Linda Vilhjálms
Linda Vilhjálmsdóttir (b. 1958) is a poet, novelist, playwright and screenwriter. Her first collection, Bláþráður (Hanging by a Thread) was published in 1990, followed by Klakabörnin (The Children of Ice) in 1992. In 2003 she published a semi-autobiographical novel: Lygasaga (Story of Lies). Her plays have been staged at the Reykjavik City Theatre as well as other venues, and she has received two literary awards from the daily newspaper DV, the Jón-úr-Vör Poety Award and the Icelandic Booksellers’ Prize for the best volume of poetry in 2015, among others. The volume frelsi (liberty) was also nominated for the Nordic Council's Literature Prize (2017).
…
sometimes I feel
like herring in a barrel
and sometimes
like the quota value of cod
sometimes
like a laying hen on an inorganic farm
and sometimes
like a breeding sow with bedsores
sometimes
like a sterile salmon in a sea-pen
and sometimes
like a Polish construction worker from an employment agency
sometimes
like restricted offshore accounts
and sometimes
like a deficit in bankruptcy
sometimes
like a lost algae ball
and sometimes
like a broken emergency shutter in a sewage plant
sometimes
like a secretary on the immigration appeals committee
and sometimes
like a subpar cod castoff
sometimes
like a guide on the Northern Lights bus
and sometimes
like a tourist caught in Reynisfjara’s undertow
sometimes
like a silver fox in a cage
and sometimes
like a senior on the nursing home’s wait list
sometimes
like a turbine in a geothermal plant
and sometimes
like a woman in a care profession
and sometimes
like a rapist on probation
always
like a girl child on the way back in the dark
IV
before half a century has passed
the fingers and strong chins
of our mothers
will stand
like guides or guardians
up out of the melting glaciers
~
I see my four great-grandmothers
wander the country at the end of life
with all of their children
those they bore
those they lost
and those they had to let go
~
in parish records geneaologies
censuses, they’re said to be
foundlings maidservants invalids
housewives and widows
condemned to unrecorded enslavement
all as one
~
Translated by Meg Matich who is an Iceland-based poet and translator. She has received support for her work from organizations like the DAAD, the Icelandic Literature Centre, PEN, and the Fulbright Commission, and has worked closely with UNESCO in Iceland and Ukraine. Among other works, she is the translator of Cold Moons (2017 Phoneme Media/Deep Vellum) by Magnús Sigurðsson and Magma (2021 Grove Atlantic [US], Picador [UK]) by Þóra Hjörleifsdóttir.