About the authorrandi á ryggi was born Randi Ward in West Virginia, USA in 1982. She was primarily raised by her maternal grandparents on a farm in Belleville, West Virginia and grew up painfully aware of the historical and socio-economic tensions in her family and community. Conflicts within her immediate family haunted her childhood and left her completely estranged from her mother by the time she was a teenager. At the age of 16, and with the support of her father who then assumed parental custody of her, Randi left West Virginia to become an American Field Service exchange student in Norway. She spent one year living near the town of Haugesund, learned a west-coast dialect of Norwegian, and became increasingly interested in Scandinavian literature and culture. Her interest in Scandinavian studies brought her back to Europe in 2001 as an undergraduate student at the University of Southern Denmark, Odense. It was while studying Scandinavian literature, politics and economics in Denmark that Randi became interested in Faroese balladry. Randi returned to the United States in 2002 as a junior at Ohio University; her father continued helping to support her throughout her undergraduate education while she wrote poetry and her first novel, worked as a freelance journalist and teaching assistant, and conducted archaeological research. It was also during this time that Randi began planning the anthropological research project that would later bring her to the Faroe Islands. Under the auspices of philanthropist Mildred R. Stanley and Fróðskaparsetur Føroya (The University of the Faroe Islands), she enrolled as an MA student at the University of the Faroe Islands after her graduation from Ohio University in 2004, and arrived in Tórshavn to begin her research on 11. August 2004. At the time, randi was 22 years of age, had no acquaintances in the Faroe Islands, and did not speak Faroese. "I was confused and petrified my first months in the Faroes. I was recovering from a serious illness and was afraid that I might never be myself again let alone manage to begin and finish my research. Yeah, I learned the language quickly and gradually made some good friends, but I was always struggling while I was living in the Faroe Islands. It was difficult constantly having to hide how much I was struggling, but I still managed to get my work done." Randi initially lived in the capital city of Tórshavn but moved to Nólsoy by February 2005, because she was fascinated with the village’s people and history; she first lived í Kroki with Mrs. Ásla Jacobsen, then á Hørg on the eastern edge of the village, and finally near the center of the village on a ridge known as á Ryggi. Altogether, she lived in Nólsoy for over two years and worked closely with the people of Nólsoy to document how the types, meaning, and value of female labor have changed in local contexts and Faroese society throughout the past century. Her MA thesis was an anthropological portrait of Mrs. Olevina Joensen’s life history, as well as an attempt to explore how a life, and the local discourse and interactions in which it is embedded, carries a layered history of accrued meaningfulness that simultaneously signifies many particular social and historical contexts and is in constant flux. "My neighbors were my teachers, and the proximity of our lives and interactions were intense. The thesis and my poetry are both attempts to convey all of this and its complexity through the contemporaneous interplay of the people’s lives and the village’s palimpsest architecture, geography, history. By the time I lived in the old Fishing Industries’ Bank, á Ryggi, I felt I had become a part of Nólsoy’s landscape, and that Nólsoy’s people and landscape had become a permanent part of me. I identified with them. . . . The longer I lived in Nólsoy, the more it felt as though everything and everyone was becoming a metaphor for everything and everyone else there. My personal poetics became so informed by my life in Nólsoy that I decided to write under the name randi á ryggi." Randi’s first Faroese poems under the pseudonym randi á ryggi appeared in the oldest and most widely circulated Faroese newspaper, Dimmalætting, in July 2006. Dimmalætting regularly published her Faroese, English, and Norwegian poems until October 2007 when randi lost faith in the newspaper’s ability to objectively serve the Faroese people. By that time, however, she had already received financial support from Mentanargrunnur Landsins (The Faroese Cultural Foundation) and CISNet Internet Services (an Ohio-based Internet provider) to finance the publication of her first full length book of photography and poetry. meditations on salt was launched in Nólsoy on 12. October, 2007 and will go down in Faroese literary history as one of the most unique collections of poetry ever published in the Faroe Islands. The photo-poetry collection meditations on salt was publicly launched in the Faroe Islands in Nólsoy’s convocation center, Royndarhús, on the evening of 12. October, 2007. After welcoming her guests, introducing herself, and explaining that 10% of meditations on salt’s proceeds will be donated to Nolsoy’s public school, randi á ryggi gave the following lecture: “First and foremost, I’d like to thank the village of Nólsoy for all that it has given me throughout these past years; it has been a home and inspiration to me, and you’ve all been remarkably patient and generous with your time. This evening, I’d also like to thank Bernhild Lindenskov and her family for welcoming me into their lives and allowing me to stay in their home, á Ryggi, this past year. Bernhild and many of the other village women have also been behind the scenes helping me to prepare this evening’s reception for you, so please don’t forget to thank them for their kindness and hard work. This evening would not have been possible without their loving support, so thank you Bernhild Lindenskov, Maria Hansen, Mariana á Skúr, and Alma Poulsen. This evening, and the publication of meditations on salt, would also not have been possible without the generous financial contributions of Mentanargrunnur Landsins1 and CISNet Internet Services2 along with the gracious support of Gunnar Hoydal3. Back in September when I’d just returned from Spain, I approached Gunnar about the book, and he was amazingly helpful and constructive. He hardly knew me at the time but was nevertheless willing to listen to me and treat me and my work with respect. He read through the manuscript, helped me proofread my poems, was always reliable and candid, and helped me get in touch with Ole Wich4, who has proven to be one of the most original and interesting graphic artists I’ve ever known. Ole devoted a lot of time to getting the book done on such short notice, had insightful and innovative ideas for the book’s design, reinterpreted my photography and open-mindedly helped me actualize some of my own design ideas through his expertise, and always made himself available to address any of my concerns. It has been a pleasure and honor to work with Gunnar Hoydal and Ole Wich, because they are brilliant artists, very compassionate people, and unfailingly professional gentlemen. Without their help and the cooperation of Marjun A. Simonsen at Orðafragd5 and the printers at Sjónband6, meditations on salt would not be the beautifully crafted piece of work that you see before you today. So I would like to extend my deepest gratitude to them as well as to my friend, Justin White-Lowther who has used his time and skills to build, maintain, and help me update the website at www.randiward.com. Furthermore the moral support and encouragement of Helene M. Kalkvik, Liv Kristi Myklevoll, Sigmund Myklevoll, Alan James Blair, and Jonathan Schwartz have been invaluable sources of strength for me during these past years. I am sincerely fortunate to have such good friends and, once again, wish to thank you all for everything that you’ve given me. In return, I hope I’ve managed to do you proud. I remember one day this past January when I was norð í Stong taking pictures. I was lying on the ground in the snow trying to get the right angle on some fence posts just as the sun was setting and shadows were falling across the field. I looked up on the path and saw a man standing and staring at me from a distance and knew that he was wondering what in the world I was doing! Regardless of what you all may have heard, I was working on the photographs that you see today. All of the photographs in meditations on salt were taken in Nólsoy during the first days of January 2007, and all of the poems in the collection were written between August 2004 and September 2007. As you all know, I’ve spent these last two years working with Mrs. Olevina Joensen to write her life-history, and I visited her frequently. She’s one of the best friends I’ve had here in the Faroes, and her remarkable grace and perseverance helped inspire me to work through some dauntingly difficult times in my life. The cover-photo of meditations on salt was taken just outside her home á Bátatúgvuni one afternoon this past January. I went inside her kitchen to warm my hands and change the film in my camera but, as usual, we ended up drinking tea together and spent a while talking about everything between heaven and hades. When I left Vina’s house that particular day, I was awestruck by the patterns of footprints on the road just below the kitchen window where she spends most of her days sitting. The footprints were so poignant to me at that moment, because I’d just been listening to a wise and wonderful person tell me about the paths she’d walked down throughout her life, and then there I was surrounded by all of these intersecting footpaths in the icy snow. Standing, admiring the haunting beauty of the footprints á Bátatúgvuni, I realized that you’re never so painfully aware of where you’re walking as when you see so clearly where others have walked before you… or away from you… The fence-photography in meditations on salt is also my way of critically engaging my audience to become more conscious of the boundaries that mark the landscapes of our everyday lives7. It is my way of problematizing the fences that people have used to try confine and neutralize me while I’ve been living in the Faroe Islands8, and I know that I’m not the only one who has gotten scratched up climbing out of my proverbial pen9. The subtle shades and degrees of social violence in Faroese society can be relentlessly stultifying; through the images and voices in meditations on salt, I’ve tried to open windows into how individuals internalize and experience this violence in all of its complexity. As we have seen all too often in this world, boundaries become rigid at the hands of human beings when dialogues stop. As a protest against and testament to the oppressive silences in Faroese society, I have chosen to color meditations on salt a warm grey. For in the Faroe Islands, insulation takes on a whole new meaning when your neighbors begin ostracizing you…disappearing one-by-one, and the very turbulence of the atmosphere and the weather’s bleakness magnify the tension and turmoil that is so visceral yet nearly impossible to name. The greyness of meditations on salt is both a symptom and a critique, a means of comprehending and deconstructing the boundaries and borderlands where our jumbled personal/collective identities, histories, heteroglossia, and meanings are all at once constructed, ascribed, negotiated, embodied, performed, contested, and affirmed10. In addition to introducing warm grey as the collection’s unifying color, salt is superimposed on the pages and inside covers of the book. This particular salt-innovation was Ole Wich’s ingenious idea, and it emphasizes one of the most important metaphors and themes in meditations on salt’s overall composition. In salt, seemingly unassociated entities interrelate in unexpected ways, and their properties and effects are transformed as a result; for this reason, salt signifies constant change, mediates holistic interactions, and is an integral part of the dynamic processes that are the source and fate everything on earth. In the Faroe Islands salt is a pervasive and manifold element. Meditating on this salt is my anthropo-literary method of contextualizing and fleshing out the many forms and faces of the human condition as it is conditioned… of conveying the universal in the local, and the local in the universal. Rooting meditations on salt in the metaphor of salt and the village of Nólsoy is an assay at foregrounding many different kinds of dialectic relationships and their implications in situ via local landscapes, architecture, and the metaphorical space opened up within the juxtaposition of poems, photographs, and the book’s design. The collection’s coloring/graphics and progression of themes serve as a multi-dimensional plane of narratives, languages, images, symbols, lyric forms, and associations that illuminate how a local poetics is and continues to become a coextension of ever more comprehensive stories. I guess what I’m trying to say is that meditations on salt is a highly innovative work because of how it integrates so many different media and devices for the purpose of expanding hermeneutical possibilities in literature and the visual arts. The collection is also extremely innovative because its calculated composition has highly experiential components; its uncompromising nature demands that we participate in how it means what it means… that we become conscious of how its unyielding poetic and visual flux constitutes an intense intercourse of elements that simulate how meanings, in all of their mutability, assume form and are constantly resignified in lives as they are being lived11. Even the punctuation of the collection reflects a grammar of lived-experience in its combination of convention alongside the unconventional: it’s important to consider how relative the rules of form and grammar are and how important their variations may be to learning new ways of reading and understanding the hybrid identities of words and their arrangements in meaning12. And it is this intensity of our lives here, the subtle diversity, stark proximity, and transparency of our lives, that I think meditations on salt so accurately conveys. The Faroe Islands can simultaneously be stiflingly claustrophobic and mercilessly isolating, and I’ve seen and felt how our histories, shared experiences, and roles not only keep us inextricably tied to one another but can actually end up alienating us from others and ourselves. It’s nearly impossible not to feel suffocated when the emotional, social, and geographical landscapes on which our identities hinge so unsparingly pit us against ourselves and others. The tense silences and aching resignation escalate into desperation as we feel ourselves breaking down and scramble to keep our humanity intact. At times the anguish becomes torturously ingrown and tangles with other haunts and hurts. Rejection, disappointment, abandonment, and betrayal blossom into anger. It’s as though the horizons on every side are swallowed by sea-spray and darkness. The winds bear down and our houses quake. And yet, even in those bleak moments when poetry seems to die and life feels unbearable, there’s hope so long as we retain the capacity to observe that something is always happening in our solitude… that life hasn’t forgotten us13. There’s an almost paradoxical solace and strength to be rediscovered in solitude, though it too takes its toll and has unexpected repercussions. Quintessentially, meditations on salt is a process: the collection is about struggle, transition, striving to transform the self, and learning to have the patience and courage to live the loneliness, griefs, and questions that riddle our lives all the while recognizing and using what they are accomplishing within us. When meditations on salt culminates in its life-affirming reflections on salt, reflections on the existence and communion of all forms as they violently but beautifully change, it documents one person’s brave endeavor to cultivate her inner worlds, bring her inner worlds and outer worlds into dialogue, fervently embody transition, and find strength within herself while she’s searching for new clarity14. And so here I am tonight, just a few days before my departure, giving this book to the Faroese people with all of my affection, devotion, and hope for the future of this most fascinating land. I’ve never sacrificed, suffered, or worked so much for the people and things that I believe in, as I’ve had to do while I’ve been living here, but I thank you for the opportunity and invitation to struggle, learn, grow, and become.”
1
The Faroese Cultural Foundation at www.mentanargrunnur.fo
3
http://www.bokasolan.fo/rithovundasavn/ASP_filar/09121941_hoydal_gunnar.asp Link to Gunnar Hoydal’s novel Under Southern Stars: http://www.inpressbooks.co.uk/under_southern_stars_by_hoydal_gunnar__i0705.aspx
5
If you ever need to know anything about Faroese grammar or if you ever need your Faroese proofread, Marjun Simonsen is the woman to contact! Ms. Simonsen has a Cand.phil. Degree in Scandinavian languages with a specialization in Faroese language and literature. Her email address is marjunas@notin.fo.
7
American poet Robert Frost famously illustrates this in his poem “Mending Wall”. In Frost’s poem, there is something all around in nature that doesn’t love the wall that the narrator and his neighbor are repairing. Natural processes constantly break down the wall, and the narrator notes this and discusses the irony of how he and his neighbor wear themselves out maintaining the wall for reasons that he doesn’t find particularly reassuring. The narrator of “Mending Wall” doesn’t think that the wall is necessary but continues to assist his neighbor in mending it. To read “Mending Wall” visit: http://writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/frost-mending.html
8
In a meeting 31. August, 2006 at the Faroese University’s administrative office, it was recorded in the official minutes that “RW (Randi Ward) was clearly not psychologically well and was on the verge of tears several times. Her eyes were obviously red and tear-filled throughout most of the conversation (RW var týðuliga ikki væl fyri sálarliga og var fleiri ferðir framímóti at grátið. Hon hevði týðuliga reyð og tárafylt eygu undir meginpartinum av samrøðuni)” (Jákup Sørensen, Innanhýsis Notat, 31. August, 2006, page 2). These words were written about me the day that I met with Annika Sølvará and Jákup Sørensen, both employees of the Faroese University, to discuss the laws that I think the university’s staff had been systematically breaking. At that time, Annika Sølvará was also the president of the Faroese Chapter of Amnesty International, yet she did nothing to prevent Jákup Sørensen from writing discriminatory comments about me seemingly aimed at undermining my credibility. Another university employee, who later became president of the Faroese chapter of Amnesty International, also made discriminatory comments about my sanity in official university documents. Even though this man also admitted to behaving inappropriately and irresponsibly, the university took no action against him. Annika Sølvará was the university employee who oversaw the correspondence between the university and myself in the matter of my complaint while it was being evaluated by the Faroese University’s governing committee, Setursráðið; since she was also the Faroese AI chapter president at the time that she was directly involved in my case, I hold her personally responsible for neglecting to ensure that I received due process. When I later wrote to the Faroese Chapter of Amnesty International and Amnesty International’s Ethics Committee to inform them of Annika Sølvará and another Faroese university employee’s inability to live up their responsibilities as representatives of Amnesty International, in accordance with the statutes of Amnesty International, Mrs. Sølvará threatened to sue me for libel if I continued to speak out against her (Annika Sølvará, 7. August, 2007, page 1); she even responded to my allegations against her in a personal email before the Faroese Chapter of Amnesty International had managed to formulate a response to me, despite the fact that she was no longer the chapter’s president. Apparently the Faroese AI chapter’s campaign to eradicate violence against women stopped short of psychological violence against women…needless to say, I am not renewing my membership.
9
The Faroese national radio Kringvarp Føroya twice reported on the case, and I applaud the journalists who asked straightforward questions to Annika Sølvará and Parliamentary Ombudswoman Sólja í Ólavstovu… questions which neither Annika Sølvará nor Sólja í Ólavstovu adequately answered. However, the person who originally stood up for me and made sure that my story broke into the Faroese media was Mr. Dan Klein, editor of the Faroese newspaper Oyggjatíðindi. He carefully examined the documents of my case and presented these documents to the Faroese public in a series of meticulous articles which ran from 26. September, 2007 until 9. November, 2007. The Faroese newspapers Dimmalætting and Sosialurin never covered my case directly; they also declined to interview any of several other Faroese students who were willing to come forward and tell about the discrimination they had experienced at the hands of the Faroese University’s faculty and staff. I gave Dimmalætting and Sosialurin copies of all the documents, but they chose to ignore the case. Insofar as they are failing to address the state of education at the land’s highest institution of education, these newspapers are likewise failing in their responsibilities to the Faroese people. Note of interest: Much like the Faroese Cultural Ministry, the Parliamentary Ombudswoman, Sólja í Ólavstovu, never concretely commented on the documents that I had turned over to her office. This is unacceptable considering that many of the documents are primary material wherein the accused make written statements evidencing their guilt. On 20. August 2007, the Ombudswoman dismissed my appeal citing that she felt the handling of my complaint by the Faroese University and the Faroese Cultural Ministry had been both thorough and lawful (Sólja í Ólavstovu, 20. August, 2007: page 1). After a month-long media blitz, however, the Ombudswoman wrote me an email inviting me to a meeting in her office 30. October, 2007 at 14:00 to discuss the key evidence of my case; she invited me to come present my evidence and point out to her which laws I alleged were broken despite the fact that I had already done this in the documents she had dismissed in August 2007. This might be a textbook example of too little, too late given that she extended this unexpected invitation to me on the very day I left the Faroe Islands-- but because she then refused let others represent me in my absence, the gesture appears to have been empty by design. On 29. January, 2008 the Faroese non-profit legal organization Rættarhjálp Føroya concluded that the Faroese Cultural Ministry’s handling of my case “ …is so lacking with regards to the formal standards of § 23 of the administrative laws, that there are grounds for asking the Faroese Cultural Ministry to re-evaluate the complaint, because the first evaluation was not conducted in accordance with the administrative laws(…er so mikið mangulfull í mun til formella kravið eftir § 23 í fyrisitingarlógini, at grundarlag er fyri at heita á Mentamáalráðið um at taka kæruna uppaftur til viðgerðar, tí fyrra viðgerðin ikki í samsvari við fyrisitingarlógina)” (Eyðbjørn Larsen, 29. January, 2007: page 4). In other words, the Faroese Cultural Ministry did not evaluate my complaint thoroughly or in accordance with the law, and the Faroese Parliamentary Ombudswoman did nothing to protect my rights or point out the egregious shortcomings in how my complaints were handled.
10
As in anthropology, I believe that poetry should not lead us to confirm our assumptions but, rather, to reflexively and holistically investigate context-specific relations of power, the hybridity and complexity of social identities (as geographically and temporally contextualized), and the possibilities that people have for re-reading their pasts and mobilizing themselves to claim a different vision of the future (Crapanzano, 1980: xiv), (Benedict, 1948).
11
As anthropologists must refrain from collapsing the conceptualization and phenomenology of experience in order to avoid distorting how people tell about the experiences they have of their lives and how these stories are metaphors for truth (not identical with it), writers should also try to refrain from collapsing the coexistent discursive dimensions (and signifying extensions) that socially construct society and individuals in their re-presentations of how people’s stories situationally and narratively unfold in time (Crapanzano, 1980: 126/130). This is the only way that writing, particularly anthropological writing, can do justice to how our lives’ constant, temporal immersion in interpenetrating social forms and meanings allow the processes and relations which produce these forms and meanings to dialogically surface in the act of employing, manipulating and repositioning their metaphoric extensions narratively.
12
The great American poet Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) has informed my work since I was a child. The few poems that Dickinson published during her lifetime were typically altered significantly by publishers who expected her poems to conform to the literary conventions of her day. After Dickinson’s death, the individuality and originality of her work was attacked by critics who did not know how to appreciate her unusual style. Emily Dickinson’s poetry and person were, by some, labeled as uneducated and insane although she is now widely acknowledged as an innovative American poet. Dickinson’s treatment of her manuscripts suggests that their physical and graphic properties are important to the reading of her poems (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_Dickinson#Style_and_themes).
13
(Rainer Maria Rilke, 2000)
14
In this context, I think of Pablo Neruda’s “Significa Sombras”: “Sea, pues, lo que soy, en alguna parte y en todo tiempo,/ establecido y asegurado y ardiente testigo,/ cuidadosamente destruyéndose y preservándose incesantemente,/ evidentemente empeñado en su deber original. (Let what I am, then, be, in some place and in every time,/ an established and assured and ardent witness,/ carefully destroying himself and preserving himself incessantly,/ clearly insistent upon his original duty.)” (Neruda, 2004: 93). Works Cited Benedict, Ruth. 1948. “Anthropology and the Humanities” in American Anthropologist, V. 50 (# 4). Crapanzano, Vincent. 1980. Tuhami: Portrait of a Moroccan. The University of Chicago Press. Chicago. Dickinson, Emily. 2008. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_Dickinson#Style_and_themes. Frost, Robert. 2008. “Mending Wall”. http://writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/frost-mending.html Larsen, Eyðbjørn. 2008. Letter from Rættarhjálp Føroya. Neruda, Pablo. 2004. Residence on Earth. New Directions Books. New York, NY. í Ólavstovu, Sólja. 2007. Official document from the Office of Løgtingsins Umboðsmaður. Rilke, Rainer Maria. 2000. Letters To A Young Poet. New World Library. Navato, CA. Sørensen, Jákup. 2006. Internal Note at Fróðskaparsetur Føroya. Sølvará, Annika. 2007. Personal email. Finding the bookThe Faroese distributor of meditations on salt is: Bókamiðsølan (www.bms.fo) Á Hjalla 7B FO-100 Tórshavn Føroyar tlf. 00298 313756 fax. 00298 319906 bms@bms.fo If you would like to sell meditations on salt in your store or gallery, please contact Elisabeth Joensen (elisabeth@bms.fo), and she will help facilitate this arrangement. For distribution or other inquiries within the United States, contact the author via e-mail at the address randi@randiward.com. Bylgjan reviewThe Faroese Broadcasting Company, Kringvarp Føroya, featured a discussion-based review of meditations on salt 14. February, 2008. The review took place on the radio program Bylgjan, and the guest panelists were poets Carl Jóhan Jensen1 and Oddfríður Rasmussen2. Both panelists gave meditations on salt 5 of 6 stars. The following excerpts are translated quotations from the review broadcast on Bylgjan: Carl Jóhan Jensen: “…Most of all, [meditations on salt] is about loneliness and being cut off from others. That’s its main theme, and then of course, there’s this salt that connects everything. The salt is everywhere. It’s in the sea, it’s in the sky and in the air, and it also has something to do with the person [in question]: salt and how salt functions. If you get salt in a sore it stings and hurts, but at the same time it’s essential to life. So here we also apparently have an image of her outlook on life. A fundamental tone in it is aloneness, being detached from others and betrayal, how you experience betrayal and dissociation from others. The photographs that back the poems are also characterized by this. The photographs are very good, but they’re marked by the fact that there aren’t any people in them. The only traces of people that you see are the footprints on the front cover- in other words, what remains of people. And in the photo motifs there are abandoned houses and buildings, things that have fallen into neglect. There are often fences, hedge stakes, and different kinds of obstructions, and that reinforces this feeling of loneliness that persists, that moves through all of the poems like a refrain…” … Oddfríður Rasmussen: “…and then there’s this theme concerning the inner forces of people, the forces that drive them, against the external forces, the climate and environment. That’s what’s at stake here, and it’s refreshing to see a collection of poetry where something is at stake. It doesn’t happen very often.” … Carl Jóhan Jensen: “…The entire collection is unified: the texts, the pictures, and how they are presented…The poet clearly has intentions throughout. She knows exactly what she wants to do and where she needs to go. [meditations on salt] is built on this fundamental tone that is solitude and the means of a solitary being, which in some way actually ends up being solitude. In lieu of the dialogue that’s expected to be found with others, we find a type of intercourse with nature that’s represented by salt. However, this isn’t painless; this isn’t just some big, cosmic, great feeling of being at one with nature. It involves pain and isn’t without complications…” … Bylgjan Host: “…Does this collection stand out? Is [meditations on salt] innovative?” Carl Jóhan Jensen: “In comparison with other Faroese poetry, I’m inclined to think so. It isn’t often that we see such a well-crafted collection as this one, both formally and thematically…There’s a fine consistency throughout…” … Oddfríður Rasmussen: “…The quality is very good, very good in randi’s book. That’s for sure. And you asked just a minute ago if this collection is innovative in Faroese [literature]. You can go ahead and say that, because [meditations on salt] is a hybrid. It blends technology into poetry, both photography and graphic design, in an attempt to create a higher unity and higher entity so that everything is actualized. I think that she has accomplished that…Ja, ja, without a doubt. Not only is [randi] a gifted writer, she’s a good poet and also a talented photographer. There are excellent pictures in [meditations on salt], and they create the feeling that everyone has run away. It’s as though no one wants to be around, everyone has bolted for some reason…” 1) Carl Jóhan Jensen is a prominent Faroese author, poet, and critic. He won the M.A. Jacobsen Literary Award in 1990 and has been nominated for the Nordic Council’s Literature Prize on four different occasions. http://www.nordic-literature.org/2006/english/articles/148.htm www.politken.dk/boger/skjonlitteratur_boger/article474251.ece 2) Oddfríður Rasmussen is a respected Faroese poet and critic. He is active in the Faroese Artist’s Association (LISA), and his poetry collection Rás/Sár received the M.A. Jacobsen Literary Award in 2000. Oddfríður has also collaborated with photographers Ole Banke and Ingi Joensen to produce published collections featuring poetry alongside evocative photography. Dimmalætting reviewExcerpts from a review written by Faroese critic Kim Simonsen. The review “Ein flott sjón sum eingin sá” was printed on page 11 of the Faroese newspaper Dimmalætting 6. December, 2007.
ólavsøkufríggjtú bleiv við at siga, at eg var stygg, men tá tú vart endiliga avdottin, læt eg meg úr troyggjuni og gjørdi ein kodda til tín. spitølsk
í støvið á trappusteini misti eg mítt andlit. tað nábleika ljósið frá ljósrørunum fær tað at svíða, so eg kroysti meg sjálva upp í ein kaldan krók og lurti meðan skuggarnir pulsera yvir mær. eg smakki málið í tær, hvussu tað man vera at búgva djúpt í tíni bringu. hvat høvdu fólk nú sagt um eg fór uppí undir tíni lið og misti mína hond í tína? veðursjúk II.stari at sjóroki sum stirðnar grátt og glinsar í vindeyganum í tí sveiggjandi gøtulyktarljósinum. látist sum um eg ikki kenni at radiatorurin eg leni meg ímót spakuliga brennir sár á mín rygg. angistskilti einki fyrr enn mínir lógvar vóru farnir at blána. vindeyguni hildu uppat at spegla meg áðrenn tey døggaðust og grótu undir tyngdini av mínum anda. kastaði meg sjálva ímóti tí heimasta stovuvegginum til sjónin slitnaði, men skuggarnar kundi eg ikki sveitta av mær. mátti til endans liggja skelvandi í teimum og bíða eftir hjartanum at vaksa aftur. nólsoystilli. vesturskin í vindeyganum. stararnir savnast á mosagingnum húsatekjum. seinasti fartur er farin undan kirkjutanga og aftur til havnar. vørrurin runar á malarenda og málar mjúk mynstur í sandin. elvaso kjem det atter i haustluftas lukt. den kvorvne sommar er no blitt til jord. kveldsljoset raudnast i bakkanes fukt og reisast langs den skugge-kysste fjord. elva trøystar meg med sin mjuke straum. ho veit kor hardt det er å leita heim då hennar største kjelda kjennast tom og ho må slita veg igjennom stein. men om ho mister tyngd, ho driver på og skjærer djupt men audmjukt kursen fram utan å frykta at ho aldri når å bli fullkommen av si lange einsemd. lengselen må ho tålmodig bæra. frå den sine sanne styrker læra. i oskervåkner. ligger. ser de siste glør løsner lydløst og brenner seg svale. venter mens varmen forsvinner som før. den hjemsøker meg fra ut i gangen. står sakte opp for å gå ned på kne og koster vekk osken fra seint i går. med hender i peisen, stille jeg ber, ved å tømme den kalde ildens spor. tungt er å bære denne utbrente ild bort og ser dens gjenferd svever seg tynn i vinden da jeg kaster den, med skyld, fra meg og vet den ryker ei igjen. meditations on saltI. the languid waves, swollen with salt, draw trails of freezing foam across the grey sand back into the fjord where all salt drains, down from the cold cliffs’ salt- deep veins, through valleys glowing with low-light. and over rocks washed round in tidal salts, the matted shoreline sweats its mountain salt up from warm island strata, while the air eddies about the beach where earth and air and ocean celebrate their common salt with me filling the soft lines of my hands then filtering between those same salt hands. II. twilight pales in the hollows of my hands, settling into memories of a salt that left its ache lining my wrists and hands... lingering till its chill burned through my hands then trickled out into the gathering grey, as though it were sweat from these hardening hands that i hold like stones: uninquiring hands i knew i could reach for in failing light... slowly, i kneel before the failing light to touch the salt-stroked stones that know my hands, that share this grey weight in the open air once the salt we held has melted to air. III. hear how stones shatter in the briny air! their cold cores are splitting in night’s harsh hand as their salt-sealed seams sense the restless air and swell to burst into that sacred air where moonlight mingles with suspended salt. through frost and thaw stones breathe the salt-laced air, cracking subtly, chapped by æons of air till they can no longer contain the grey strains flaring in them with a compulsive grey longing to cleave living stone into air... to taste the silver, salt-sprung starlight with fresh faces born wincing into light. IV. frost-scarred and sweating smoke in dawn’s warm light, the rocks along the shore shiver at air’s kiss as their salt blooms into morning light out of the stark grey faults that knew no light before they pried brooding stones apart to hand their salt unto the air, there winds delight in tending the tides wherever waves light; purling or roaring across distant salt- sculpted strands, the surf whips itself to salt spume on beaches whose sands have become light tumbling to dust out of the grainy grey faces of stones, shedding their restive grey. V. with each step, the wet sand embraces my grey soles’ immergence into the lightly rippling reflection of a cobalt-grey sky pooling between stones, between greying horizons that cradle the surging air’s saline currents as they caress the grey wavelets stranded and sinking beyond all grey horizons, thirsting for the tide-change at hand to carve lines like those of my face and hands across the shore till it is steeped in grey runnels of daylight that uproot the salt- sands and rush to sea clutched in clouds of salt. VI. i turn around, my eyes welling with salt shadows conjuring halos from my hands even as my footprints assume the air of stones, ceaselessly resolving in their light till they have passed through every state of grey. duendeyou’ll pay. i’m possessed. that’s a promise, not a threat. i’ll teach you how to yearn. i’ll make your head turn till your neck breaks loving art for art’s sake. when i dance, i reel just to crush you with my heels each time i tramp the beat. i’ll feed your fantasies then leave you in the dark, alone with what you are. karlsvognurstrange. karl never comes after his wagon. it always looks so lonesome at midnight. maybe a wheel is busted. a faroese fisherman speaks of drowning"i’ve pissed salt-water since i was fourteen, and i’d still be onboard my cousin’s trawler if that damned cable hadn’t snagged my sleeve and bent me backwards till i couldn’t holler! but you can’t let fear cripple up your will when you’re in the waves well above your neck or else your limbs’ll get heavier still, and then who’d dare risk pullin’ you on deck? 'cause you can’t always save a drownin’ man... especially if he don’t try to swim! and if you choose to reach out with your hand, there’s a strong chance that he might drag you in." at that, he drew a bottle from his coat then stumbled back into his motor boat. í mjørkathey say i should not wish for it to go. i sit silently staring at the grey. they say the fog will make the pastures grow. the fog is all i see from my window. i ask myself how long such murk can stay. they say i should not wish for it to go. they say the earth breathes fog like it drinks snow, letting the dark months soak into its clay. they say this fog will make the pastures grow, will melt the dead grass with its ebb and flow and soften the ground for the tender hay. they say i must not wish for it to go... that once i’ve known its workings, deep and slow, i’ll patiently weather these somber days trusting that fog will make the pastures grow. 
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randi@randiward.com
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