New News (stuff, essays)
First: Mind the Sound, writings about the 17th century Icelandic nonsense/sound-poet Æri-Tobbi and my own work from his writing. Published in aslongasittakes and (in finnish translation) in Nuori Voima magazine. Second: Hay-grinder of the greenpeace-kitten earth-channels of the desert-asphalt sugar-free beach-found transparent salt-Coke – a column about ‘kenning’ metaphors in skaldic poetry. Published in... »
Mayday in Helsinki
Pictures from April 30th and May 1st in Helsinki. The march on April 30th was a student march, mostly protesting new capitalist legislature, that’ll make foreigners pay tuition and centralizes power within the universities, and makes them better serve the markets. Those that understand Icelandic can see the same pictures with more text here.... »
Focus on Iceland: The fanatic self-image
Yesterday I gave a speech at an Iceland conference in Helsinki. Amongst other speakers were Friðrik Andersen, bank manager at the Nordic Investment Bank, and Pekka Mäkinen, regional director for Icelandair in Finland. I gave the speech in swedish, but for easier writing I composed it in english and then translated it. The text... »
Malmö, Tallinn, Helsinki, Akureyri etc.
This coming thursday I will be reading in Malmö, Sweden, along with finn-swedish poet Cia Rinne and the nestor of swedish concrete poetry, Bengt Emil Johnson, as well as the poetrygroup 3 Advokater. Malmö Litteraturbar Stanza – Inkonst.com 26.03.2009 – at 8 pm In spirit and likeness I will be in Akureyri, Iceland, on... »
An ocean in an archipelago of languages!
The people of Helsinki speak Finnish. Mostly. A minority speaks Swedish as a first language, but they all speak Finnish as well. So when you go to the grocery store, you speak Finnish. A lot of my friends – mostly through my wife – have French as a first language (my wife is a... »
Allen Ginsberg: Reference Frame
The text below is written as an introduction, or reference-frame for talks conducted later today with literary scholar Mathias Rosenlund at the Arkadia Bookshop, Pohjoinen Hesparienkatu 9, Helsinki (at 6PM). Allen Ginsberg was born 1926 in Paterson, New Jersey. The son of Naomi and Louis Ginsberg, both of whom were a great influence and... »
Allen Ginsberg & translation into Icelandic with Eiríkur Örn Norðdahl on Wednesday 28.1 at 18:00
You are warmly invited to join a talk on the American poet Allen Ginsberg with Eiríkur Örn Norðdahl and Mathias Rosenlund on Wednesday 28.1 at 18:00. Eiríkur has recently translated and published into Icelandic selected poems by Ginsberg. Among other topics he will discuss with Mathias the difficulties of translating English poetry into uniform... »
A boo on fascism
Dear friends! A little over a month ago my sixth poetry book, Ú á fasismann, was published with Mál og menning in Iceland. It’s a collection of 20 two-frame visual poems (20X20 cm or about 8X8 inches), and 20 sound poems on CD. I just returned to Helsinki from Iceland where I did 10... »
Two books, two readings & a CD
Two books out, very recently. First: Ú á fasismann – og fleiri ljóð, 20 visual poems and 20 sound poems (book + CD) out from Mál & menning. Then Maíkonungurinn, Allen Ginsberg selected and translated into Icelandic, also published by Mál & menning. They’re out in Iceland, and as I am in Finland, I’m... »
Iceland, the IMF, Russia etc.
In a nutshell the Icelandic economic depression could be described thus: nouveau riche assholes trashed the currency playing stockmarket cowboys with immense amounts of borrowed money. The newly privatized banks enjoyed generous credit with foreign loan institutions and became mega-monsters that over-shadowed the government budgetwise. When the shit hit the fan (as tends to... »