Steinn Steinarr

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Aðalsteinn Kristmundsson (1908-1958), who wrote as Steinn Steinarr, was an Icelandic poet. He is sometimes considered the first important Icelandic modernist poet but he also had a good command of traditional Icelandic poetics and even wrote one poem in rímur style.

His best known work is Time and the Water, of which the following is the first part.

Tíminn er eins og vatnið, og vatnið er kalt og djúpt eins og vitund mín sjálfs. Og tíminn er eins og mynd, sem er máluð af vatninu og mér til hálfs. Og tíminn og vatnið renna veglaust til þurrðar inn í vitund mín sjálfs. (Quoted from ljod.is)

Time is like the water, and the water is cold and deep like my own consciousness. And time is like a picture, which is painted of water, half of it by me. And time and the water flow trackless to extinction into my own consciousness. (Translation by Marshall Brement)

[edit] References

• Steinn Steinarr Biography in Icelandic
• Brement, Marshall (1985). Three Modern Icelandic Poets. Reykjavík: Iceland Review.