Guðrið Helmsdal

Randi Ward

Randi Ward Translates Guðrið Helmsdal

Poetry in Translation Issue
Volume 16:3, Summer 2015

Mountains

The mountains

Drifting
red
clouds

Out flies
a pink gull

 

Fjøllini

Fjøllini

Skýggini
rekandi
reyð

Út flýgur
ljósareyð likka

 

Guðrið Helmsdal was born in Tórshavn, the capital city of the Faroe Islands, in 1941. When she released Lýtt lot in 1963, she became the first woman to publish a volume of poetry written in the Faroese language; her debut collection also signaled a modernist breakthrough in Faroese literature. Helmsdal's trailblazing contributions to Faroese letters earned her the M.A. Jacobsen Literature Award in 1974. Her most recent bilingual collection, Stjørnuakrar-Sternenfelder (2006), was published in Germany.

Randi Ward is a writer, translator, lyricist, and photographer from West Virginia. She earned her MA in Cultural Studies from the University of the Faroe Islands and is a recipient of The American-Scandinavian Foundation's Nadia Christensen Prize. Ward is a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee whose work has appeared in Asymptote, Beloit Poetry Journal, Cimarron Review, World Literature Today, and Vencil: Anthology of Contemporary Faroese Literature. http://randiward.com