Except for those weeks
immediately preceding
&, if the national
entry manages a place
amongst the top
three, immediately following
the Eurovision Song
Competition, Icelandic
radio plays nothing
but Björk. Turn it off &
there are the sounds
of volcanoes & hot
pools which, if you’ve
heard them once
you’ve heard them to
the point of bore-
dom. Still Björk. Little
wonder then that,
on a day when the
melting polar cap
drove banks of fog
southward & made
moving hazardous, Einar
Beestiol, self-proclaimed
but much-rejected poet
whose style derived
from Voluspo, the great
Icelandic creation
poem, & whose
titles - I Take Thee,
Jules Verne, for My
Beloved, since by setting
the portal of your
Journey to the Centre
of the Earth in Iceland,
you showed me there
was a way out – were
so long that readers
gave up on them before
they had even come upon
the body of the poem,
decided on a change
that he hoped might
make his name heard
across the world. Three
steps to it. Compile
a program that through
random selection but
stochastic process
combines & rearranges
as poems parts of
Voluspo & The Diaries
of Golda Meir, a book
he’d found discarded
outside a goodwill store.
His name as anagram
as author. A persona
to go. Thus Eileen R.
Tabios. Thus attractive
female, memberless
but member of
a minority, MBA &
former East Coast corporate
banker, now growing
grapes in West Coast
California. The R., he
decided, could stand
for Rose. Even Ice-
landers have heard
of Gertrude Stein.
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