Sculpting the Verse

Four traditional Inuktitut poems and carvings to match.

In recognition of storytelling as an integral part of Inuit art, this Portfolio features pairings of Inuktitut poems with stone sculptures, chosen to encapsulate the feeling of each poem. While there are many examples of translated poetry available to an English-speaking audience, it is rare to see an Inuktitut poem published alone with no translated text. The poems featured on the following pages have previously been translated, sometimes more than once, into English. As a result, we have decided to showcase each exclusively in modern Inuktitut, in part to bring them back full circle and to allow the carvings to act as guides for the reader.

The carvings in this Portfolio were painstakingly chosen because each communicates ideas and imagery that exceeds its physical form while evoking the emotions relayed within their accompanying poems. The flowing language of these poems demonstrates their strength as personal and communal art. They were written or spoken with the express purpose of sharing deep feelings.

The challenge in determining these pairings lay in finding physical manifestations of the primary themes these poems follow and the deep connection between their speakers and the land and water that sustain Inuit. Inuit carvings in particular are often depictions of action, whether they be animals, hunters or mothers amaaqing their round-faced babies. Inuit poetry, in contrast, often expresses ideas bigger and more abstract than what can easily be translated into a physical form. This collection of art reveals another layer of the brilliance of Inuit artistry, both as oral storytellers and as visual artists able to embody the most abstract ideas in elegant physical sculptures.