First Place
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Poems 2011 Society for Humanistic Anthropology Contest Winners First Place CAROLYN MOORE 12680 SW Walnut Street Tigard, Oregon 97223 Translator’s Notes on the Isle of Unst’s Norn Fragment, Förkortning Saga Don’t let the umlaut throw you— ö is an O is a mouth telling a tale. Though how the Swedish alphabet ensnared this Shetland text remains a mystery. That aside, our tale starts at the sea. Something about seals? How grey seals are—quote— common as flies on a salmon carcass—unquote? Or could this translate to something like to pause to watch so common a sight as seals is foolish as watching houseflies? Foolish, when you need to work at cutting peat, if “Peder” here could mean Peat Cutter, not Berserker Pete. Then we have an idler who neglects the fuel for fighting Nordic chill once days grow short and rousing yarns bind men to the great hall. Time and damp devoured what’s next, though we can speculate that here our obligatory hero shows his face. Who else would mouth (would “O”) the ensuing rant against the slipshod values of his day? Who else would, kenning after kenning, mourn (ubi sunt) for a lost golden age? Rather, for the pewter days of yore. Or is this smelter days? A jarring note if what we seek is epic without the drear that grimes and grays our industrial present-day— if what we seek from the past is certainty. Indecision pocks our scholarship: do we go with pewter? smelter? something smelt? Or smelt, the fish, the salmon’s textual link? Anthropology and Humanism, Vol. 37, Issue 1, pp 109–116, ISSN 1559-9167, online ISSN 1548-1409. © 2012 by the American Anthropological Association. All rights reserved. DOI: 10.1111/j.1548-1409.2012.01112.x.
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Transcript of First Place
Poems
2011 Society for Humanistic AnthropologyContest Winners
First Place
CAROLYN MOORE
12680 SW Walnut StreetTigard, Oregon 97223
Translator’s Notes on the Isle of Unst’s Norn Fragment, Förkortning Saga
Don’t let the umlaut throw you—ö is an O is a mouth telling a tale.Though how the Swedish alphabet ensnaredthis Shetland text remains a mystery.That aside, our tale starts at the sea.Something about seals? How grey seals are—quote—common as flies on a salmon carcass—unquote?Or could this translate to something like to pauseto watch so common a sight as seals is foolishas watching houseflies? Foolish, when you needto work at cutting peat, if “Peder” herecould mean Peat Cutter, not Berserker Pete.Then we have an idler who neglects the fuelfor fighting Nordic chill once days grow shortand rousing yarns bind men to the great hall.
Time and damp devouredwhat’s next, though we can speculate that hereour obligatory hero shows his face.Who else would mouth (would “O”) the ensuing rantagainst the slipshod values of his day?Who else would, kenning after kenning, mourn(ubi sunt) for a lost golden age?Rather, for the pewter days of yore.Or is this smelter days? A jarring noteif what we seek is epic without the drearthat grimes and grays our industrial present-day—if what we seek from the past is certainty.Indecision pocks our scholarship:do we go with pewter? smelter? something smelt?Or smelt, the fish, the salmon’s textual link?
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Anthropology and Humanism, Vol. 37, Issue 1, pp 109–116, ISSN 1559-9167, online ISSN 1548-1409.© 2012 by the American Anthropological Association. All rights reserved.DOI: 10.1111/j.1548-1409.2012.01112.x.
The hero’s journey haltsfifty lines on, the next hides lost to bogand slime. Yes, hides: this tale was stainedon heavy parchment made from aurochs skins,with aurochs-runes fringing all text, cut deepin the short-twig style we also call Rök runes—another umlaut: ö is an O is a mouthtelling the tale that here breaks off, its traildestroyed, eroded by catastrophesnot of our making: microbes, bad luck, rot.Here our conviction falters yet again.We circle back to what we thought we dodged:uncertainty, the housefly of our age.
If we’re to close the books(rather, to close this pile of moldered hides),we must devise heroics of our ownto elude the flaws and fly-specks of perhaps.We must take up the role of mouth (the O)and claim the task of filling in all holeswith what we seek in our own age and lives.Translation? Transmutation? The difference?We always read ourselves. This is the needwe never name in all our gewgaw jargon.
We mine such texts for anything it takesto tell ourselves we’re not parenthetical(we’re neither salmon carcass nor its flies)and yet might carve Valhalla in our tales.
110 Anthropology and Humanism Volume 37, Number 1
