Guðrið Helmsdal

Guðrið Helmsdal Nielsen (26 February 1941 in Tórshavn) is a Faroese poet. Her birthname was Guðrið Helmsdal Poulsen, later she was married and took her husbands lastname Nielsen, when she writes she calles herself Guðrið Helmsdal.

Biography

Guðrið Helmsdal Nielsen grew up in the Faroe Islands the first 12 years of her life. When she was 12, her family moved to live in Denmark, where her father worked as a captain. She and her two sisters and their parents first lived in Tårnby, Amager and later in Copenhagen. Guðrið lived in De until she as 26 years old moved back to the Faroe Islands.^[1] She began to write poems at a young age, she was 13, and a few years later in 1958 she published her first poems in a Faroese paper for Faroese students in Denmark, called Oyggjaskeggi.^[2] In 1961 she published some poems in the Faroese literary magazine Varðin. Her first collection of poetry Lýtt lot, which was published in 1963, was the first modern collection of poems in Faroese language. The collection was also the first collection of poems in Faroese which was written by a woman.^[1] Her second collection of poems, Morgun í mars, was published in 1971 and is written in two languages: Faroese and Danish.

Guðrið's parents are Annie Helmsdal and Hans Poulsen. In 1965 she was married to the Danish teacher and sculpturer Ole Jakob Nielsen,^[3] they have one daughter, Rakel and one son, Gudmund. The daughter, Rakel Helmsdal, is also a writer.

Bibliography

Poems

• 1963 - Lýtt lot, llustrated by Zacharias Heinesen
• 1971 - Morgun í mars (Morning in March)

Non-fiction

• 1979 - Føroyskur dansur og vertskapur í Leynum (About the Faroese chaindance in the village Leynar)

Published in other languages than Faroese

• Færøske digte 1900–1971. 1971. (Danish)
• Færøysk lyrikk. 1974. (Norwegian Nynorsk)
• Bränning och bleke. 1976. (Swedish)
• Regnbogastígur. 1981. (Icelandic)
• Rocky Shores. An Anthology of Faroese Poetry. Edited and translated by George Johnston. Wilfion Books, Paisley 1981. (English)
• Modern Scandinavian Poetry - The Panorama of Poetry 1900–1975 in Eight Northern Countries. 1982. (English)
• Stjørnuakrar – Sternenfelder. Translated by Anette Nielsen, the frontpage is illustrated by Zacharias Heinesen. Projekte Verlag 2006, ISBN 3-86634-076-1 (German).
• Four poems in Structo, a literary magazine from the UK. Randi Ward has translated the poems from Faroese to Danish and English. The poem in the magazine are these: “Fjarðakvirra”, “Morgunfjøll”, “Heystfjøll” and “Solnedgang”. (English) ^[4]

Prizes

• 1974 - Received the Faroese Literature Prize for the collections with poems Morgun í mars and Lýtt lot.

References