Margrét Lóa published her 12th book of poetry by Salka Publishing House. HERE is the cover in Bókatíðindi 2024. Pólstjarnan fylgir okkur heim won the Tómas Guðmundsson Literary Award and was published in October this year. Here we have the news in English about the award from RÚV.
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The 11th poetry collection Draumasafnarar​​​ Collecting Dreams, by Margrét Lóa was published by Forlagið in 2021. Margrét Lóa participated in Reykjavík International Literary Festival​, 2021 where she read from her latest poetry book and joined in a panel called Stranger than fiction. 
 

My words are
searching birds.
 
They've always been
searching birds
– in endless flight
under a hot sun
among seeds
carried by the wind
and picturesque butterflies
large and almost
uncannily beautiful.
 
Searching birds
when I felt good
when I felt bad
when I felt terrible
when I felt magnificent …
 
Yet all my life
I have only
been waiting
 
– for a day
like this one.

   translated by Hallberg Hallmundsson
​

​

Margrét Lóa was born in Reykjavík 1967. 
In the year 2017 she published her 10th. collection of poetry with a crowdfunding campaign on Karolina Fund, a collection called  the queue ahead  which takes place ​among people in a line in front of Costco, beginning on these words:

not as if I'm going to climb everest
but wouldn't mind a sleeping bag
and I might even buy a camera if they 
​have a canon

​Her first poetry collection Glerúlfar (Glass Wolves) came out in 1985. She has designed, illustrated and published
many of her own books. Here is a poem from the book Háværasta röddin í höfði mínu (The loudest voice in my head)
from 2001 :

WITH YOU

with you in the snow
sitting on the bench next to
the statue of Jón Sigurdsson
our liberty hero
 
you tremble
I am warm
 
I drag you into the 
parliament garden
 
it's not big this garden
I say and
add – but it is beautiful
non the less
 
 ... telling you short tales of me
 ... telling me short tales of you
 
            squeeze the juice
            from each and every moment
            but we don't say a word
            about the truth that a poem alone
            can reveal
 
             you smile and laugh
             I feel cold air in my senses
             - cold air that I love 
             in the city I love and you
             like you appeared to me
             that night
 
             as distant and as lonely
             as all men are
 

                     translated by Birgitta Jónsdóttir
​

 

Margrét Lóa studied Icelandic and philosophy at the University of Iceland, and philosophy at the University of San Sebastián in Spain. She has also studied art history as a master’s degree. She has been a creative writing teacher at workshops for children and was an editor of a literary magazine for two years.
     She has spoken on radio programmes on feminism and gender equality.
      In 2003, she released the CD Hljómorð of poems recorded together with the musician Gímaldin.
      Here  is a link to the poem Mold og bein from their CD on YouTube and here to the poem Bónorð ( A proposal).
     
​ From 2008 to 2009 Margrét Lóa ran art gallery which is now online. In 2008 she participated in Granada’s International Poetry Festival in Nicaragua.
      In 2011 she exhibited her drawings and held an event with the composer Páll Szabó in Hjalteyri, an abandoned
factory in Hjalteyri, N-Iceland. Here is a link to a video from that event.
      In 2012 she participated in a poetry translation workshop in Galicia among six other poets from different countries. Here are some of the poems that she brought to the workshop and an article that she wrote about this cooperation:


    AUTUMN SOLSTICE
 
              sailing
              driving
              flying
              speed
              alone
              is life
 
  people were wrong when
  they thought Edison had
  made light since which time
  candlelight is in fashion plus
  photos of pearly-toothed people
  dancing among swordfish
  on the shores of the dead while the
  blood-red sky absorbs the evening
  and silver rain runs
  along the street like in
  an old romance when it all simply
  depends on the weather
 
          translated by Hallberg Hallmundsson




WORDS THAT ARE BORN
 
Some words are born
(literally speaking)
small and weak.
 
Some scream.
 
Yet others are calm and quiet
but prove to be on closer inspection
shy and even afraid
that people will laugh at them.
 
Others
are self assured and are eager
to appear in poems – convinced that
their shape or flavour
will move poetry lovers.
 
Some words are born
under cruel conditions.
 
Others are born without effort
yet hit the bull's eye.
 
Words are born when hearts beat
in sync – or when hearts are blown
to pieces and blood seeps
from wounds.
 
In other words:
When the unbearable
has the upper hand.
 
The poet's un-poetic pain
carefully draped in words
bundled up in modernity
painted both poetically and abstract ...
(Because anyone who knows
the comfort of poems
will not throw them
overboard.)
 
Sometimes words gather in poems
so sincere and serious
that many regard them as silly.
 
I don't know ...
Generally people enjoy words.
 
And many say:
(from a pure love of words)
 
Sincerity
is all you need.
 
Silly nilly words.
 
Glorious
silly nilly words.

                    translated by Vera Júlíusdóttir

                                          
​
WHAT A BLISS! - The poetry translation workshop “Con barqueira e remador” on the island San Simón was a great experience for me. We were seven poets. Seven languages to work with. We arrived to the island in the end of October 2012. A long trip from home for me. First a flight to London and then another flight to Porto, and from there to Vigo in Galicia. When we arrived, Yolanda Castaño made us all feel extremely welcome. She was a brilliant workshop leader and the atmosphere, from the very beginning, was very relaxed and inspiring. I had met Yolanda on a poetry festival in Nicaragua couple of years earlier and when we met it was like no time had passed. We came from different places. Marko Pogačar from Croatia, Brane Mozetič from Slovenia, Sergej Timofejev from Latvia/Russia, Txema Martínez from Catalonia, Merja Virolainen from Finland, me from Iceland and Yolanda Castaño from Galicia. We had our drafts translations in English but of course we often felt like they did not get the exact meaning; what we were really trying to express. The island of San Simón near Vigo is tiny and a bit mysterious. This was the first translation workshop on the island and I felt very energetic and content to be a part of this adventure. In a cultural context I consider the poetry translation workshop in Galicia extremely important. I come from a small country; a country with very few inhabitants, therefore, of course, I also think of it as a very interesting language preservation workshop. Icelanders are about 340.000 and there are maybe around 360,000 Icelandic speakers in the world. We have influences, for example from English, in Icelandic, though the mother tongue is still well preserved. We spent a week diving into each other’s languages, traditions and poetry. In our conversations about literature and life we both dived and digged and still the atmosphere felt light and pure, just like the weather on those beautiful days in Galicia. We told stories and we laughed. Yes, we laughed a lot. It was a very intense and creative week and we worked long hours on translations of each other’s poetry. Public readings were held at the Museo do Mar. Then we had an unforgettable trip to Santiago de Compostela and there were also readings at the Redondela Public Library. The workshop opened up my eyes in many ways. It did also have a huge influence on my last collection of poetry. I have also published translations from the workshop in a literature Magazine here in Iceland, which is called Stína. Lately I have also been reading much more poems in Roman and Scandinavian languages and comparing them with English and Icelandic translations. I learned a lot while I attended the workshop, but before San Simón I didn’t have much experience in translating poems. I feel very thankful for the opportunity to have been able to attend a workshop like “Con barqueira e remador” where you can work with poems and languages and have conversations about poetry day after day, and night after night. What a bliss!  MLJ  
                                                                                                                                            


               DEPARTURE
 
               Amidst sheer cliffs
               Far from the mainland
               suction of waves
               pumice
               lava
               black
               sand
 
               Amidst sheer cliffs
               You walk for the last time
               watch the surf
               the suction of waves
               the surf
 
                 Volcanic island!
 
               The suction can be heard far away
               the rattling
               the undercurrent
               the scream
 
               from  Kaplagjóta
 
                     translated by Bernard Scudder

Margrét Lóa Jónsdóttir lives in Reykjavík and teaches workshops in design and Icelandic at The Technical College Reykjavik.