Sólgarðurin - Faroese Nominée for the Nordic Council Literature Prize 2022

Congratulation to author Beinir Bergsson whose poetry collection Sólgarðurin (‘The Sun Garden’, not translated into English) has been nominated for this year’s Nordic Council Literature Prize.

From norden.org: The collection is an epoch-making expansion of the (lyrical) literary landscape of the Faroe Islands. The poetic neo-materialism is juxtaposed with youthful, unabashed sexuality and melancholy reminiscence. In many ways, the poems are a classic story of growth – and yet not.

Beinir himself has described Sólgarðurin in the media as both a concrete physical space and an abstract mental space. The poems are set primarily in two locations: in particular, the bed in a bedroom and the grandmother’s garden. The bedroom is the place where grass and intimacy grow. In the grandmother’s garden, weeding is done, plants are tended, household remedies are given, and if you prick yourself and bleed, it is the occasion for a blood sacrifice, which in the poem does not seem symbolic, but rather a highly concrete strategy for allowing oneself to become connected with nature and the dead.

Beinir Bergsson made his debut in 2017 with the poetry collection Tann lítli drongurin og beinagrindin (‘The Little Boy and the Skeleton’, not translated into English), which portrays, inter alia, the loss of a parent, the poet-self’s father. The debut work won EBBA-virðislønin (the EBBA Award), the annual literature prize of the Faroese Writers’ Association. With Sólgarðurin, Beinir has written the Faroe Islands’ first explicit collection of queer poetry, a variety of literary nature that is new to the Faroe Islands. Sólgarðurin is a new landmark, both for literature and for the men in the above extract, whom the poems foretell will need help to find their way in the future.
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Hvørja ferð tit/geva mær herðakløpp/kína mær um kjálkan/kitla meg/taka um meg/lyfta meg upp/halda mær uppi/spæla við meg/orðleyst/leggja tit ein stein/á ein varða/so mín sólgarður/sæst betur/tá aðrir menn/villast nærendis

(Every time you/pat me on the shoulder/kiss my cheek/tickle me/embrace me/lift me up/ hold me up/play with me/wordlessly/you place a stone/up upon the cairn/so that my sun garden/ can better be seen/when other men/get lost nearby)