New Howls

Nýhil and Contemporary Poetry

By Ingi Björn Guðnason

Icelandic contemporary poetry is pathetic! Most of it is stagnant, pretentious and stuck in the rut of modernistic formulae in which metaphorized clichés are lined up to make for a structured "knitting" of words. The rest of poetry is a sort of doodling; overly personal, sentimental "sonnets", characterized by a sort of a catharsis in which emotions are released into poetic stanzas.

This is a close enough summing up of Eiríkur Örn Norðdahl's criticism of the status of Icelandic poetry in the foreword to the book Af ljóðum (Of Poetry) published in 2005. Norðdahl a spokesman for the group of poets and artists that calls itself Nýhil (The suffix "Ný" in Icelandic meaning "new") Norðdahl's definition of "pathetic" poetry includes indications of how poetry tends to get stuck in accepted aesthetics in which approaches and forms become habits that exclude experiments and inventiveness. These are strong words and some might say unfair for the definition is likely to include most poetry written - be it accepted poetry or "poetry" that ends up outside the gates.

While it is not fair to take Norðdahl's introduction as a manifesto for the Nýhil group, his words are nevertheless typical for the groups' critical stance towards contemporary poetry. The group does not in any sense adhere to a strict manifesto or clear aesthetics, at least   they have hitherto made no such claim. Indeed, it would be quite hard to find a definite aesthetical line that would apply to all individuals in the group. Rather, Nýhil has systematically evaded definitions and, in short, the group is not one it is many. The Nýhil poets have attracted attention with their own publications under the name of Nýhil but some of them have also published with the big publishing houses. Among them are Eiríkur Örn Norðdahl, Kristín Eiríksdóttir, Steinar Bragi (see Nordic literature 2003, pp. 20-22), Ófeigur Sigurðsson and Óttar Martin Norðfjörð. Even though Nýhil has mainly published books of poetry, it has also produced a novel, DVD's, and a spoken word CD that contains music and a translation of Howl, by Allen Ginsberg. Also, Nýhil has published the socalled "Af-bækur" or Of-books; a series in which contemporary matters are dealt with. Three Of-books have so far been published: Of War, about the war in Iraq; Of Us, on nationality and globalization; and Of Poetry, on poetry. Is poetry then a burning issue in today's world? A moot question, no doubt, but in any case poetry has quite obviously come to the forefront of cultural debate in Iceland, as can be seen from the fact that one of the most widely distributed newspapers in Iceland has twice in recent years hosted a poetry competition in which the winner is elected by readers via text messages. It is interesting but perhaps not very surprising that this should take place in spite of the constant, inane muttering in Iceland about the death of the poem; indeed one of the questions posed to the contestants by the newspaper was: "Is poetry dead?"

The response of the Nýhilists to the debate on poetry in Iceland   should be seen in relation to the spiritless, repetitious announcements about the death of the poem; the dialogue often seems to be in a hopeless rut. The newspaper's poetry competition is an example of how the poem can become quite prominent in the cultural debate without escaping the trite obituary-talk. The competition may also be seen as proof of the longevity of the traditional modern poetical form, characterized by finesse and "openness", for many of the poems easily fit under that hat. Instead of asking whether poetry is dead or not, maybe the question should be whether the modernistic poem is on its last leg or not. Perhaps open modernistic poetry should be asked the same question of relevance for new times, just as alliterated, rhyming poetry was challenged in the last century, with (modernist) accuzations of being out of date.

International poetry festival in Reykjavík
However that may be, the poem is on the cultural agenda and Nýhil has in various ways done its share in livening up the discussion. The book Of Poetry was published in connection with the biggest event that Nýhil has hosted so far: Late summer, last year, the group organized an International poetry festival in Reykjavík that lasted two days. The festival and the book in fact constituted a reaction to the bind that Nýhilists believe poetry is in these days. The main thrust of their criticism, as already stated, turns on the stilted debate abou poetry, and how isolated the discourse on poetry in Iceland is, with very little reference to   poetry elsewhere. This criticism is robust and probably healthy, especially when the critics themselves react to the situation. Even though Nýhilists have primarily pointed their spears at the Icelandic debate, the criticism goes further and may even have significance for the status of the poem elsewhere, e.g. in the other Nordic countries. The International poetry festival was indeed an effort to break out of an isolated debate by calling together poets from Scandinavia and from English-speaking countries.

Simultaneously with the poetry festival, a big musical event took place in Reykjavík featuring a host of Icelandic and foreign musicians. Rock music travels swiftly from one place to another and it doesn't need to be translated because music is an international language. The problem of poetry is, to some degree, the fact that it does not travel easily between cultures. Translations of contemporary poetry are rare and events like the Nýhil poetry festival are an exception. Language is the media of the poem and at the same time its biggest hindrance as concerns distribution. But can poetry entail something other than just the literal meaning of the words, something similiar to the element in rock music? The delivery of the Canadian poet Christian Bök of his poetry showed that poetry can work on two levels at the same time: on the plane of the language and also on another plane beyond language. The same goes for the delivery of the Swedish poet Anna Hallberg. This part of poetry, that is, its delivery and the live connection with the audience, and the effect of the poem beyond text and beyond language, has been a characteristic of Nýhil from its inception. Spectators at a Nýhil event are regularly exhorted to heckle, shout and create a ruckus.

The isolation of poetry is surely not an purely Icelandic phenomenon and perhaps it is a somewhat doubtful exercise to compare poetry and rock music, for example as concerns distribution and popularity. The poetry festival did however show the necessity for building bridges across cultures. It also revealed the huge interest in poetry; up to three hundred people attended the festival at times and much the same audience attended both of the events over the weekend. Aside from Christian Bök, the English speaking Billy Childish and Jesse Ball took part, opening upp doors to different worlds of   poetry, that not many people in Iceland are familiar with. Cracks also opened up to Scandinavean worlds of poetry due to performances by Anna Hallberg from Sweden, Catharina Gripenberg from Finnland and Lone Hørslev from Danmark. It is a bit surprising and sad how little poetry of young Nordic poets is introduced accross the countries.

A conference was held in conjunction with the festival. The main themes under discussion were, on the one hand, Icelandic contemporary art and, on the other hand, avant-garde poetry and subcultures. On the whole, one could say that the conference focused on the possibilities and the relevance of poetry today. These issues are exactly what Nýhil is all about: the potentiality of poetry and experimental writing. Nýhil is constantly looking for new ways to react to the situation the group has made it its business to criticize. This is quite evident in the newest Nýhil publications of a poetry book series that bears the rather modest title: Nordic Literature. The series to date consists of nine books of poetry that were published in two takes: four in autumn 2005 and five in spring 2006. The series contains interesting works that test the boundaries of poetry. The underlying question   might even be: What is poetry? In this context one can name the book by Óttar Martin Norðfjörð Gleði og glötun (Happiness and Perdition) in which he mixes texts and pictures in a way that pushes the book to the margins, making it a hybrid of visual arts, comics and even daily media. Eiríkur Arnar Norðdahl's book Blandarabrandarar (die Mixerwitze)(The Mixerjokes) is also an interesting experiment in which   radical "cut-up" techniques are used to make poems; some of them are on the very limit of the understandable while others shed new light on trite language by putting it into a new context.

Championship of Pathetic Poetry
Last winter Nýhil hosted yet another event that can be seen as a reaction to the contemporary situation. This event was a poetry slam of sorts, a competition acting as a follow-up of Eiríkur Norðdahl's introduction in the book On Poetry. The competition was called: The Icelandic Championship of Pathetic Poetry and it offered people an opportunity to enter in as many pathetic poems as they liked. The response was fantastic and buckets of bad poetry flooded the committee's postbox. The competition attracted a lot of attention. Seven of the worst poems were published in a newspaper and three of them were read aloud on National Television, during the award ceremony. The competition allowed Nýhil to highlight the stilted similies of poetry as well as its stagnant language. The competition was a sort of a survey of the aesthetical stance to poetry. It forced the participants and readers of poetry to consider the question: "What is a Pathetic Poem?" Inherent in this question is another question: What is good poetry? And what is stereotyped, clichéd imagery. As long as such questions are asked, i.e. the fundamental questions of poetry, there is little risk that Icelandic poetry will get stuck in the rut of pathos.

Ingi Björn Guðnason is a MA student