Iceland review - 2019, Page 97

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Iceland Review
Seven years ago, poet Valgerður (Vala)
Þóroddsdóttir felt Iceland lacked a platform for
emerging poets. With the help of some friends, she
created poetry book series Meðgönguljóð to fill the
void. Along the way, Vala founded Partus Press,
which is now ready to fry bigger fish. Her next goal
is not only to take on the more established publish-
ers in Iceland, but to bring Icelandic literature to
the UK and the rest of the English-speaking world.
Hatching poets
The idea for Meðgönguljóð, a recurring poetry
series for emerging writers, was born in 2011, when
Kári Tulinius, Sveinbjörg Bjarnadóttir, and Vala
were talking about how inaccessible publishing a
book had become for young poets. “We thought
poetry books were too expensive in the stores.
Also, if young poets weren’t at the place where they
could publish a marketable book of poetry, there
wasn’t much else for them to do. There were very
few magazines publishing shorter texts and the
publishing houses hadn’t been letting new poets
through for about a decade at that time.”
In the early aughts, poetry collective Nýhil had
kept a lively poetry event and publishing scene
going, but when their fire died out, there wasn’t
much going on. Vala and her partners wanted to
produce small books that were short and cheap
to print, so they could be produced quickly and
wouldn’t necessarily have to last long. “Basically,
we invented zines, which is a thing that already
existed in other countries. But we thought we were
super original,” Vala chuckles. “That was the idea
that sparked the series, although it evolved and
grew during that whole process.”
Meðganga means pregnancy or gestation,
capturing the series’ purpose as an incubator for
young poets. Its more literal meaning, on the other
hand, “walking with,” describes the series’ attempt
to produce unintimidating, “take-away” booklets.
Between 2012 and 2018, Meðgönguljóð published
just under 40 books. Aside from their printed
series, the group became a much-needed venue
for young poets to take their first steps in writing
and develop their craft and identity. “First and
foremost, we wanted to give young poets a space to
rehearse, try to get something published, work with
an editor, and also go through that whole publish-
ing process, market their book, read from it in front
of people and so on. We wanted it to be a training
camp.”
Hard labour
Vala is proud of what the group accomplished, even
if it earned her some battle scars. “It was a really
beautiful project, even if it ended up being incred-
ibly hard and draining and a black hole for money
as well. It was needed at the time. A lot has changed
since then, so many new things have started hap-
pening. I feel there’s more people self-publishing
and more groups working on getting stuff pub-
lished than before.”
In 2015, Vala started Partus Press, the publish-
ing house that would publish Meðgönguljóð as well
as other books. “We found we needed some sort of
enterprise to handle things, just things like a ken-
nitala (national ID number) and VAT number and
stuff like that.” In 2018, the decision was made to
put an end to the Meðgönguljóð franchise and for
the publishing house to move on to other projects.
“The idea was never that the series would last for-
ever. So after a few years, we decided to quit before
it became tired.” Meðgönguljóð was discontinued,
marking its end with the publication of a collection
of poems from the series. “I thought it was a great
way to end things. Grassroots publications tend to
fizzle out, which is shitty for everyone. The training
camp is over and everyone is done with it, the pub-
lishers, the editors, the poets.”
The poetry collection gave everyone who had
been involved in the project a chance to look back
and evaluate their work. “We realised a lot of things
in that process, for instance how diverse the output
has been. I loved hearing all the different things
"Basically,
we invented
zines, which
is a thing
that already
existed in
other coun-
tries. But we
thought we
were super
original."