MONDAY TRAVELS : FOLK by Gyrðir Elíasson

Happy Monday friends! Welcome to another edition of Monday Travels

So today we are in ICELAND  and we will explore:

FOLK

Icelandic poet Gyrðir Elíasson

Gyrðir Elíasson (born 4 April 1961) is an author and translator in Iceland. Gyrðir was born in Reykjavík, but was raised in Sauðarkrókur, a small town in the northern part of the country. He graduated from the Fjölbrautarskóli Nordurlands Vestra in Saudárkrókur in 1982. His first book, a collection of poetry titled Svarthvít axlabönd (Black-and-White Suspenders), was published in 1983. He also began translating works into Icelandic, considering it the duty of Icelandic writers to give a hand in translations. Gyrðir has written ten volumes of poetry and five books of prose. His style is called "highly personal" among other things.

Verse:

The mountain presides in silence
over yellow and red roofs, fields
of paling grass, strong gusts flattening
the stalks, dark paths
winding up from the sea. Gray-coated groups
make their way to the shore, and
bonfire smoke climbs
to the low-hanging cliffs.
They walk slowly,
and in single-file,
while the sun’s fire starts to cool

Thoughts:

I recently got into Scandinavian literature, poetry and saga's. My theater is doing this play about a real story that happened in my country and the time takes place in the 14th century, so I kind of started listening to old native music and somehow found myself in Viking time! 

I mean we are kind of related to the Viking tribes and people from Scandinavia, since their ancestors and mine used to be merchants and trade goods back in the good old times, since all our countries share the same sea.

So I stumbled on new books from and about Scandinavian countries, and of course poems. 

I have to admit I do not have a lot of knowledge about Iceland just that Iceland was the first country to recognize the Independence of my country, that they have a beautiful language and now I have discovered that their poetry is beyond beautiful.

I mean just read this one guys, how wonderful and haunting the words are? How cold and yet safe you feel when you imagine the scenery?
  Wonderful, just wonderful!


See you Next Monday!