Translation from the Faroese by Randi Ward
—
Collar
your collar says
who you
are
but i’m not
turning my nose
up at you
i just
don’t want
to wear a collar
you’ll never
get to know
me
Kragin
kragin sigur
hvør tú
ert
men eg
físi ikki
eftir tær
eg vil
bara ikki
hava kraga
meg fert tú
ongantíð
at kenna
—
Catch
i put
a new
hook
on the line
and strum
for
the fish
that bite
notes silent
Fongur
seti
nýggjan
húk
á streingin
spæli
fyri
fiskinum
sum bítur á
so tónarnir tagna
—
Grass
the grass
always grows
back but
the woman
who lay
beside me
in the grass
all those years
ago
and promised
we’d see
each other
again
does not
Grasið
grasið kemur
altíð aftur
men tað gjørdi
hon ikki sum
eg fyri nógvum
árum síðani
lá saman við
í grasinum og
sum aftaná
lovaði mær
at vit skuldu
síggjast aftur
—
Attitude
a bucket
full of
sleep
sits on
the floor
of the community
center swearing
i’m the most
uneducated
person who hasn’t
mopped the floor there
Støða
ein spann
full av
svøvni
stendur á
gólvinum
í bygdarhúsinum
og svørjir uppá
at eg
eri tað mest ómentaða
sum ikki hevur
vaskað gólv har inni
—
Salvation
the angel
got tangled
in the spider web
while trying
to help me
get free
but then
a butterfly
came along
and saved us
with some choice words
about approaching rain
Frelsa
eingilin
bleiv sjálvur
fastur
í lokkanetinum
tá hann
skuldi hjálpa
mær leysum
men so kom
ein firvaldur
og frelsti okkum
við nøkrum góðum orðum
um tað komandi regnið
—
Tóroddur Poulsen is a pioneering Faroese poet, graphic artist, and musician. He was born in Tórshavn, the capital of the Faroe Islands, in 1957. Over the course of his thirty-year career, Poulsen has published forty books and become an inimitable force in Nordic literature. His avant-garde reading style and rebellious alter ego, Garage God Tóroddsson, have long since earned him a reputation as a pugnacious punk poet. Poulsen’s work combines graphic and literary expression to generate fresh, often satirical, reflections on contemporary society and cultural norms. Katrin Ottarsdóttir’s 2008 film, A line a day must be enough!, documents the day-to-day life of Tóroddur Poulsen as well as his complicated relationship with his native archipelago.
Tóroddur Poulsen has twice received the M.A. Jacobsen Literature Award, and he was awarded the Faroe Islands’ most prestigious cultural prize, Mentanarvirðisløn Landsins, in 2012.
With Fjalir (Planks, 2013), a collection of poetry and woodcut prints, Poulsen earned the Faroese nomination for the Nordic Council Literature Prize in 2014. An English translation of Fjalir is forthcoming from Forlagið í Støplum in the autumn of 2014.
—
Randi Ward is a writer, translator, lyricist, and photographer from West Virginia. She earned her MA in Cultural Studies from the University of the Faroe Islands and is a recipient of The American-Scandinavian Foundation’s Nadia Christensen Prize. Ward is a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee whose work has appeared in Asymptote, Beloit Poetry Journal, Cimarron Review, World Literature Today, Anthology of Appalachian Writers, Vencil: Anthology of Contemporary Faroese Literature, and other publications. For more information, visit: www.randiward.com/about
—
The poems “Collar,” “Grass,” and “Catch” were first published by Scandinavian Review.
The poems “Salvation” and “Attitude” originally appeared in Fjords Review.
The woodcut images are reproduced courtesy of the publisher, Forlagið í Støplum.
