The Icelandic Canadian - 01.12.2003, Qupperneq 50

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THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
Vol. 58 #2
The work so badly needs copy-editing
that it makes my teeth ache. People often
think that poetry allows for and forgives
any lapses of grammar and logic because
it’s poetry. You’ve heard of poetic license,
haven’t you? This is not true. Just as in
prose, a poetic sentence must have a begin-
ning and an end, a subject and a verb.
Granted, one can be elliptical: a subject
may be implicit, a verb may be implied. But
the sentence must make sense. A collection
of random phrases piled up in charming
disarray does not work. Clarity must pre-
vail. Antecedents must be clear, that is, the
reader should understand immediately
who “they” or “he” or “she” refers to,
preferably in the recent past and not three
paragraphs or even four sentences earlier.
Dangling modifiers are a no-no. Let me
show you: being a stickler for grammar,
this book does not please me. I am the
stickler, not the book.
I haven’t mentioned the punctuation.
It is not necessary to put a period at the end
of every line of poetry; some lines are run-
on and don’t make sense with a period. A
period usually makes the next line an
incomplete sentence. Nor is it necessary to
sprinkle commas like salt and pepper
among the phrases. That, is not, how a sen-
tence, reads.
All these errors are so egregious as to
make the poem almost unreadable. I copy-
edited it twice. Some passages defied trans-
lation but I persevered.
Look at this:
Aching limbs from days of toil and strain,
Smarting eyes, sea salt and lack of sleep,
Wet from heavy seas with pouring rain,
And enclosed in fog, so thick and deep.
This is the third paragraph of the poem
entitled “Landfall - 1000 A.D.” which
describes the Vikings’ journey across the
sea to find a new land. Nowhere in the first
two paragraphs are the Vikings named.
Descriptive phrases mount and one has to
assume the presence of the people experi-
encing this trip. Here’s a suggestion for
edited copy:
Limbs ache from days of toil and strain,
Eyes tear with sea salt and lack of sleep.
All are wet from heavy seas and pouring
rain,
Enclosed in fog, so thick and deep.
I am not for a minute suggesting that
the writer has no skill with words; she is
truly a poet. Here’s a lovely passage, cor-
rected only slightly:
Waves roll(ing) in, green as this cape,
Laced with sea-whipped froth,
Soft and deep as the folds of its shape,
With movements of velvet cloth.
Forever the waves wash(ing) onto the land.
Buried are secrets below.
Rumours creep in on the fickle sand(,)
For everyone to know.
(The brackets indicate my cuts.)
And here is a beautiful couplet ending
a poem about a battle:
Northwind whispers in some foreign bay,
Picks up some fleece and blows it away.
I have chosen this image deliberately
because of the poet’s use of the wool
(fleece) image - the three strands with
which the Norns wove the fates of people.
It’s a consistent theme, beautifully played.
That’s what the title means. The White
Strand is the hopeful thread in one’s life.
Even afer the end, Ragnarok, the poet holds
out this hope of a future. The ending is pos-
itive (with slight corrections):
Softly spun from the humming Norns,
Wool-like clouds are formed as thread,
Floating ‘mongst the stars of future morn,
White strands of fate, drifting overhead.
It’s still a little vague, but you get the
idea.