The following two poems by Jóanes Nielsen were translated from the Faroese by Matthew Landrum, Tóta Árnadóttir, and Agnar Artúvertin. Nielsen is a Faroese author known for his poetry, novels, plays and short stories. Faroese is primarily spoken in the Faroe Islands, which sit halfway between Norway and Iceland. About 66,000 people speak Faroese.
Nightsong
Translated by Matthew Landrum and Agnar Artúvertin
As if the day were a nice coat wrapped around my body
The Scent of Heath and Fire
Translated by Matthew Landrum and Tóta Árnadóttir
Rói Patursson
Is the Mohican of our poetry
His words are surrounded
By the scent of heath and fire
But I don’t know
what sort of thing a good poem is
Inside some poets’ heads
Hangs an echo sounder
Meticulously recording the depths of their soul
On infinite ticker tape
Other carry a clock inside their head
They are the tick-tock poets who will often stop
around seven and eight
Others have their heads full of explosives
One combustible dream
Then the thin legs of a poem begin to stir
But I still don’t know
What to ask of a poem
If the flying dragon of literature
Should even be bothered by any demands
And I ask myself
With what tools
Could you distinguish the scent of heath and fire?
They say that slow-growing trees
Have the most beautiful crowns
That’s possible
But I also like trees
Tormented out of the soil
They are more similar to us
Still I don’t know
What sort of thing a good poem is
But the scent of heath and fire
Gives you the feeling of having lived a long time on this earth
Photo Credit: Eileen Sanda via Creative Commons
