Eiríkur Örn Norðdahl

Eiríkur Örn Norðdahl Poems

Eiríkur Örn Norðdahl Biography

Eiríkur Örn Norðdahl was born in Reykjavík on July 1st 1978. He finished his secondary education in Ísafjörður in the Westfjords in Iceland in 1999 and later studied German in Berlin in 2003. As well as being a writer, Eiríkur has done a number of jobs through the years, taught at grade school, done painting jobs at a ship yard, been a night guard at a hotel, worked at homes for handicapped people, been a caregiver at old people's homes, a cleaner at a cruise ship and a chef at a day care center, to name some.)

The Best Poem Of Eiríkur Örn Norðdahl

…and the word was Clint

Much to everyone's surprise
the haiku stormed the fields
as mad as a hatter,
wielding a sharp blade
and started slashing metre
left and right.

A myriad of free-verse poetry
suffered defeat
epistles slain against the walls
bled caesurae out of their gullets.

A couplet for love
sopped its cheeks with tears
lonesome on a dirty cot,
soiled with last nights stint,
it reeked of lies and
yet it died with ease.

The most potent of lyrical epics
- even fads of unnerving muscle -
lay supine with their guts seeping out,
redundant, slain again and ever again,
even they were not granted life.

Parallels, opposites,
recurrences,
palaver and foot,
overstatements
and understatements
groaned in beat
to the roar of demise
when a maddening
japanese metre
rode through the fields
cross-legged
with one word over the other
in a mood of nearly insolent
Calm.

Finally, the haiku itself dropped to its knees
roared out a cry of war,
raised the sword high above it's head
and drove the blade through it's own abdomen.

Translation: Eiríkur Örn Norðdahl

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