The Black PunkPoet Become White

Nominated for the Nordic Council´s Literature Award

Tóroddur Poulsen
Eyescope
Mentunargrunnur Studentafelagsins. FO

By Jórunn Sigurðardóttir

Eygnamörk (Eyescope) is Tóroddur Poulson’s fifteenth book of poetry in twenty-five years, and his best one to date. Such proclamations, though, should not be taken too seriously, as each book carries with it its own history/time, meets the reader in his time and appears in the literary context of the present. Tóroddur has indeed, from the very beginning, created his own literary context. His first books earned him the moniker „the black punkpoet“ in his native Faroese islands. The reason for this probably being that he denounced the conventional „nature-imagery“, so commonly used in traditional Faroese poetry. Still, his experiments were then, as later, in a modernistic vein, but free from existential forlornness and endless skepticism or doubt. Tóroddur’s experiments in poetry are always based on a staunch belief in the poem. They have been founded in simplicity and an unshaken belief in the meaning of the words that in context open up doors to new and more cryptic meanings.
Eygnamörk is a solid book of poetry and a mature one at that. All the same, the poetry in it is still in ferment, and not all that concise (or minimal), making the book exiting and colorful. As the title of the book may suggest, the point of view is turned inwards. Something momentous has taken place and a time of reckoning and necessary re-evaluation has come.
The first poem of the book is titled „Morgun“ or „(a) Morning“ and the last poem is called „Morgunin“ or „The morning“. The mysterious, indefinite morning, without an article, is the morning of the newborn is his crib, which thinks that everything is „a choir of angels and kindly eyes“. The newborn persona or speaker omni potently holds sway over everything, the creaking of the floorboards, the whispering mouths, the providential sunrays, and he makes the snowflakes slow down and dreams in all waters. „The morning“ at the end, with the definite article, is the morning of the one who has just passed away, who has become dust, doesn’t belief but understands by the rhythm of the dance that time has slowed down.
In the cold grave he gleans the succulent sounds of spring, when children are let loose and in their frivolity set fire last years fallow grass. For the last time the speaker manages to stop them just before he turns into stone again; he has started his journey having gained faith. Does he know his limits? Perhaps. But in between these two poems resides the life that the persona traverses in different spheres although always in the Poulsen’s representative images, understandable and funny metaphors, contrasting and parallel, marked by the beauty of lightness, which is not unbearable, but rather humorous. In the poem „Rundferð“ (Roundtrip) a rocking hospitable bed, that acts as a vehicle or vessel for the speaker on his way to having an echogram taken, is played against the rocking boat of his first trip out to sea, During this initiation to the sea a „rotten bully“ („prúður lúsakjálki“) from the southern parts of the islands, does him an injustice, and first now, just free and intact from the echogram/scan is he ready to forgive the nastiness. In „Andaneyð“ (Breathlessness/Out of breath) „The grimy memories/ snowed heavily from the sky“, and the speaker has a rendezvous with a grey shadow, each time greyer than the time before, even though each time they meet is the first. This is an unreal and uncanny being that becomes black as coal and disappears by the day of light. Is this a monster from Faroese folktales or death itself? The poem provides no answer as the grimy snow of forgetfulness, cold and wet, blankets the road and a long time passes before „I could bear to listen to music by myself.“ A solution in this vein is quite typical for the poet; another example is the pardon at the end of the poem „Rundferð“. More examples of witty and concise endings can be cited, at times lending the poems depth, as in „Rundferð“. Sometimes though they turn out to be just mildly funny, as in „Andaneyð“.
Even though a modernistic tradition was referred to above, in regards to Poulson’s books, although free from existential forlornness and doubt, his poems are not totally purged of the same. In his earlier books these were held at bay and the main emphasis was on the need to make beautiful and simple, in a world often ugly and complex. In Eygnamörk, the doubt is clearer and death an underlying suspicion along with the question about what will survive, as in the poem „Dagar“ (Days). Also inherent are questions about the essence of poetry, words and language. In the poem „Vöka“, which is some kind of dream, the speaker finds himself in his old town, as it used to be, and tastes something that gives him contact to his own world where „we allow ourselves to starve the text/ and, at the same time, dress it up.“ The poem is full of doubt about the value of words, even about the value of the poetic methods of the poet. Or, maybe, this is an expression of the overhanging anguish of not being able to find the right words, thus not connecting with the environment and ending up mumbling inconsequential psalms about „the cursed words that suffocate on the tongue for lack of air“ and that the „waves will submerge you/ before you learn how to crawl in the sand“. Hopefully Tóroddur Poulsen will never let the waves get the upper hand; there is too much fervency and fertility in his poems for that. In any case, he is absolutely absorbed in trying to challenge poetry, to catch the reader and to keep up a dialogue with the world through the means of poetry.
The retrospection and re-evaluation mentioned above is reflected in other poems in Tóroddur’s new book, than have been mentioned here. Most of the forty-nine poems are built on a trusty belief in its own message: That in spite of the forlornness of man and contingent desperation there is a door „that we had to sing ourselves an access to in through/the ... as it is put in „Uttanfyri“ (Outside), one of the last poems in the book. The black punkpoet has become white and on a white canvass one can paint pictures in many colors.