Vala Thorodds Translation of Ásta Fanney Sigurdardóttir Post - Suis

 I was very captivated by these poems. Vala Thorodds suggests in her afterword that the reader is taken on a journey in this book “through a vessel whose destination is unknown,” and I definitely felt some sense of that (81). Moreover, I felt that I was always reminded of the presence of a/someone’s perspective. The poems entitled First Window, Second Window, and Third Window read like scenes through the frame of a window (36-38). In First Window, there is a list of things that are reflected “in the eyes,” (38) reminding me again, that this is a perception, and later, that “we see everything through a black hole” (70). This constant reminder of a lens/perspective (serendipitously) reminded me of Huda Fakhreddine’s comment that a translation is one interpretation of a text so I was very conscious of this work as a translated work throughout my reading of it (which is something I haven’t truly done before this program).

I also was enthralled by the specificity of the poet’s language that creates a very vivid imagery at times. For example, a “feather” is described as “fall[ing] slowly and erratically through the air” with a question that follows it: “how does a feather hurry?” (43). The seemingly oxymoronic words, and the specificity of the adverb “erratically” painted the image so realistically for me. Some of the language also read very painterly to me, such as the “hazeblue mountain and brown slopes covered with crisp moss” that also evoked a sense of vivid realism (37). My favorite poem describes the moon reflecting in a body of “white water” (42). The visual form of the poem (the words on the page) are arranged to cause the reader’s eyes to oscillate across the pages, creating this effect of swaying or undulating water. Poems that reflect the content in its form are very striking to me.

I have one question I would like to pose to the translator about the poems on pages 55, 58-60. These poems seem to focus on the phonetic aspect of language with the constant repetition of words and lyrical rhymes like “tadpole with a glad soul” (59). I am curious as to what her approach was with such poems, whether she translated the meaning or the sound, what her thought process was for translating such poems.