Interview on Icelandic Poetry
Recently one Robin Vaughan-Williams contacted me with a few questions for an article he’s writing for a british poetry magazine. The answers I gave are here below – this is very much thinking aloud, as you’d answer in a spoken-word interview (although conducted through email), and I’ve not cleaned it much up at all.... »
The importance of destroying a language (of one’s own) – full version
(The following text is an extended version of a previous text written as a mini-lecture for the seminar Alternativ publicering/litterær innovation in Biskops Arnö, Sweden, 10.-13. may, 2007 – but never read, since I was displeased with it, and decided these ideas needed much more than the 15 minutes given in Sweden. Instead I... »
You are a pipe
I One’s understanding of one’s own language is limited, one’s understanding of other languages is even more limited, and a perfect transferal of a text from one language to another is impossible simply because the languages are two different ones. “Boat” is not the same as “bátur,” which is not the same as “Boot”... »
Digital, translation theory, the news, lipograms, google-based and literary war (are we losing our minds?)
For those that missed it: The new Nypoesi double number on translation is out. Click here for the first one and here for the second one. The second one features remixes of Jörgen Gassilewskis Landskapsinteriör – in the style of Translating Translating Appolinaire, where yours truly, fully, truefully has three versions: 1) Switching out... »
Out of the good of my graces
Ágúst Borgþór Sverrisson – superstar of the Icelandic short story, blogs about two recent comments I’ve had about the Icelandic culture-media. There he has this near canonizing statement about yours truly: “I have a strong feeling that EÖN is not and will not be in the good graces of the literature world.” Click... »
Barbaric
Yesterday evening Leevi Lehto was presented with the Nuori Voima award. Leevi read, both in “civilized Finnish” (not so civilized really) and “barbaric English” (HUMUNGOUSLY BARBARIC). One of the poems Leevi read was byos – his translation of Lars Mikael Raattamaa’s Pajkerno, a univocal rendition of a Swedish classic, Pojkarna by Anna Maria Lenngren,... »
When the revolution comes
Apparently there’s a lit-clique spectre haunting Sweden. One Johan Lundberg has written an article in Expressen, expressing expressively his express opinion that a small clique of rabid avant-gardists has taken over swedish poetry. Evidently these malefic stasi-like langpo figures not only publish their own magazine, but write reviews for bigger media as well. And... »
The importance of destroying a language (of own’s one) TAKE TWO
(The following text is an extended version of a previous text of the same name. It is to be noted that although it starts more or less the same, some changes have been made to that part, and the whole thing is nearly 3 times longer then the original). The myth about the Icelandic... »
Nýhil and Tíu þúsund tregawött (for Biskops Arnö)
(The following text, as well as the text following the following text, was written for a seminar in Biskops Arnö about alternative publishing and literary innovation. They were both (mostly) written to be read aloud – I only read the first one, which I wrote when displeased with the second one, and I kept... »
Call for submissives
It may be a little late in the game – but I will post this letter here, that I sent to various places some two weeks ago, anyway: DEAREST POETS. I am working on a book of poetry translations into Icelandic to be published by Leevi Lehto in Finland in the fall. Most of... »