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Paavo Haavikko |
Turnings
Translations of contemporary Finnish lyric poetry by Doug Robinson
Biographical Sketches
(under construction)
IngerMari Aikio (b. 1961) is a Sami ("Lapp")
poet who has translated her own poems from Sami into Finnish, from which
the poems that appear here have in turn been translated, all from her
collection Gollebiekkat almmi dievva (1989), which appeared in Finnish
as Taivas täynnä kultaisia tuulia ("The Sky Full of Golden
Winds," 1992). Born in the village of Polmak in northern Finland,
she studied at the University of Oulu and is now a broadcast journalist
with Sami Radio in Inari, Finland.
Paavo Haavikko (b. 1931), one of Finland's
most versatile modernists, served for two decades as literary director
of Otava Publishing House. Best known as a poet, Haavikko has also written
plays and screenplays, short stories, novels, essays, aphorisms, and an
opera libretto. His work is steeped in Finnish and European history and
mythology. Born and raised in Helsinki, he continues to make his home
there, where he founded his own publishing house after leaving Otava.
The bulk of his poems appearing here are from his early collection Puut,
kaikki heidän vihreytensä ("Trees, All Their Greenness,"
1966).
Jukka Kemppinen
Rakel Liehu
EevaLiisa Manner (b. 1921), one of Finland's
most passionate and intellectual poets, has also written novels, plays,
radio plays, and translations (Shakespeare, Hermann Hesse, Yasunari Kawabata,
others). Born in Helsinki, she spent most of her childhood in Viipuri,
and has since lived in Tampere and Churriana, Spain. She worked as a clerk
in insurance and publishing firms before retiring (1946) to write fulltime.
The poems that appear here are taken from her collections Fahrenheit 121
(1968) and Kuolleet vedet (1977).
Aila Meriluoto (Portaat, Ruusujen sota)
Hannu Mäkelä
Mirkka Rekola
Matti Rossi (b. ?) is a leftist poet
who has played an active role in Finnish workingclass politics, and his
poems and translations (especially from the Spanish, but he has also translated
Shakespeare, most notably King Lear) often reflect his overriding concern
with peace, justice, and equality. All of the poems appearing here are
from his collection Näytelmän henkilöt ("Dramatis
Personae," 1966).
Pentti Saarikoski (19371983), one of
the first great modernist writers in Finland, was known for his cultural
radicalism in the sixties (he twice ran for Parliament on the Finnish
People's Democratic Party ticket, and remained an ardent Communist all
his life), the surrealistic playfulness and melancholy of his poems, and
the Poundian daring of his translations (Homer's Odyssey, Heraclitus,
Sappho, Aristotle's Poetics, Catullus, Matthew's Gospel, Joyce's Dubliners
and Ulysses, Henry Miller, Allen Ginsberg, Salinger's Catcher in the Rye
in Helsinki slang, etc.). In addition to numerous poetry collections he
wrote experimental novels, essays, and other works. Born in Impilahti,
Karelia, he studied classics and English at the University of Helsinki
in the late fifties, and lived in Helsinki until 1975, when he moved to
a farm near Gothenburg, Sweden, where he lived till he died. The poems
that appear here are taken from his collections Tanssilattia vuorella
("Dance Floor on the Mountain," 1977) and Tanssiinkutsu ("Invitation
to the Dance," 1980).
Sirkka Turkka (Tule)
