In Nation Named for Ice, Poets Are Just Getting Warmed Up.

On Iceland (pop. 330,000) as a nation of devoted if sometimes amateur poets: Icelanders are unusually prolific readers and writers, and books of verse tend to sell very well in Iceland. Poetry was the third-largest category of books published in the country in 2014, after fiction and the arts….

The cold oceanic climate and long winter nights may also have something to do with it. “People usually get bored, and they try to humor each other,” Professor [Sveinn Yngvi] Egilsson said. “One of those ways is poetry.”