, the Jón Sigurðsson statue
was unveiled in 1921, the first statue to be placed on
the grounds of the then-new legislative building. An
unintended consequence of this fund drive was the
bridging of divisions, both religious and political,
that had been festering among the Icelanders in
Manitoba, restoring a sense of unity to this immigrant
community.
Kristinn Stefánsson died on September 26, 1916,
following a brief illness. While his contributions to
Icelandic Canadian literature were later eclipsed by
those with greater longevity or more prolific output
– not to mention willing translators – he was one of
the most popular Icelandic Canadian poets during
his lifetime and remains one of the most important,
although the barrier of language hides his work from
the view of most people in his adopted land.
Kristinn Stefánsson, the carpenter poet
Grave of Kristinn Stefánsson
PHOTO: STEFAN JONASSONDRAWING BY TRYGGVI MAGNÚSSON
Kristinn Stefánsson
GIMLI
SELKIRK
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and innovator in providing the highest quality of life for
each individual in our care. Betel Home Foundation
is an integral part of the community recognizing our
Icelandic roots and respecting others cultures.
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A day in spring
Springtime, here’s my hand!
Quickened thoughts expand,
Fleet as children in thy sunlight straying.
Life at rising tide
Seeks thy portals wide.
– Grant to youth its heritage of maying.
Realms of song untold
To my soul unfold.
Serve once more thy wine of glowing hours.
Let thy teeming light
Put my years to flight.
– Crown my life with sunshine through thy flowers.
– Kristinn Stefánsson
(translated by Jakobina Johnson)
A drop of brine
(An ode to a drop of water bottled and brought
by a friend from the Pacific Ocean)
By man imprisoned, ocean wondrous vast,
An atom of thee reached me through the distance.
– A briny drop thy billows once held fast,
But yielded to my friend without resistance.
This drop has rested in thy mighty veins,
In sound and swell thy impulse wild receiving,
As in the surf it sang thy proud refrains,
Or, rose in giant forms thy bosom cleaving.
Thy very marrow was its dwelling place,
Thy lungs and monster throat their power sharing.
Thy billows nursed and fitted for the race:
Thy name among the winds of heaven bearing.
My footprints ever far from thee remained;
– But as my youthful dreams are not refuted,
I hail this drop with joyousness unfeigned –
– It shared thy sovereign glory undisputed.
– Kristinn Stefánsson
(translated by Jakobina Johnson)