Sigfús Daðason is often spoken of in his homeland of Iceland as having changed the poetic outlook of Icelandic poetry. He published his first book of poety, Ljóð in 1951, and soon after wrote his important essay, “Defence of Poetry” on new poetic trends.
BOOKS OF POETRY
ENGLISH LANGUAGE TRANSLATIONS
Pop Melody
The dream is as moonlight
the moonlight as a dreamas moonlight
the dream I finally had last night
as the sea as the moon as the wake
as eyes deep in the sea
as you forget me
as you recall me tonight
as sailing across the sea lonely and gray
as you come to me
as you come at last this night
as the wake in the moonlight
as the moon in the wake and the sea wide and lonely
—Translated from the Icelandic by Sigurdur A. Magnússon
Hands and Words, III
Take a revolver in your hand
take a revolver in each hand
Stretch out your arms
and fire
as it may happen.
Fire without forethought
and without afterthought
—someone will be within range.
The witness to this murder
have—when all is said and done—
been absent or absent-minded.
The judge will at most
consider the revolversthe murder
and the witnesses to the murder
as symbols in a work of art.
—Translated from the Icelandic by Sigurdur A. Magnússon
Hands and Words, IX
The great joy: not to know when you took my hand
whether you took my hand,
or whether our hands were only hands.
When we talked together: not to know whether we talked,
together,
or whether our words were only words.
And the greatest joy when the time arrived that our hands and
words were alive and perfect but not merely hands and not
merely words.
—Translated from the Icelandic by Sigurdur A. Magnússon
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English language translation copyright ©1982 by Sigurdur A. Magnússon. Reprinted from Sigurdur A. Magnússon, ed. and trans., The Postwar Poetry of Iceland (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1982).