These poems are about the fundamental elements of life: earth, wind, fire and water, but also voices and shadows, light and darkness, white nights and sacred joy. Imagination and the joy of creation are deployed with determination against the forces of destruction and death. The voice of these poems resonate in the reader’s mind long after the work is read. Poetry Remembers Voice is one of the most personal and powerful books of poetry Sigurdur Pálsson has published.

R E V I E W

“This prolific writer has found his voice once again, staring into emptiness and infinity, letting himself dream, listening to voices and touching talismans, just as writers do… in a way, our author allows us nearer to him than ever before. Finely tuned sorrow and inspired love comforts us, but there is also the symbolic world, which refers equally out beyond itself and within itself, into the rapture, the fiction, history and personal experiences; it is in the same hurry as ever. The vitality of the work stands out, of course, in the mind of the conscious reader: the will to live where the author “sings on” – in light of the fact that Sigurður has struggled with a difficult illness in recent months – touches us all and through reading we gain a share in the author’s bravery… When all is considered, this work is a brilliant ode to life, an ode to love and the author’s perspective, which is the light that illuminates – the eternal crystal stream, the brightness. The author sings “that ephemeral, glorious ode… that vanished ode of loss … that ode of celebration to come” and it is safe to say that it is worth being part of the retinue on this journey, because it is facing this light “that steadily grows with the evening”, filling mankind with holy joy. I allow myself to hope that miracles extend the lifespan of the author and that the sixth trilogy sees the light of day. There is still light within the man, as well as the hardness required to cast its irridescence, crystalline, over the mundanity of the rest of us.”
Arnaldur Mani Finnsson, DV