Bio
Ágústína Jónsdóttir was born in Reykjavík on May 4th 1949. She studied cosmetics and then graduated as a pre-school teacher in 1976. She received her teaching diploma from the University College of Education in 1991. Ágústína first collection of poetry, Að baki mánans (Behind the Moon) was published in 1994 and since then she has written other poetry collections. Ágústína is also a visual artist and she contributes to the graphic design of all of her books. One of her books, Lífakur (Life-Field), was nominated for the DV newspaper's Literary Prize in 1997.
From the Author
Terse poets drink a toast from the gods' tears.
Ágústína Jónsdóttir, 2001.
About the Author
Sigríður Albertsdóttir: "Einnar fjaðrar fugl" (A One-Feathered Bird)
On Ágústína Jónsdóttir´s Poetry
In an interview, which appeared on the Icelandic website www.strik.is on November 29th 2000, shortly after the publication of Ágústína Jónsdóttir´s fifth book of poetry, Vorflauta (Spring Flute), the writer is asked where she usually gets her inspiration and subject matter from. She replies: "From Nature. Nature, in all its diversity, and from human life. I listen to a great deal of classical music when I write, also to silence, that remarkable phenomenon. Silence speaks in many tongues and all of them are interesting. I also go the cinema quite often and from there, I draw influences as well as subject matter. I think that all artistic media exist in a sort of a sibling relationship, and when working artistically it is a good thing to be inspired by different kinds of art."
One might keep these words of the poet in mind when looking through her poetry collections, which were published in a quick succession: Að baki mánans (Behind the Moon, 1994), Snjóbirta (Snow Light, 1995), Sónata (Sonata, 1995), Lífakur (Field of Life, 1997) og Vorflauta (Spring Flute, 2000). The person holding the pen is obviously an aesthetician, someone who is able to enjoy the beauty of nature and art in all its variety. Ágústína gathers her motifs from a variety of sources, from myths and religion, and famous composers and painters from history make regular appearances. The author uses metaphor in the most extraordinary way; Ágústína is often likened to two of Iceland´s most revered poets: Stefán Hörður Grímsson and Hannes Pétursson. Her poetic language has a striking symbolic power, which lies not necessarily in her approach, but in the calming of the language, i.e. the poem.
Interestingly, it is in the poems that make references to literature, music or visual art, that one detects the longing of the poetic voice for beauty, freedom, quietness, ecstasy or love, as an antidote to life´s pain and disappointments. A good example of this is the beginning of the poem "Píanósónata" (Piano Sonata) from Vorflauta (Spring Flute), where the poetic voice takes her mind off the daily grind and allows herself to enjoy for a while, reminiscing about past pleasures:
Langt er síðan þú blístraðir lag
snæddir góðan málsverð
hallaðir þér í græna sófann
- í stíl Mozarts
last bók eða blaðsamt kvarta ég lítið
og eftirlæt píanósónötu
að glæða loftið væntingum
skerpa hugannÖrvandi augnaráð
til ásta
…
(It has been a long time since you whistled a tune
ate a nice meal
reclined on the green sofa
- in the style of Mozart
read a book or a magazine
yet I do not complain much
and leave it to a piano sonata
to charge the air with expectations
concentrate the mind
An inviting glance
to love
...)
Love and all the beautiful things that accompany it is a persistent theme of Ágústína´s books, not just the love between a man and a woman, but also the love of life itself and its infinite loveliness. Ágústína is also unafraid to tackle the tougher aspects of human existence; the painful separation from a loved one; a lost, forbidden or even deceitful love.
When comparing Ágústína´s books, it becomes clear that they form an inseparable whole, but although the subject matters are similar from one book to another, they are not just repetitions; there is a clear development in her poetry. Her poems also convey a powerful eroticism, often connected to nature itself and thus she weaves all living things together into one continuous whole. A clear example of this is the poem "Lifum" (Let us live) from Lífakur (Field of Life):
Elskumst
lifum nektaráriná tímum togstreitu
tvíleik
lífsleitarburt frá hinum
Askur og Embla
(Let us make love
let us live the years of nakedness
in times of conflict
a duet
looking for life
away from the others
Askur and Embla)
There are some clear differences between Ágústína´s first and last book. The subject matters remain the same but in Vorflauta (Spring Flute), lightness and humour have replaced the sadness that dominated Að baki mánans (Behind the Moon). The titles of the books also symbolize the changes in the poetry. The pain that used to live behind the moon has been brought into the daylight. The poet sings the pain away with the aid of a flute, spring and beauty; as in the poem "Snerting" (Touch) in Vorflauta:
Augu mín
fingur
að þreifa
á fegurðinniraða henni í blómvönd
(My eyes
are fingers
touching
beauty
arranging it into a bouquet)
Love and Separation
Love, as I said earlier, is a core emotion of Ágústína´s poetry and comes in many shapes and forms. Sometimes it is and sometimes it is not there and the poems are frequently a reaction to the loved one´s absence, but also to his presence. She writes in all the books about forbidden love and the pain that comes with it, of co-habitation leading to divorce and of relationships that harbour loneliness and unhappiness. The poetic voice´s lover is mentioned in many poems and is faithful to all of Ágústína´s books, either addressed as "you" or "he", and in many cases it he that sparks the poems. The poetic voice spins a yarn out of her thoughts of him, which then becomes poetry; and a good example is the poem "Snerting" (Touch) from Vorflauta:
Engin orð
án þelsins
sem ljóð mín
spinnast úrán þín
formlaus ljóðspjöll
engu
að miðla
(No words
without the yarn
my poems
are spun from
without you
shapeless poetic damage
nothing
to communicate)
"Without you, nothing to communicate" says the poetic voice, and that applies to both sorrow and happiness. The first book, Að baki mánans (Behind the Moon) is divided into three parts: Flæði (Flow), Blóðbrigði (Blood Shift) and Flugskuggi (Flight Shadow). The opening poems of the first part are about the union of woman and man, love and moments of pleasure. Next, one encounters a "bloodied wingspan" where all of human life is being dealt with and the lover is set aside for a while. In the final chapter the poetic voice finds herself "at the border of water and fire" as expressed in the poem "Flugróti köldu" (A Cold and Aimless Flight) (79). She has now found that life tastes of blood and is standing on crossroads. She speaks to her lover:
Vekjum á ný
stefin
er við lékum
hjá lindinninjótum sem fyrr
og lifumalgleymi
(Let us awake anew
the tunes
we played
by the spring
let us enjoy as before
and live
ecstasy)
Happiness is unstable and love is hot. It is the "secret offerings of the un-free", (16) a palace made out of glass pearls which will eventually crumble to the ground (20), and sometimes it lives inside a fickle heart; "yesterday/bell chimes/oppressive silence today" (24). For example in the poem "Fiero" (Fiero), this question is asked:
Er það eðli eða
ástríða hans
að kveikja
eld
slökkva?
(Is it his nature or
his passion
to light a
fire
put out?)
In the second and the third part of the book the tone has changed, the imagery is powerful and there is a great deal of solitude. The first part is filled with water images which serve to symbolize the flow that characterizes communication between lovers, but here there are open wounds, gushing blood, fear and regret. Some of the poems show a strong desire and the poem "Vogun" (Dare) has strong references to the poem Komdu (Come) by Davíð Stefánsson, in which Davíð wrote of an unhappy girl who would do anything to meet her lost lover again. In her poem, Ágústína alludes to the myth of the god Týr who risked his hand so that the terrible Wolf of Fenris might be bound:
Legg hönd
djörf
í gin úlfsins
eða bregð mér
í flugulíki
verði slíkt til þess
ég fái
(Put a hand
brave
into the mouth of the wolf
or take on
the guise of a fly
should it help me
to have)
Another poem, "Hugsýn" (Vision), contains allusions to Völsunga Saga, where the poetic voice waits inside the magic fire in the guise of Brynhildur Buðladóttir. But contrary to the saga, the poetic voice prays that the one who rides the flame will be burned to his death. He has betrayed, and therefore deserves all the worst. Yet, the poetic voice points the dagger more frequently to herself, twisting it in a deep wound in the heart, and the poem "Voði" (Danger) shows this clearly:
Vildi
ég væriekki
konan
sem ung vargefin
(Wish
I were
not
the woman
who young was
given)
Bergþóra, in The Saga of Njáll, refused to leave her husband behind when their house was burnt down, with the words that she was young given to him, but the poetic voice in Ágústína´s poem feels quite differently about her situation. She is obviously stuck in a marriage she does not want, yet too confused to put her thoughts into words, and the poem ends in silence and bewilderment. Now, we have come to the other variation on love played out in Ágústína´s poems, the variation of the false or the wrong union. A few poems of this kind can be found in Ágústína´s second book; Snjóbirta (Snow Light), for example the poem “Hún og hann” (Him and Her):
Konan er nóttin lífið
sólinkarlinn dagurinn dauðinn
skugginnRökkur og Afturelding
í hringekju árannafylgir sundrun samruna
aðskilnaði segull?
(The woman is the night, life
the sun
the man is the day, death
the shade
Dusk and Dawn
on the carousel of years
Does disintegration follow fusion
attraction separation?)
The poem "Net" (Net) in Snjóbirta (Snow Light) also presents marriage in a cold and chilling light and begins with the words: "What God has joined together." The poetic voice likens marriage to a tightly woven net, which must not be torn apart, and the poem ends with a shouted question: "no human being must/separate?" But let us look at the whole poem:
Það sem Guð hefur tengt
býr þér enn
í krossfiskshjartaað tvinna okkur saman á ný
flækja í þéttriðnu neti þínu
veiða augun tæru
í lygnasta hylnum
horfa fölur á þau
bresta
í frosthörðum straumimá maður eigi sundur
skilja?(What God has joined
still exists
in your starfish heartto entwine us again
entangle us in your tightly woven net
catch the eyes so clear
in the calmest pool
pale-faced regard them
as they break
in a strong freezing currentno human being must
separate?)
It is clear that the poetic voice feels threatened by her marriage and in another poem, titled "Goshverinn" (The Geyser), the poetic voice likens herself to a captive who thirsts for freedom (26). The poems in Snjóbirta (Snow Light) express on one hand a strong desire for divorce and on the other a painful sorrow over a separation. Whether the poetic voice is talking about the same person here, is not always clear but it is tempting to conclude that these are two different people, one the poetic voice wants to leave and one the poetic voice longs for.
There are strong ties between the subject matters of Ágústína´s first and second book and she cleverly unifies the content and the design of the book into one whole. On the back cover of Að baki mánans (Behind the Moon) there is a poem without a name about a golden waterfall, which goes like this:
Ólgandi brimið
umlykur allt
gagntekur mig
teygar losta minn og ást
ég held dauðahaldi í unað djúpsins
vona að mér skjóti aldrei upp
á yfirborðið(The raging surf
surrounds everything
fascinates me
drinks my lust and my love
I hang on desperately to the pleasures of the deep
hoping I will never be shot up
to the surface)
The same poem appears again in Snjóbirta (Snow Light), this time titled "Brim" (Surf) but in front of the aforementioned poem the author has added the following lines:
Seiður fegurð og ógn
býr í þessum gullna fossi
ómótstæðileg þrá
dregur mig í straumfallið
til þín(Magic beauty and threat
resides in this golden waterfall
an irrepressible longing
pulls me down the current
to you)
The additional text underscores even further the longing the poetic voice carries within her and strong emotions are reinforced with the use of words like irrepressible, magic, beauty, threat and current.
The cover of Snjóbirta (Snow Light) has a fluttering butterfly and in the last part of Máninn (The Moon), Flugskuggar (Flight Shadows), butterflies are ever present. They have wings like hope and flutter into the snow light which is beautiful and attractive but difficult to stay in. Another poem in Snjóbirta (Snow Light), “Snertu mig ekki” (Don´t Touch Me), goes like this:
Ást breiðir
hroll
fyrir glugga
hinsta andartak
opið síðusárenginn sér
blæðaenginn finnur lykt af
viðskilnaði
gráttu Kristur
gráttu
(Love draws
shivers
before windows
the final hour
an open side wound
no one sees
the bleeding
no one smells
separations
cry Christ
cry)
The pain is piercing and there is much solitude, like there was in Máninn (The Moon). The tone in Snjóbirta is more determined and bolder however, in particular in the second part of the book, titled Stakt tré (A Lone Tree). There the reader repeatedly encounters words like burning down, spear, fetter, daggers, disappointment, crying sky, destitution, slippery roads, false shadows, the edge of a knife, dead branches and mistreated trees. One poem after another contains a sense of powerlessness, yet it seems to result in a stronger individual, because in the final poems of the book one senses a certain degree of hope for freedom and new love. The poem “Hauskúpur” (Skulls) is about a white butterfly escaping, "free as I am" (73) and the final poem “Stakt tré” (A Lone Tree) goes like this:
Að baki fjalla og handan við höf
stendur stakt tré
illa rætt og vanhirtstundum er ég þetta tré
enginn þekkir
krókótta slóðina til mín nema þú
og þegar þú kemur verður tréðlaufgrænt og safaríkt
(Behind mountains and beyond seas
stands a lone tree
badly rooted and lacking caresometimes I am that tree
no one knows
the crooked path to me but you
and when you come the tree will turnleaf-green and fill up with juice)
It is of course not very optimistic to liken oneself to a lone, neglected tree, but the poetic voice is only sometimes that tree and besides, she says when you come! The poem therefore contains a certain confirmation of happiness and joy that the future will hold.
"Oh, come let us make love tonight"
Sónata (Sonata), Ágústína´s third book, is in many aspects different from the two previous books, even if the author´s themes are similar. The subject matters are man, woman and love, or rather the lack of love but the form has changed, as most of the poems in Sónata are presented as prose or miniature stories. The deep despair of the poetic voice has also given way to mild melancholia and nostalgia, and humour has often replaced the pain. The poetic voice feels loss, but the sense of loss is less acute than before and sometimes thoughts of the loved one are accompanied by joy in the heart as the last lines of the poem “Tengsl”(Ties) show:
Hamingjusöm skrifa ég þig í landið, ljósið, rökkurblámann, djúpið og sjálfa mig. Ég held fast í orð þín og atlot og skil þau aldrei við mig; þau afhjúpa barnið í ljóðinu sem lifnar í mér.
(Happily, I write you onto the land, the light, the blueness of dusk, the deep and myself. I hold tightly onto your words and caresses and carry them with me wherever I go; they disclose the child in the poem that is brought to life inside me.)
Some of the poems begin with the words "When I was... " "When she was..." or "When he was..." and those poems reflect the desire of the poetic voice to see and understand as much as possible, or her desire to understand her position and place in a world where there is to little love. These are stories told from unexpected angles, about interactions between women and men, and they alternate between the sad and the funny. Here is an example of an opening sentence in that vein: "When I was an eye I saw you in countless amorous trysts..." (17), "When I was your diary I enjoyed sharing secrets with you..." (20), and "When he was a nail behind a picture on the wall she weighed him down, zapped his strength and distracted his toughness..." (47). Often these stories produce a new and very original vision of gender relations. One example is the poem "Kónguló" (Spider) which tells of a spider/a wife who feels stifled but it is shown in a comical way. The poet has the wife personified as a spider who rests in the husband´s breast pocket. But when it dares to crawl out of the pocket at a freemasons´ meeting, the husband has a nervous fit:
Hann fullyrti að frímúrarar væru veikir fyrir skor-
dýrum, einkum kóngulóm en að makar þeirra þyldu
þær ekki. Hann bannaði henni að sýna loðnu og
svörtu leggina (eða nokkurn annan búkhluta) á óvið-
eigandi stund og helgum tíma.(He claimed that freemasons had a weakness for insects,
in particular spiders, but that their spouses could
not stand them. He forbade her to show the hairy and
black legs (or any other part of her body) in an in-
appropriate moment and a sacred hour.)However, at this point the spider/wife is fed up with being a captive and finds the strength to make her escape:
Kramin kónguló undir skósóla spyrnti loks við fæti
og undirbjó spuna í eigin vef. Þegar hún var kafloðin.(A squashed spider underneath a sole of a shoe finally put her foot down
and got ready to spin her own web. When she was all hairy.)
Time is mentioned frequently, the ticking of the clocks that supply the framework for life and ... love. The poem “Vísir” (Clock Hand) goes like this:
Hvar ertu stóri vísir?
Án þín líð ég áfram
ein
og ýmist seinka mér eða flýtibrothætt glerið
ímyndað virki og svartur taumur
togar mig til tveggja áttamarklaust
án þín(Where are you big hand?
Without you I glide forward
alone
and move myself either back or forwardthe fragile glass
an imagined fortress and a black rein
pull me in two directionspointlessly
without you)
Here the big hand signifies the desire for love, song and beauty which is expressed with extraordinary beauty in the poem "Ástartré" (Love Tree), which ends with these words:
Ég er friðurinn í skóginum, færður í
kvöldrauð orð. Ég get ekki skáldað: líf mitt er að
renna út í stundaglasi dagsins. Æ, komdu í kvöld að
elskast(I am the peace in the forest, dressed in
evening red words. I can not make things up: my life is
running its course in the hourglass of the day. Oh, come let us make love
tonight.)
The structure of the book bears mention. Not only does the author title the book Sonata, she has also structured the book like the musical form itself. Ágústína has organized her book into three movements, which is the standard structure of sonatas. Just as in a sonata, two contrasting themes are introduced in the first movement, which by the end of the movement have been developed. The contrasting themes of the book are man and woman and the development focuses on their interactions. In the first poem of the book, "Strengleikar" (The Lais), the poetic voice is a lonesome and despairing individual who is afraid of life, suppresses a cry in her heart and barely says a word anymore (9). In the next poem, the poetic voice has received a letter, most likely a love letter, and she keeps it underneath a cold pillow (10). The poems that follow describe encounters of a man and a woman, their happiness, dreams, hopes, pleasure and grief. The development in this "movement" is revealed in the last poem of the first part, which incidentally is titled “Sónata” (Sonata) and begins with the words: "My story will never grow distant from you." (26) In the final poem, the lovers have separated, but the poetic voice bids farewell to her love with peace in her mind and beautiful memories to keep. The lover will clearly always remain a part of her, a tone in a lovely symphony. The same applies to parts two and three; there the lover remains that same tone. The poetic voice lives through the whole spectrum of emotions; pain, anger, joy, expectations and sorrow; but both parts close in agreement and friendship although "the end is unclear and the beginning uncertain" (73), which is a quote from the final poem in the book.
In this way, Ágústína utilizes the structure of the romantic sonata of the 19th century, which similarly evokes poetic moods, has more themes and generally recapitulates the opening theme in the last movement of the work. The author has also studied another form of the sonata, the sonatina. The sonatina is a small sonata, easy to play and raw, with simple themes and none of the development parts which make sonatas so long. Among those poems, is a poem titled “Sónatína” (Sonatina), which appears in the first part. The form of the poem is concise but says everything that needs to be said:
til vitnis um
minningarhandan sagnaturnsins
um hvítar arkir
ástarinnar(bearing witness to
memoriesbeyond the story tower
of the white scrolls
of love)
Whistling in the Field
„Íðgræn náttúra
þokar trega til hliðar
lætur ljóð spretta“("Glorious green nature
sweeps sorrow aside
lets poems grow")
So begins the poem “Orðalyng” (Word Shrub) from Ágústína´s fourth collection of poems, Lífakur (Field of Life), and it is in many ways typical for the collection as a whole. As previously mentioned, there is a considerably brighter mood in both Lífakur and Vorflauta (Spring Flute) than the author´s previous books, even if sorrow and loneliness are always within reach. The form is concise like in Að baki mánans (Behind the Moon) and Snjóbirta (Snow Light) and the same themes played against each other, even though the emphasis is different. The subject matters are like before, connected to feelings and emotions, the sounds are quiet, fragile, poetic and plain even if strong emotions bubble beneath the surface.
Particularly effective are the two poems from Lífakur titled “Rautt” (Red) (19) and “Blóð” (Blood) (21). Both poems bear witness to the pain that sometimes accompanies love:
Blóð
Hversvegna
að sauma nafn
í hjarta sér?Sérhverri stungu
fylgir
heitt blóð
bældra vonahverju spori
nýr sársauki(Blood
Why
stitch a name
into ones heart?Every prick
followed by
the warm blood
of suppressed hopesevery stitch
a fresh pain)
But in spite of the loneliness, the life in the field is filled with wonder. The poetic voice basks in the beauty of nature and wanders around, paying attention to things both big and small in "the autumn forest":
Einnig hér er lífið á kreiki
smágert stórfenglegtskógarhafshljómkviðan
en samt er ég ein
(Also here life is out and about
finely wrought magnificentthe forest-ocean-symphony
yet I am alone)
As previously mentioned, Ágústína lays her net widely, in painting, literature and Nordic myths, to name only a few things. It is tempting to conclude that it is above all the beauty of art and the creation itself that can ease the traumas and tragedies of life. One exquisite poem of this nature is to be found in Lífakur, titled “Vincent” (Vincent):
Sólblóm
halda fyrir mér vökuilmur þeirra þegar næturlitir
þorna í penslumskyndilega sé ég hvar
hann birtist
með enn eitt blómog kyssir mig
(Sunflowers
keep me awaketheir scent when the colours of night
dry on the brushessuddenly I see where
he emerges
with one more flowerand kisses me)
Here, it is of course the famous but tragic painter Vincent Van Gogh, who brings joy and beauty to the poetic voice. His brother in art, Henry Matisse, also makes an appearance in Lífakur, albeit in a different setting and Goya finds his way into the poem “Túlkun” (Interpretation) in Að baki mánans in an unusual way. Art obviously keeps the poetic voice alive as she walks content in the field of art and drinks the "law of/ heavenly woods".
Ágústína often writes in such a way that the reader imagines s/he hears music, as she conjures colourful images, sometimes on "crumble-prone autumn leaves." In Vorflauta however, the poetic voice often tempts the reader towards enjoyment and contentment. The poem “Óskabyr” (A Fair Breeze) is a good example of this:
Þann dag
ríkir kæti
í augum hafsinsveruleikinn andæfir
en við siglum
bráðan byr á snekkju
með stærsta drauminn
innanborðs(That day
cheerfulness reigns
in eyes of the seareality protests
but we sail
a quick breeze on a yacht
with the biggest dream
on board)
For the most part, Sónata contains prose poems, as was mentioned earlier, and Ágústína conjures these up with the same ease as she does her more concise poems. She wrote a few such poems for Vorflauta, and they are usually characterized by subtle irony and warm humour, as can be seen in the following excerpt from the poem “Flóðið” (The Flood):
Í morgunsárið þvo konurnar drauma sína í
söltum sjó, hengja þá upp til sýnis þar sem
rauður skuggi fellur á þá björtustu. Síðan
skola þær körlunum burt en þeir koma allir
aftur eins og flóðið.(When the day rises, the women wash their dreams in
the salty sea, hang them up for display where
a red shadow falls on the brightest ones. Then
they rinse the men out, but they all come
back like the flood.)
Even though the pain that marked Ágústína´s first books has for the most part disappeared in Vorflauta and the enjoyment of life predominates, the author does not avert her eyes from life´s darker side. Or as Guðbjörn Sigurmundsson put it in his review of Vorflauta in Morgunblaðið (The Morning Paper) on 15th November 2002: "Even though the poet is more interested in the positive aspects of life, it can by no means be said that she sticks her head in the sand. She is perfectly aware that a dangerous beast lurks inside the beautiful forest and that the cries of the oppressed are always silenced." It is therefore not surprising that a person sometimes could not take it anymore and longs to curl up endlessly underneath the white, silky soft duvet as described in the poem “Hvíld” (Rest):
Angurvær kuðungur
utan um hvíld mína
hjalar uns morgnar
að ekkert sé eins og forðum
utan sárar kenndirfæ ekki varist
hamslausum minningumlangar að hvílast
endalaust
í hvítum kuðungi(A melancholic seashell
curled around my rest
babbling until the morning
that nothing is as it once was
except for painful emotionscan not fight against
reckless memorieslong to rest
interminably
inside a white seashell)
Finally, it is impossible to leave the discussion of Ágústína Jónsdóttir´s poetry without noting the design of her books. The author puts obvious care into the design of the books; they all have the same layout and the covers and the look of the books are unusually tasteful as well as being beautifully made. Ágústína has been instrumental in designing most of her books, as she is a visual artist herself and a photographer, so she has a strong eye for the relationship between images and text. She writes about Rembrandt´s shadow in her last book (15) and there the photographer´s artistic touch shines through.
The cover of Að baki mánans (Behind the Moon) has icy blue and white tones and on closer inspection, one can make out a human form, which can have mental associations to a foetus. Ágústína´s poems frequently touch on failed conception and IVF, and Soffía Auður Birgisdóttir has gone into that in some detail in TMM (The Mál and Menning Literary Magazine, 3:1996). In that sense, one could say that the book cover and the poems engage in a dialogue with one another.
In Sónata, there is more peacefulness in the writing and the colour scheme on the book cover is warm. Mixed together are rusty red and various shades of greens and whites. With this book cover, the author overtly combines machinery and warmth in the same way as in the poems themselves, in the colour red and wheel tracks.
Lífakur (The Field of Life) is more mystical than the other books by Ágústína and its look reflects that. The design on the protective outer cover is of tree bark, with a smaller inset picture showing dark and light shadows reflected in water. These shadows emphasize the light and the dark subject matter of the book itself. Inside the protective cover, the book itself is a nice dark green and on it there is a print of vegetation in muted shadow. The colour green could symbolize hope and the unclear shadows of the plants could symbolize the mystique of nature. Perhaps what lends the design of Lífakur its most beautiful tone however, are a few photographs that the author seems to have taken in various parts of the world. They are on translucent golden paper and the readers have a choice of reading the poems with or without the photographs, depending on their mood and how involved they are!
In Vorflauta the author plays again with opposites: The inside cover is rougher to the touch than the outside cover, yet they both have a very romantic look. That romanticism also comes through in the bookmark that accompanies the book, signed by the author, where the feminine and the masculine are empasized with nature photographs.
As stated previously, Ágústína interweaves man, nature, music and visual art into an inseparable whole. A good example of this is the poem “Strengir” (Strings) from Lífakur:
Músíkblá sjáöldur
tónar þeirra
heit sumarnóttþúsundstrengjahafsins
(Music blue pupils
their tones
a hot summer nightof the sea-of-the-thousand-strings)
One can also mention in the same context the poem “Akur” (Field) from the same book; there the words are sown in the soil. The words then grow and thrive, and are like light as they reach up from the soil. The light may be interpreted in many different ways:
Nýsáð orð
lesa sig upp úr
moldinnitendra ljós
(Freshly sown words
pick themselves up from
the soila light is lit)
This unusual poem clearly shows the calm and light, which can characterize the relationship between man and nature, and it is this same notion, which first and last, in spite of the sense of loss and pain, runs through all of Ágústína Jónsdóttir´s poetry. Love and art always tower over life´s tragedies, big and small. In her poetry "beauty reigns supreme".
© Sigríður Albertsdóttir, 2003.
Translated by Vera Júlíusdóttir.
Articles
Criticism
Neijmann, Daisy L., ed. A History of Icelandic Literature.
University of Nebraska Press, 2007, p. 499
Awards
Nominations
1998 - Culture Prize from DV for literature
Sólstöðuland (Solsticeland)
Read morePoems in ICE-FLOE, International Poetry of the Far North
Read morePoems in í 25 poètes islandais d´aujourd´hui
Read moreVorflauta (Spring Flute)
Read moreLífakur (Field of Life)
Read moreLighting hands: three icelandic poet hover sunbeamwings
Read moreSónata (Sonata)
Read moreSnjóbirta (SnowLight)
Read moreAð baki mánans (Behind the Moon)
Read more