Meet Wes Baden, INLUS Business Member and Author

 

The newest INLUS Business Member, Wes Baden, has published a book of poems in both English and Icelandic. He recently sat for an interview with the INLUS to tell us something about his background and how he came to write this unique collection of poems.

INLUS: At the age of 80–

Wes: Almost 80, a few more months to go–

INLUS: At age 79 you have published SAMTÖL CONVERSATIONS, a chapbook of 20 poems in Icelandic with facing English translations. Is this something that you finally got around to, after studying Icelandic for many years?

Wes: No, not all. In fact, I would have laughed at you, just four years ago, if you had said to me that I’d be writing poetry in any language. It is true that I studied a bit of Old Icelandic–in 1972, I think it was–at university.

INLUS: Who was your teacher?

Wes: I had the good fortune of reading Old Icelandic with Hermann Pálsson, a very charismatic teacher, when he was a visiting professor. But this was a sideline for me, while I was busy writing a Ph.D. dissertation about Beowulf.

INLUS: Then you are an academic?

Wes: No, no. I am a Ph.D. dropout. I became disillusioned with academia, fled the university, and went to law school.

INLUS: So you went from writing legal briefs to writing poetry. That seems unusual.

Wes: Maybe not. I‘ve discovered a number of poets who were also trained in law. This includes Icelandic poets—Bjarni Thóranrensen, Einar Benediktsson, and a favorite, a big influence on me, Tómas Guðmundsson. Poets and lawyers are believers in the power, even the magic of language, along with the effects that language can have on people, getting them to think and feel and experience the world around them in new and different ways.

INLUS: When did you actually start writing poetry?

Wes: Iceland was the catalyst. After retiring, I visited Iceland for the first time. That was in 2022, just after the COVID pandemic and the cabin fever it induced. It was a transformative experience. Like many others, I was enchanted with the things that I did and saw. One very peculiar thing was hearing modern Icelandic spoken, first on the Icelandair flight, then on the streets and in coffee houses and shops in Reykjavík. It sounded oddly familiar, reminiscent of reading Old Icelandic out loud 50 years ago, also akin to the Anglo-Saxon I was studying back then. I decided to try to learn modern Icelandic. The impulse was irresistible.

INLUS: You‘ve taken our INLUS language classes.

Wes: Yes, I discovered them after starting to learn Icelandic from a book on Amazon. The book was useful and actually let me jump into the 1.5 class and survive. I‘ve been through 3.0 now. Wonderful classes, very interesting classmates–several are friends now–and of course a fantastic teacher, Birna, whom I finally met in person this past summer in Reykjavík. I loved seeing her artwork, too.

INLUS: It still seems a bit of a mystery how you made the transition to writing poems.

Wes: Mystery is the right word. In INLUS classes, we sometimes wrote relatively simple sentences for homework or used such sentences to speak with each other online, mimicking everyday conversations between people. But, as time went by, outside of class, I started writing longer and more complicated dialogues, just for fun, just for myself, to learn additional vocabulary and explore grammar and syntax in more depth. These dialogues then mysteriously took on lives of their own. They became longer and more wide-ranging in subject matter. A speaker talks directly to the reader in a few poems. More often, there are conversations between individuals, even conversations involving flowers, animals, inanimate objects, and otherworldly beings. In the end, a total of 20 poems emerged.

INLUS: You mentioned subject matter. What are some of your poems about?

WES: It‘s absolutely impossible to travel around Iceland–see the land, meet people, have experiences–and not be affected and want to write about them. I totally get it: 10% of Icelanders publish a book in their lifetime. It‘s in the air you breathe and water you drink in Iceland. But to answer your question … Huldukona (Elf Woman) describes an encounter with a woman who helped me begin writing Icelandic poetry. Hvalrekar (Beached Whales) compares modern-day tourists to the “windfall“ that occurred in the past when whales became stranded onshore. Reynisfjara (Black Sand Beach) is a meditation on the tragic deaths that occur there. In Hurðaskellir (Door Slammer) I vent frustration at not finding someone to practice speaking Icelandic with. Virtually all of the poems are based on actual experiences in Iceland.

INLUS: How accessible are your poems, especially for beginning students of Icelandic?

WES: No problem at all, I think, as Icelandic and English appear on facing pages. Beginning Icelandic students will see familiar words and sentence constructions that they are learning. I bet that they´ll see a few mistakes too. Ég er ennþá langt í land (I still have a long way to go). Hopefully, as I continue writing, my poems will get better and better, at least with respect to the very challenging nuts and bolts of Icelandic language.

INLUS: Another book of poetry is in the works?

WES: Yes. A character in my first book, a falcon, has become Fálki, a persona, who describes and comments on things that he sees and hears, flying around Iceland. I’ve frankly stolen this literary device from Ted Hughes, which he uses in CROW, a very powerful though dark book of poetry. I’m also playing around, translating a few poems from Icelandic to English, and from English to Icelandic. A good intellectual and emotional workout for me, especially at my age.

INLUS: Finally, where can people buy copies of SAMTÖL CONVERSATIONS? Or learn more about you and your work?

WES: SAMTÖL CONVERSATIONS is currently sold at seven bookstores in Iceland, which I’m very happy about, with Jólabókaflóðið so near. The bookstores are listed on my author/business website, wesbaden.com. U.S. readers can also purchase my book online on my website, where there is additional background about me.