Stormviðvörun by Kristín Svava Tómasdóttir Phoneme Media, Los Angeles, 2018
“Feminine decadence is the best and stickiest.”
Stormwarning opens with “Bubbly in the Vulva”, a poem that uses tax jargon to critique inequitiies in gendered work. Spinning sexist condescension into spoonfuls of sugar, the collection traces the tension between economic interests, environmental damage, and morality. We want to be—or at least to be seen as—good. We are at the mercy of the weather, which has no such concept. Destruction is on the horizon: we hope and fear for it. We “get the grills inside.” One way or another, we will be satisfied.
2019 PEN America Literary Award Nominee, Poetry in Translation Winner of the American Scandinavian Foundation's Leif and Inger Sjöberg Award