Books from Finland - A literary journal of writing from and about Finland.

Memory, winter and everyday are studied in Tua Forsström’s new collection of poems, En kväll i oktober rodde jag ut på sjön (‘One evening in October I rowed out on the lake’, Schildts & Söderströms, 2012). Introduction by Michel Ekman

I fell through the papers laid aside
I came to a place where I was supposed to stay

for four nights but I stayed four years
Someone said: you have caused the council considerable expense

I said: this is my situation
A brave little cat came to my rescue

I could see what I wanted in the dark
at night and no one saw me

It was like a dream but I wasn’t dreaming
I was not afraid and I could pass through chalcedony

I could pass through quartz crystals
I could pass through sad and sick

On the bottom in the mud coins from many lands lay gleaming
We wish for anything between heaven and earth

All that we see and cannot see and lost
I do not recognise myself, and no one sees me More…

Poems from Efter att ha tillbringat en natt bland hästar (‘After spending a night among horses’, Söderströms, 1997)

The snow is whirling over the roses of the inner courtyard

The snow is whirling over the roses of the inner courtyard.
Did not bring boots or scarf with me, leaf
through books, don’t know what to do with all this light!
You would not approve of the colours.
It’s too impressive, Andrei Arsenyevich, there is too
much, too much of everything!
You swapped your wings for an air balloon, a clumsy
contraption twined together from ropes and rags, I remember it well.
Earlier, I had a lot and didn’t remember. Hard
to keep to the point. Hard to keep to the point.
Hope to get back. Hope to get back to the principle
of the wings. Fact remains: the cold preserved
the rose garden last night. ‘The zone is a zone, the zone is life,
and a person may either perish or survive as
he makes his way through this life. Whether he manages it or
not depends on his sense of own worth.’* A hare
almost leapt into the vestibule here at the Foundation,
mottled against the snow; in the hare’s diary it’s October, after all.
You seem to be in quite a malignant humour,
and it is possible that none of this interests you.
On the other hand, you quite often complain yourself.
I’m writing because you are dead and because I woke up
last spring in my hotel facing the street in Benidorm to that wonderful
high twittering. One ought not to constantly say sorry, one ought
not to constantly say thank you, one ought to say thank you. Lake Mälaren like lead down there. The rest is white and red. More…