Miss Iceland by Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir

Author:Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir [Ólafsdóttir, Auður Ava]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780802149244
Publisher: Grove Atlantic
Published: 2020-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

It takes work to be a poet

The poet is waiting for me when I get home from work and has good news to share.

“They’re going to publish one of my poems in Thjódviljinn.”

His poem ‘The Blazing Red Flame’ had been lying on the desk of the paper’s editor since the spring, he explains to me.

He’s delighted and distracted and pulls me into his arms. Then he immediately releases me again and paces the floor.

“I got Stefnir, the Brook Bard, to read over the poem and he liked it and mentioned in particular my twofold reference to the netherworld of Hel: hellishly cold hands, infernally deep sand… as morning dawns. He suggested I substitute one word and instead of saying ‘Till death comes to fetch you’, I write ‘Till death comes to haunt you’. ‘You only have to adjust one word,’ he said.”

“Yes, that has a different ring to it,” I say.

The poet halts and sits on the bed. He’s having second thoughts.

“Now I think I should have changed two words in the line that starts with ‘assuage the wound’ and ends with ‘crepuscular gasping of mantled hopes’.”

He reads the poem to himself.

“Then it’s a question of whether it should be mighty or almighty…”

He lights his pipe and fetches a poetry book from the cabinet and skims through it in search of a particular poem. The poet has recently switched from Chesterfield cigarettes to a pipe. He reads a few lines in silence, then closes the book and puts it aside.

“I’ll never grasp the winter of death,” he says and stands up.

He says he’s thinking of maybe popping down to the editor of Thjódviljinn to see if the paper has already gone to the printers.

“Isn’t it all right the way it is?”

“All right isn’t good enough, Hekla.”

He sits on the bed again and rubs his face in his hands.

“The text is too loose. The opening is predictable, there’s a lack of precision in the choice of words, it lacks depth, it lacks the pithiness of the form. It would be best to postpone publication. I’m going to ask them to delay publication.”

I sit beside him, put my arm around him.

“I don’t know where I stand with the other poets, Hekla. I just know I have a chair at the table in Café Mokka.”

He gazes beyond me.

“I feel they look on me as one of the group and yet I’m not quite one of the group. Then I showed Stefnir the poem, he patted me on the shoulder and told me I had it in me.”

I stroke his hair.

“I’ll never be as good as Stefnir. I’m no match for him. I’m promising but nothing more.”

He shakes his head.

“Stefnir read the first lines of a novel he’s working on at Naust last night.”

The poet walks the length of the floor and then walks back. He’s searching for the right words. He stops in front of me and stares at me.

“It’s better than anything either Laxness or Thórbergur Thordarson write. We might be talking about a new Nobel Prize winner, Hekla.

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