Seeing and Remembering: Strophes

Translation of: Úr Sjón Og Úr Minni: Ørindi
In Faroese and English on opposite pages

Christian Matras

Translated into English by George Johnston

5 X 8 inches, 48 pages

SHORT VERSES such as the following appear in Faroese and English on opposite pages.


A rift in the soul uttered dearly
a deep but fragile song
A bird sang sweetly
dragging a broken wing.

George Johnston

Translator

George Johnston was born in Hamilton, Ontario on October 7, 1913. He graduated from the University of Toronto (Victoria College) in 1936 with a B.A. in Philosophy and English. He served for four and a half years with the Royal Canadian Air Force during the Second World War, as a general reconnaissance pilot in West Africa and as an instructor in the United Kingdom and Canada. In 1944 he married Jeanne McRae and in 1945 he graduated M.A. in English Language and Literature from the University of Toronto. He taught English and Old-Norse language and literature at Mount Allison University from 1947 to 1949 and then at Carleton University from 1950 to 1979, continuing on as Professor Emeritus.

To celebrate George's 85th birthday (October 7, 1998), Penumbra Press assembled the festschrift, The Old Enchanter (1999), in which over two dozen writers give testament to the quiet charisma and quick charm of the man—poet, translator, teacher, colleague, and friend.

A Party For a Poet, Winter 2000, Carleton U.

Christian Matras

Author

[no biographical material mentioned on the book]