The Icelandic Literary Prize 2012 was awarded at the presidential residence Bessastaðir on February 6, In the category of fiction and poetry Eiríkur Örn Norðdahl received the prize for his novel Illska (lit. Evil), published by Mál og Menning. The nonfiction award went out to the historian Gunnar F. Guðmundsson for Pater Jón Sveinsson – [...]
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! 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 [...]
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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July 6, 2009 in Articles, The Grapevine, The New Illiterati
A few years ago the Icelandic poetry world was rocked by a tectonic scandal that nobody noticed for weeks (and by now, everyone’s forgotten about). The country’s most prestigious poetry award, Ljóðstafur Jóns úr Vör, was given to the wrong poet. A young man from one of Reykjavík’s neighbouring towns [...]
May 11, 2009 in News
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 [...]
May 11, 2009 in (a bit) longer essays, Articles
I It may have been the year 1600 – on the dot – that a child was born in Iceland (probably) named Þorbjörn Þórðarson. Perhaps it was later though, it’s hard to tell. No one really knows. And I wouldn’t want to lie. You deserve the truth. And he may [...]
May 10, 2009 in Articles, The Grapevine, The New Illiterati
When modernism in poetry shocked its way through Europe in the beginning of the last century, people’s main concern was how the hell to understand it. The modernists would often build image upon image in ways that many readers found antagonizing – like oh so much posturing – and it [...]
March 24, 2009 in News, The New Illiterati
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 [...]
March 8, 2009 in The New Illiterati
The Head of a Woman by Ingibjörg Haraldsdóttir …
March 2, 2009 in The New Illiterati
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 [...]
February 16, 2009 in The New Illiterati
Icelandic National Poem This is my room, we call it Iceland. It’s chained to Europe with a marine cable and to and from here airplanes fly with their ink-cartridges full of people. Here I dwell in a matchbox that I care for so dearly since I painted the inner walls [...]
February 15, 2009 in The New Illiterati
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 [...]
February 14, 2009 in News
I’ve been translating a few Icelandic poets into English lately – the series will eventually have 25 poets. These five are already up: Sigfús Daðason (1928 – 1996) Böðvar Guðmundsson (1939 – ) Þórunn Erlu-Valdimarsdóttir (1954 -) Anton Helgi Jónsson (1955 – ) Elísabet Jökulsdóttir (1958 – ) You can [...]
