Finnish Poetry We Somehow Weren't Aware Of

Poetry Is A Way To Remain Human

Today a post from 2015 burbled up on Facebook, and I welcomed it as though it were flecks of silver and gold. I have an “obsession” with all things Finland, (“Suomiphile”) and even more so, Karelia. I had (still have, somewhere) a book of Finnish literature and poetry that I used to read, called A Way To Measure Time. (Two copies, in fact.) I was astonished and enchanted by the quality of it— how different in tone, rhythm, mood, voice, assumptions, attitudes, than any Anglican poetry I had ever read. At the time I developed a theory that the nature of the poets’ names, these unpronounceable Finnish names, caused them unfairly to be almost 100% unknown outside of Finland.

In any case, I had no memory of typing these up 6 years ago but I’m glad I did, and here they are:

Facebook Post April 1, 2015

More Finnish poetry:

Here are some poems I have found in anthologies. They are all translated from the Finnish but not by me. Some of the poets are still living.

FINNISH POETS

Eeva-Liisa Manner (1921- )

ASSIMILATION

I will show you a way

that I have travelled.

If you come

If you come back some day

searching for me

do you see how everything shifts

a little every moment

and becomes less pretentious

and more primitive

(like pictures drawn by children

or early forms of life:

the soul's alphabet)

you will come to a warm region

it is soft and hazy

but then I will no longer be me,

but the forest.

* * * * *

Arvo Turtianen (1904-1980)

LOVELIEST POEM

The loveliest poem is born

when you are close to someone,

when tenderness,

simple and boundless,

without questions

flows from one to the other.

You do not forget the loveliest poem.

It is stamped on your forehead, eyes,

lips and heart,

stamped for lovers to read,

for lovers to surrender.

* * * * * *

Eeva Kilpi (1928- )

HE STEPPED INSIDE MY DOOR

Let me know right away

if I'm disturbing you.

he said

as he stepped inside my door,

and i"ll leave the way I came.

Not only do you disturb me,

I answered,

You turn my whole world

upside down.

Welcome.

* * * * *

AND DREAMS PALED

No sooner had I learned to

get along without

than I happened to think:

I will not give up this person,

And the sheets burst into bloom.

This is reality, he said,

and dreams paled.

So that was the kind of force

behind those civilized glances

that for years

we gave each other.

* * * * *

EVEN NATURE GIVES YOU NO CHOICE

When you have seen a cloud

in the lap of a pond;

and the moon

between the waterlilies;

inevitably you are at the mercy

of your own soul.

* * * * *

What is this sound that wakens me at night?

It is biology, it calls out its rights.

At night you can hear it more

clearly, when the

sociologists are sleeping.

* * * * * *

Aaro Hellakoski (1893-1952)

MOONLIGHT IN THE FOREST

Under sleepy branches

a strange light shines,

in the forest a magic path

comes from nowhere, leads nowhere.

My shadow fled, I am

without body. disolved in moonlight.

My step remains suspended in mid-air,

My hand touches emptiness.

* * * * * *

Tommy Tabermann (1947- )

POSSESSIVE LOVE

Possessive love arrives,

it locks the door behind it

and settles in forever,

always predictable.

Love arrives,

it leaves its luggage

by the door,

in case worse comes to worst,

but it still undresses.

Passion arrives, first it lights

a hundred candles, then pulls

the door off its hinges and

breaks the windows.

Leaves everything, everything

to the care of the wind.

PS: Have any of you heard of the Birch Bark Letter Number 292?

WOW.