Tag: poetry
Sightseeing in wonderland
30 September 2001 | Authors
Photo: C-G Hagström
The new collection of prose poems by Markku Paasonen (born 1967), Voittokulku (‘Triumphal march’, Tammi), is a charming collection of imagistic textures born out of intellectual and emotional impetuosity. His prize-winning earlier collections of poetry, Aurinkopunos and Verkko (‘Sunbraid’, 1997, and ‘The net’, 1999, WSOY), were well-received. Writing about the first collection in Books from Finland 2/1998, fellow poet and former editor of Books from Finland Jyrki Kiiskinen said it reminded him of the late Octavio Paz’s exuberant tropical poetry: ‘But our man does live in Helsinki, where it may snow in May.’ More…
No longer I:
30 September 2001 | Fiction, poetry
From Voittokulku (‘Triumphal march’, Tammi, 2001). Illustrations by Jukka Korkeila
Tiamat [Bloody moon]
The goat’s cheese that I have just succeeded in swallowing is now grazing in my gullet before its last metamorphosis. Soon it will be washed away into the endless system of tubing, the network of veins that proliferates beneath the paving stones. The body expels the waste and another receives it. Some people believe they are different bodies, but on thorough examination it is clear that they are both part of one and the same liquid-channeling system. I speak of a body which is a city, of liquids which surge beneath the streets, of subterranean waters. I lift a manhole cover and behold a sea which you could never dream of. The sea is a living creature and knows me better than I do myself. When I close my eyes, I see a crayfish that climbs out of the water and stretches out its pincers toward a bloody moon. What does it mean? Of that I do not wish to speak a single word.
The unpassing of time
30 June 2001 | Authors, Reviews
Photo: Marjaana Saarenpää
The poems of Anne Hänninen (born 1958) recall the paintings of Henri Rousseau, in which animals and plants, each in their turn, burst out, appear into existential space and freeze to gaze at the viewer. Hänninen achieves this effect by avoiding words, action words, motion. The poems often embody an expression, vision or performance of release, but Hänninen is able to make even the ineluctable passage of time seem oddly static: ‘the pearl-buds of the rowans once gone – / lilies of the valley. And from under the hepaticas violets, / and forget-me-nots from the wood anemones.’ More…
Geneswing
30 June 2001 | Fiction, poetry
Poems from Tuulen vilja (‘Windcrop’, WSOY, 2000)
Longbeaked birds
created for the deepfunnelled gloxinia – everything exactly right.
The sport of colours, survival (though I always felt I was
sunset in the morning).
I walk over the living, the playful swing of genes,
uniqueness in splinters: capsules,
family trees, root systems, leafage.
In the geneswing little deviations of dimension,
as if I were perpetually outlining waves with my finger.
The primal miracle of seeds: I press
a mixture of summer flowers in the soil, exploding
a serial miracle. More…
A sensitive pessimist
30 December 2000 | Authors, Reviews
Photo: Irmeli Jung
When we arrive in Oaxaca, we find a Sapotek culture pulsing with quiet wisdom, a people who, even in their appalling poverty, have preserved their joy in life, mezcal bars which threaten to overturn our blameless work schedules, and the house rented by the Finnish Writers’ Union, where the rooms we are shown to as are empty and unfurnished as the solitary confinement cells in the central jail.
But Pentti Saaritsa has the language skill and, more essentially, the art of relating to people as though he has been lifelong friends with the whole of humanity. During the first week, we explore the squares, markets and furniture stores of Oaxaca. Ritsa haggles with astonishing perseverance, with the result that, in the second week, we are the proud owners of two genuine Mexican desks, stools and standard lamps. But the typewriter takes up an entire chapter in Pentti Saaritsa’s autobiography. Untiringly, he finally reaches the price he wants. And so we settle in a town turned upside down by the Zapatista movement: ‘The Mexican typewriter has / its own handwriting: with letters that bounce / off the lines it continues / the story of my life….’ More…
A fifth season
30 December 2000 | Fiction, poetry
Poems from Elävän mieli (‘A mind alive’, WSOY, 1999). Introduction by Lauri Otonkoski
In sparser gusts of wind
metaphors sough through the mind,
spinning as on the much-frequented
boulevards of a great park.
Even one’s most private thoughts are as common
as public transport, what a relief,
as shared as our anatomies and our bacteria,
for there is only one thread in the skein of the Norns
and the same fabric is always being woven
from the whims of fate: is that not a relief?
Treacherous individuality suffices only
for a fingerprint.
Metaphors always the same,
but constantly born anew
like a mind alive. More…
Until the sun rises
Issue 3/2000 | Archives online, Fiction, poetry
Poems from Rakkaus tuli kun lähdin maan ääriin (‘Love came when I left for the ends of the earth’, Tammi, 2000). Introduction by Helena Sinervo
metaxy, like summer
The moon strokes boulders
Left warm by the day, examines
The granite, passion gone tepid
Descends from its solitude
Into sea-carved channels More…
A brush with death
Issue 3/2000 | Archives online, Fiction, Prose
From the collection of short prose Hyväkuntoisena taivaaseen (‘Getting to heaven in good shape’, Tammi, 1999)
I had agreed to meet Death at the Assembly Rooms in the centre of Helsinki. Seldom has an interview made me feel so nervous beforehand. Luckily, this gave me a good reason to cancel an appointment with my dentist. (Although of course I know that in the end I shall have to go there myself.)
It is customary to regard Death as a man who is not affected by the whims of fashion. Thus it is surprising to hear that Death is particularly concerned about his public image. ‘In public, I am considered stern and unbending. Unchanging and therefore uncontrollable,’ Death thunders. ‘This is not at all accurate. Fortunately, people understand me better when I am at work. More…
The stone’s silence
Issue 2/2000 | Archives online, Fiction, poetry
From Kiven vaitiolo (‘The stone’s silence’, Tammi, 1999). Introduction by Peter Mickwitz
I buried you
in an onion field
the way to take care of a love whose stems
suddenly rupture, tubes break
the earth's covered by
chickweed, goose foot and red-veined
leaves of sorrel, deep down
the inflamed wound, as sand that glints
in the soil, underground
golden domes and weeping under the crust
I tear
with dry hands the green and you do not hear
because you are cry and dirt
and onion and God and a man who's been thought
into the ground
and the sun is wise and hot, underground
the trees' root systems are fishing
for strength
there is enough left for a sigh