Digital, translation theory, the news, lipograms, google-based and literary war (are we losing our minds?)

For those that missed it: The new Nypoesi double number on translation is out. Click here for the first one and here for the second one. The second one features remixes of Jörgen Gassilewskis Landskapsinteriör - in the style of Translating Translating Appolinaire, where yours truly, fully, truefully has three versions: 1) Switching out the words for close Icelandic words 2) Using Word autocorrect with english as dictionary language and 3) Switching out the words for the closest dirty word in the Collins Concise Dictionary. All the translations can be read here.

Icelandic digital poet Jón Örn Loðmfjörð has created Goggi, a text generator that uses blog entries to form sentences.

Thanks to Marko Niemi and Nokturno, Goggi can now be found in english and finnish. Click here.

Goggi has also taken to blogging about the news, in Icelandic. Click here.

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I've put up two new poems on the poetry blog. The first one is called Leevi is a wild dolphin - simply created with Googlism and backspace. It's protagonist is of course finnish poet Leevi Lehto.

The second one is Höpöhöpö Böks, a univocal lipogram whose protagonist is of course canadian poet Christian Bök. The poem is presented in it's original Icelandic along with rough english translation - and linked to readings of it, both by me and by Christian.

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Received two recent filling Stations a few days back. One with an article I wrote about Nýhil, posted here below: A brief history of Nýhilism: Felix Culpa.

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Two articles have been written recently in Iceland, one for Tíu þúsund tregawött (a webzine I actually edit) by a Davíð Stefánsson who claims my fundamental setting is "opposition", that I write too much and don't like things (Icelandic poetry) enough. Hermann Stefánsson wrote a similar article for Morgunblaðiðs Lesbók (The cultural section of Morgunblaðið, Iceland's biggest newspaper) - where one of the mainpoints was that Nýhil wasn't at all "new" (always an exhilirating attempt, measuring and proving or disproving "newness") and that it was abnormal that people (I) always answered their critics. The end line was something like: "A new phone book was just published. Isn't anyone going to answer it?"

Today Haukur Már Helgason, Ingólfur Gíslason, and myself have a retort-article in Lesbók - about the new phone book, and how old this crazy recycho-art is getting. At least Kenny Goldsmiths books aren't always the same, year after year.

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I've stopped putting new poems in the anthology I'm translating. There's loads of stuff that I couldn't fit in - some simply because it arrived late and there was little time, and other because I haven't found a way to translate it yet. If all goes well I might do another one in a year or two, if Leevi agrees - I already have a list of 15-20 people that I would like to translate. And some I'd like to translate more, actually.

I will post the table of contents here, with original titles, late next week probably.