Mainstreet Radio’s John Biewen profiles Icelandic North Dakota poet Kristjan Niels Julius. Segment includes interviews about the poet and readings of his work.

Transcript:

(00:00:00) Thing Vala Lutheran Church, just outside the town of mountain in the northeastern corner of North Dakota is like a thousand other white frame churches that dot the upper Midwestern Countryside what's distinctive about it is the stone monument in the churchyard a monument to a poet cow and Julius who is a major figure in the literature of Iceland. Julius was born in Iceland in 1860 but lived for 46 years until his death in 1936 at a farm near Mountain and is buried in the graveyard behind thing fall. The Lutheran Church writer Bill home of many OTA Minnesota is another small town poet of Icelandic descent
(00:00:37) when Colin died the town wanted to honor him and they put up a monument by the side of the church. With a little plaque to kawan Julius Kim nice gold humorous poet light verse poet. I don't know precisely what the connotation would be in English. Now, the rock is cracked in the monument will have to be replaced and Collins reputation. Unfortunately is such that when you go into a coffee shop in Cavalier North Dakota the county town and announce that you're doing a project on Colin Julius, perhaps the most famous man in the county they say,
(00:01:17) Bill home is painfully aware of how little most Americans care about poetry and Poets but it's hard to imagine a great poet being more obscure than Cowan Julius a poor man who lived on the edge of North Dakota and wrote in Icelandic a language known by only about 300,000 people in the world here in Translation is the kind of verse you leus wrote while working as a farm hand and Grave Digger in the graveyard men forsake real piece for gold who trust in money. Beeping you know, I find peace a hundredfold where the debtor sleeping but among Icelandic speakers julius's work is widely known hold a Daniels daughter is editor of Logue Berg hamstring Le and Icelandic weekly newspaper published in Winnipeg. Julius is poetry has been described as accessible playful satirical and
(00:02:06) philosophical. Most people think he is they would compare him to Robert Burns has got Bobby burns the Scottish poet because of the humor And this social Consciousness or conscious they were stand up for the little guy and and I don't think that was false in any way with regard to cow and I think that came from the
(00:02:27) heart and Daniel's daughter says his command of the Icelandic language was brilliant. She says poets like Colin are highly prized in Iceland a country in which poetry and the oral tradition are extremely important bill home says when he made his first trip to Mountain North Dakota last summer, he was surprised to find what he calls. Is a pickled in Amber Icelandic culture still alive among the town's old people
(00:02:51) people in their 80s and 90s who's Icelandic was good who read and thought and spoke with wonderful Icelandic accents though. They had never been to Iceland. People who knew Cowan who told stories about him who remembered endless amounts of his poetry and who in the midst of conversation would say, yeah, I'll cow and say it this man is Colin here. This guy here
(00:03:18) thorfinn her Jack Thorson in his Nursing Home Room in Cavalier North Dakota a few miles from Mountain points out County Julius in a photo from about 1915. The poet is standing on the street in mountain with several other men. Julius was a tall handsome man with a bushy mustache Jack Thornton who is 78 sometimes helped Cowan with his grave digging work in the poet's last year's. He says the poet was known as a drinker even during prohibition when only Locally-made alcohol was available Shyamalan made beer and some
(00:03:50) made what we called home brew. And he enjoyed both. But he didn't live to drink. I think he lived towards poetry
(00:04:06) many were drunk when they went from here from the bowls that were flowing with Malton beer whiskey was easy to obtain for both were selling Dory and Spain the women were serving coffee swill of men's fully speeches all had their fill there were song and there was dancing there was I and Reverend Hance Bill home says in his book about cow annually as he wants to explore why it is that Americans don't value their poets the way icelanders do Most Americans. He says can't recite any Walt Whitman or Emily Dickinson let alone cow and ulis and he thinks that's because Americans connect greatness with unpoetic things like money and power Icelandic culture could Embrace cow and Julius and obscure penniless farmhand, simply because he was a gifted poet
(00:04:53) and the moment he was dead American culture had nothing to say about this had no comment to make head. No way to embrace this man's genius or to Make use of it. So it was as if the grave swallowed him up entirely in all that's really left of him in the new world is what's underground in a small Church yard in North Dakota hard by the border. So I wonder what kind of a kind what kind of a culture let's go of people like Colin what kind of a culture can't find a way to make use of of a genius
(00:05:27) writer? Writer Bill home who with Moorhead photographer Wayne Goodman's and is working on a book about North Dakota poet Cowan Julius with reporting help from Dan Olsen. This is John be one.