The Atom Poets were a group of

Iceland Iceland ( is, Ísland; ) is a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic Ocean and in the Arctic Ocean. Iceland is the most sparsely populated country in Europe. Iceland's capital and largest city is Reykjavík, which (along with its s ...

modernist Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems ( oral or wri ...

s working in the wake of modernist poets like

Steinn Steinarr Steinn Steinarr (born Aðalsteinn Kristmundsson, 13 October 1908 – 25 May 1958) was an Icelandic poet. He is one of Iceland's major poets and wrote both modernist and traditional poems. Early life Steinn Steinarr was nicknamed Alli (a standar ...

and Jón úr Vör, the most prominent of whom were

Einar Bragi Einar Bragi (or Einar Bragi Sigurðsson) (7 April 1921, Eskifjördur - 26 March 2005, Reykjavík) was an Icelandic poet and publisher. He was a modernist who founded and edited the journal '' Birtingur'', the leading forum for modernism in Icela ...

, Hannes Sigfússon,

Jón Óskar Jón Óskar Ásmundsson (18 July 1921, in Akranes – 20 October 1998, in Reykjavík) was an Icelandic poet born in Akranes Akranes () is a port town and municipality on the west coast of Iceland, around north of the capital Reykjavík. The ...

, Sigfús Daðason, Dagur Sigurðarson and Stefán Hörður Grímsson, who all began their careers in the 1940s and 1950s. The term was coined by Icelandic's Nobel Prize-winning novelist Halldór Laxness in his 1948 novel ''

The Atom Station The Atom Station ( is, Atómstöðin) is a novel by Icelandic author Halldór Laxness, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1955. The initial print run sold out on the day it was published, for the first time in Icelandic history. ...

'': in Daisy Nejmann's summary, "the atom poet in the novel is a bad poet and a less than sympathetic character." The name, at first used pejoratively, stuck, and came to mean all poetry written in a non-traditional manner. In contrast, the atom poets' work is more complex and introspective, requiring more effort from the reader. Influenced by French surrealism (Einar Bragi had translated some of their texts into Icelandic), these poets revolutionized Icelandic poetry, replacing the "old poetic traditions of meter, alliteration, and stylized 'poetic' diction" with "free verse and other features of the 'international' style." The Atom Poets did not have a manifesto and were never an organized movement, though some of them collaborated on the editorial board of the "main forum for Icelandic modernists," '' Birtingur'', founded in 1953 by Einar Bragi.

References

{{reflist Icelandic literature