Mein bestes Wort

The Dictators & other sound poems

For three euros you can be the proud owner of 30 sound poems (which comes to a whooping ten cents a piece), written, composed and performed by me, Eiríkur Örn Norðdahl. For four euros more you can get a physical CD (home-burned with a nice cover) – including delivery costs. The CD features a series [...]

Booby, Be Quiet!

Booby, Be Quiet! is a collection of essays and columns about poetry, literature and literary politics(the title is a very learnéd reference to Auden’s translation of the Eddas). The essays and columns have been published in various places in the last five years – around half of the book consists of material written for The [...]

Newsletter: IWF! OMG! and Boobies!

Dear friends. Next saturday I will be participating in the Zebra Poetry Film Festival schedule at the Gothenburg book fair. The Zebra crew will play some of last year’s films, including my Höpöhöpö Böks, and me and Maria Silkeberg (who also has a film in the program) will be reading some poems. But the Gothenburg [...]

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Sharon Mesmer gives me a proper talking-to

With the hostile takeover of triviality in popular media and popular art, perhaps poets have forgotten about fun, about charm, about joy, about attitude, about intensity, about popular iconoclasm, about naughty words, about the beautiful horniness — and driven anything that might attract an audience looking for something other than (supposed) supreme intelligence out of [...]

BOOBY, BE QUIET!

"One of the most engaged and enthusiastic works of poetics in recent years."

Charles Bernstein

"Norðdahl’s essays are brilliant vivisections of contemporary poetry and its problems"

Sharon Mesmer

"A breathtaking collection of criticism from one of Europe’s most exciting poetic practitioners and theorists and stands as one of the most vital contributions to innovative poetry criticism in Europe's recent history."

3AM Magazine

"Brilliant [...] It's so good that I'm torn between my impulse toward bitter envy & lavish praise!"

Anne Boyer

NOVEL: Kindness

"Like a poetic power plant Eiríkur harnesses portions of reality – uses them to create something electric, has them resound through overgrown and even distorted, yet directly related, presentations which challenge the reader while simultaneously reminding him of all that which too quickly gets forgotten […] Kindness is a sermon-on-the-mount about contemporaneity, performed in nimbly encoded images, sharp and rich in content. "

Björn Þór Vilhjálmsson - TMM literary review.

Information in English.

Ich bin aufgewacht!
Ich bin allein, ich bin traurig …
Ich platze.
Dachte ich mir.
Ich bin böse.

Ich verstehe nicht.
Ich falle.
Ich fliege.
Ich fliege.
Ich fliege höher.
Ich fliege.

Ich verstehe nicht.
Was bin ich?
Das habe ich gehört!
Warum ich?

Bin ich jemand?
Ich stecke fest.
Wer bin ich?

Ich habe Angst.
Ich weine.

(Das Gedicht ist dadurch entstanden, dass 1000 Textseiten von der Lyrikseite ljod.is kopiert und in Mircrosoft Word eingefügt wurden. Danach wurde die Funktion AutoZusammenfassen verwendet, um eine 0,1%-ige Zusammenfassung des Texts zu erstellen, was genau einer Seite von Lyrik-Essenz entspricht. Der Titel entstammt einem Gedicht des verstorbenen Dichters Dagur Sigurðarson, welches so beginnt: „ich / mein bestes Wort // ichichichichichich / ichichich“.)

Aus dem Isländischen von Jón B. Atlason und Alexander Sitzmann

Eiríkur Örn Norðdahl – English

The Dictators & other sound poems

Booby, Be Quiet!

Newsletter: IWF! OMG! and Boobies!

Sharon Mesmer gives me a proper talking-to

Mein bestes Wort

Mein bestes Wort