Translated from the Icelandic by Meg Matich.
This is part of our special feature, New Nordic Voices.
Two housewives dance on a clothesline
love-making funambulists
One is a silk butterfly
the other, a cotton flower
Under the influence of the cleaning
…………they write poems on the laundry
I invited the biologist into my back garden
he marveled at the lightbulbs
and took to dancing like a night moth
ye are naked
I see your secrets radiate
like orgasms
…………he said
ye are drunk I said
but not blind
…………he said
and continued to examine me
Queer mourners
Queer mourners
rest beside the coffin
and fall asleep
natural though it might be
to simply say thanks and go home
no interest in further exchanges
…………………after the ceremony
but they are so professionally
………………………and so exhaustingly
……………………………..sentimental
and yet,
no more servile
……than other workers
the late customer needs closeness
and holds himself still as the grave
silence
torment me to pain
and force the church in me
…………………to rive
all heavens will gather
all beauties will harmonize
if I cry
Elías Knörr is a poet and translator of both Icelandic and Galician. His first projects in Icelandic developed under the personality of Elías Knörr, a pseudonym. His work was selected as an for the 100th edition of the Poetry Review of the United Kingdom. In Galicia, he’s received the Afundación Poetry Prize 2014 for his book Bazar de Traidores (Bazaar of betrayers) under the pseudonym of Vaca Insepulta (Unsepultured Cow). In 2010, he won the Xohán de Cangas culture prize and, in 2011, the placed second in the XII Díaz Jácome Poetry Prize for new authors. His work O mariñeiro con caballes matutinos baixo o vestido was finalist of the Anxel Casal Award for the best poetry book of 2011, organized by the Galician Association of Editors.
Meg Matich is a Reykjavik-based translator-poet. She’s received numerous awards for her work as a translator from organizations like the Icelandic Literature Centre, PEN America, and the Fulbright Commission, and has translated poetry for UNESCO. Cold Moons (2017 Phoneme Media) is her first full-length translation of Tími kaldra mána by Magnús Sigurðsson. The work (EN/IS) has been ‘translated’ into a choral symphony by composer David R. Scott. Her translations have appeared or are forthcoming in places like The Boston Review, Gulf Coast, Asymptote, and Words Without Borders. She is currently editing and translating an anthology of 32 Icelandic poets for The Café Review’s Summer 2018 issue.
Published on April 16, 2018.
