Tag: poetry
Images of isolation
Issue 1/1992 | Archives online, Fiction, poetry
Poems by Helvi Juvonen, commentary by Soila Lehtonen
Little is known of the circumstances of Helvi Juvonen’s life. Her fame rests on five collections of poetry – mixing humility and celebration with an uncompromising rigour – published in the ten years before her death at the age of 40 (a sixth appeared posthumously). Her existence, in the drab surroundings of post-war Helsinki, was modest: after studies at Helsinki University, and posts as a bank clerk and proof-reader, she lived by writing and translation, including some brilliant renderings into Finnish of the poems of the 19th-century American poet Emily Dickinson.
Helvi Juvonen’s universe is crowded with ostensibly insignificant phenomena: her eye discerns a mole, lichen, dwarf-trees, a shrew; she studies tones of stone and moss; she ‘doesn’t often dare to look at the clouds’.
Us
Rocks, forgotten within themselves,
have grown dear to me.
The trees’ singing, so useless,
is my friend.
Silver lichen,
brother in beggary,
please don’t hate my shadow
on the streaked rock. More…
The skin at its thinnest
Issue 1/1992 | Archives online, Fiction, poetry
Poems from Huden där den är som tunnast (‘The skin where it is at its thinnest’, Schildts, 1991)
Just now I find myself where I most of all want to be. Just now the view is the one I most want to look at. She who is sleeping in my bed is the one I most want to sleep with. This sandwich tastes better than all other sandwiches. The grass on our side of the fence is greener than on the other side. This summer is more beautiful than all the summers of childhood. The illnesses I suffer from suit me better than all other illnesses. My loss is greater than any other I have encountered. I would not trade my face in the mirror for all the mirrors in the world. *
Speaking about the heart
Issue 2/1991 | Archives online, Articles
New Finnish poetry, translated and introduced by Herbert Lomas
The ‘modernist’ revolution in Finnish poetry is now 40 years old, and the art must be ripe for changes.
Of course, the modernism of post-war Finnish poetry was not – except in Haavikko and to some extent in Saarikoski – extremely modernist. The poets were more interested in their content than their experiments. They were perhaps closer to ancient Chinese poets and early Pound than to Eliot in their elided brief juxtapositions and meditations on nature, society and moment-to-moment transience. The poets picked up a few liberties that unshackled them from metrical and rhyming formalities uncongenial to Finnish stress, syntax and phonemics; and they took off to speak about the heart. That is the strength of this poetry, and its originality, since all originality consists in being oneself – which includes one’s national self, and ultimately other people’s selves. And every generation still has to make a new start, admittedly in new circumstances, with the experience of its forefathers from birth to death. More…
The sun’s progress
Issue 1/1991 | Archives online, Fiction, poetry
A selection of poems. Introduction by Erkka Lehtola
the wind
blew the clouds to travel
across heaven
the fire to speak
our gods
together with us
the same joy
dreamed dreams
the sun’s progress
along the highways
the moon in the vent-hole
aurora borealis
heaven’s stars More…
We’re all perfect
Issue 4/1990 | Archives online, Fiction, poetry
Poems from Laki (‘The law’, 1990)
The Law
No one’s stupid – there are
people deprived of the wise,
and those with self-respect
knocked flat. No one’s
hardened – there are people with
calloused wounds.
No one’s blind – there are
people cataracted by custom. Be different:
heal wounds and look up – wake
your dear one in mid-sleep, hug her.
(We’re all perfect.) More…
Ordinary people
Issue 2/1990 | Archives online, Fiction, poetry
Poems from Vaikka aamuun on vielä aikaa (‘Though it’s still a long time till morning’, 1989) Introduction by Risto Rasa
This time
this time of consensus
that teaches
the poor to love the prosperous,
the bossed to love the bossers
the kicked to love the kickers
and all of us to love humility
obedience and biddability
before the hingdom, the power and the glory:
this time
cries out for a tearer-up,
calls for a muster
of thousands and thousands
of serious and honest busters. More...
It is the way it is
Issue 3/1989 | Archives online, Fiction, poetry
Poems. Introduction by Claes Andersson
One never swims out into the same waters
In the light night waits immediately below
One falls like a leaf through the space
of seconds, a wind blows
darkness against your cheek. More…
If grief smoked
Issue 1/1989 | Archives online, Fiction, poetry
Poems from six collections of poetry. Introduction by Herbert Lomas
The City
How the houses have ascended in this city,
the abysses deepened, the water blackened,
soon to be creeping along the streets.
The railings are rusting through,
the water table’s rising,
the cellars are slopping.
Fear is rising, or being covered up
behind strangling discretion,
outbreaks of crime.