The Icelandic connection - 01.03.2018, Side 32

30
ICELANDIC CONNECTION
Vol. 70 #1
Kai n n:
The Greatest Poet of North Dakota
by Kevin Jon Johnson
Reprinted with permission from Logberg-Heimskringla, 13 December 1996
Kristjan Niels Jonsson, born to a
blacksmith and his wife in Akureyri
in 1860, died of a stroke in the Pembina
County of North Dakota on 25 October
1936. Known as K.N. Julius, he laboured on
farms and dug graves for a living. Tammy
Einarson calls him the greatest poet of
North Dakota in her well researched
essay in the Summer 1994 issue of The
Icelandic Canadian. This year is the sixtieth
anniversary of Kainn’s death.
To celebrate the anniversary of this
unique and giftedpoet,anidearecommended
to me by Baldur Schaldemose, I will rely on
the efforts of Magnus Einarsson and draw
some examples of Kainn’s poetry from the
resource of his book, IcelandicCanadian
Popular Verse.
Tomas Oddsson of Arborg, Manitoba,
remembered the following verse:
Eg er a3 skrifa heSan heim
{jvi heill og feitur er,
og ennjra lifi a ostyrk [Mm
sem ellin veitir mer.
Magnus Einarsson translates this poem,
which reflects the typical ABAB rhyming
pattern employed by Kainn, as follows:
“I am writing home from here,/ As I am
hale and hearty,/ And still live on the non-
support/ Which old age grants me” (33).
After attending Mass one Sunday,
when the priest exhorted the congregation
on the many things in our behaviour that
could be abandoned, Rosmundur Arnason
of Elfros, Saskatchewan, remembered the
reply of the poet:
KvennfolkiS er a3 kyssast
og kemst svo aldrei af sta5;
pa5 er nu eitt sem mast ft missast
minniS Jtid prestinn a pa3.
This translates as: “The women are always
kissing/ And can never get going;/ That's one
thing that could be eliminated,/ Remind
the priest about that.” Einarsson notes that
Icelandic women customarily greeted each
other with a kiss, in those days (94).
On another occasion, when K. N.
dirtied his hands cleaning a barn, an
itinerant preacher, SigurSur Sigvaldason,
challenged the poet as to the nature of his
beliefs. Unsatisfied by the reply that K.N.
did not believe in anything, Bible Siggi
pressed further. Asgeir Gislason of Leslie,
Saskatchewan remembered the spicy reply:
Kyrrassa tok eg tru,
tru jscirri held eg nu;
1 flornum fie eg a3 standa
fyrir na5 heilags anda.
Einarsson translates: “I placed my faith
in a cow's ass,/ That faith I hold onto now;/
In the dung channel I'm allowed to stand/