Transcript (English)

Transcript 2 Islands of the North

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Literature
Across
Frontiers
publication

Life in a Reykjavik Suburb

Ari Trausti Gudmundsson

Educated as a geophysicist in Norway and Iceland, Ari Trausti Gudmundsson (1948) has been active as a writer in the fields of geology, astronomy, environmental science and mountaineering. He is author of many books of science and popular scholarship as well as textbooks in the fields of natural science, geology, glaciology, land description, mountaineering, and outdoor recreation, many of which have been translated. He is well known in Iceland from radio and television programs, and for documentaries he has written and hosted. He has published poems and short-stories in magazines and anthologies, and in 2002 he received the Halldor Laxness-prize for his collection of twelve short stories, Vegalínur (Roadlines). The stories in Vegalínur tell of travels in foreign places where people of different nationalities meet, frequently under unexpected circumstances. Currently, Ari Trausti is preparing his first collection of poems to be published in 2003.

Read poems here by Ari Trausti Gudmundsson. Translation by Ari Trausti Gudmundsson. Advice on translation: Mike Handley.

Highland Image

On the face of this mountain
white chins glisten
clear rivulets flow.

Weeping snows lend
soothing tears
after
a hard day´s work

here and now

though
never
on the peaks of my mind

where
all summits are insurmountable
most snows eternal
but
sunny moments unforgotten.

At the Summit

How lofty the mountains are
seen from the ground

but minute
seen in our thoughts.

A veiled summit swims in mist.

There,
high above the emptiness
some humans perch.

'Be greeted' whispers the fog
'What now, little men?'

The Traveller's short poem on love

How good it is
to have
two hearts
that beat for every step

one to endure by
another at home to cry out for.

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