Finlandia Hymn

Flash Mob in the Helsinki Railway Station 2012

Contemporary Finnish Poets

From Reetta Pekkanen, Coordinator at Arteles :  A Few Contemporary Finnish Poets

Harry Salmenniemi

Eino Santanen 

Harry Salmenniemi (b. 1983): http://www.lyrikline.org/en/poems/jos-minulla-olisi-tunteita-ne-7900#
Perhaps he's the best-known and most valued contemporary poet at the moment. Brilliant, one of my personal favorites. Has published 5 books of poetry, all very different from each other. "Texas, sakset" (2010) (sakset = 'scissors') marks a culmination point in the flarf/google-poetry genre in Finland - it never got bigger or better than that. Sadly I don't own a copy of that book, but I have all the others if you want to have a look. None of his books have been translated, at least not that I know of, which I find strange. Those short ones behind the link are maybe not the best example of his work.

Eino Santanen (b. 1975): http://lettretage.de/soundout/en/banknote-poetry-eino-santanen-finnland
Another interesting poet that is yet to be translated into English. Santanen's work leans towards performance / performative poetry, and he has done many interesting experiments such as writing poems on banknotes. A videowork of the process and of him performing the poems: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfpRZe29VFY

Tua Forsström

Tua Forsström (b. 1947): http://www.poetryinternationalweb.net/pi/site/poet/item/14297/11622/Tua-Forsstrom Again, one of my personal favorites. this Finnish poet writes in Swedish. Perhaps she counts more as a modernist. Her fragmented, mournful yet warm, story-like way of writing poetry is really quite unique.
And this list is not complete without information about Reetta Pekkanen:

Her book, Pieniä Kovia Nuppuja, Small Hard Buds, has received recognition.










Just a note: This list is not comprehensive.

If you would like to let me know of other Finnish poets, please reply to this post!

Mestässä

Poetry Reading in Hameenkyrö

Runoklubi @ Frantsilan
Nov 21, 2015

The Finnish word for poem is "runos."

Working in Two Languages

In Finland, I've been aware of the influence of the language on my work. Because it was the language of my childhood (the first language of my mother and grandmother), I have always felt close, and though I don't always have the meaning, I have the sound and rhythm of the language inside. The language haunts me, and I continually desire to hear it and learn it.

Recently, I came across two writers talking about what it is like to go between languages.  Luiselli was born in Mexico City and now lives in New York City. This is what she says:

I often write in English and then self-translate into Spanish, and vice-versa too. It's a messy process, but that messiness creates a space for more clear, lucid things to emerge. Not always, though. Often I just dwell for long periods in this completely confusing space, not knowing which language I should write in. I go back and forth and it's very unproductive, until one day something happens and I'm able to write, at least so far. That's what happened to me with Sidewalks and Faces in the Crowd. 

Also, when my writing is getting translated, I rewrite a lot, and work on it with the translator. I often bring those modifications back into the original. So the ghost of translation always haunts the original.

The holes between the languages is a place of fascination. The interviewer Jennifer Kabat observed, in conversation with Luiselli, "there's always this act of translation, and questions about what language you write in and how you play with the holes between the two languages. Translation in itself leaves this sort of ghostly imprint of the past."  In this interview, the topic is Luiselli's book Faces In the Crowd, which contains a story about the Mexican poet Gilberto Owen, who also lived in NYC in an earlier era, and coincidentally he lived near Luiselli's apartment.

Haruki Murakami, a Japanese novelist, described how he became a novelist in the introduction to Wind/Pinball, his latest novel. After he wrote his first novel, he was unhappy with the results. So as an experiment, he rewrote the beginning in English. Because his knowledge of English was limited, this forced him into very simple sentence structures. He had to compress his thoughts into a smaller container.  This explanation was excerpted on LitHub:

Having discovered the curious effect of composing in a foreign language, thereby acquiring a creative rhythm distinctly my own, I returned my Olivetti to the closet and once more pulled out my sheaf of manuscript paper and my fountain pen. Then I sat down and “translated” the chapter or so that I had written in English into Japanese. Well, “transplanted” might be more accurate, since it wasn’t a direct verbatim translation. In the process, inevitably, a new style of Japanese emerged. The style that would be mine. A style I myself had discovered. Now I get it, I thought. This is how I should be doing it. It was a moment of true clarity, when the scales fell from my eyes. 

Some people have said, “Your work has the feel of translation.” The precise meaning of that statement escapes me, but I think it hits the mark in one way, and entirely misses it in another. Since the opening passages of my first novella were, quite literally, “translated,” the comment is not entirely wrong; yet it applies merely to the process of writing. What I was seeking by writing first in English and then “translating” into Japanese was no less than the creation of an unadorned “neutral” style that would allow me freer movement. My interest was not in creating a watered-down form of Japanese. I wanted to deploy a type of Japanese as far removed as possible from so-called literary language in order to write in my own natural voice. That required desperate measures. I would go so far as to say that, at that time, I may have regarded Japanese as no more than a functional tool.

Murakami goes on further to say:

Since I was born and raised in Japan, the vocabulary and patterns of the Japanese language had filled the system that was me to bursting, like a barn crammed with livestock. When I sought to put my thoughts and feelings into words, those animals began to mill about, and the system crashed. Writing in a foreign language, with all the limitations that entailed, removed this obstacle. 

Both of these writers indicate that the limitations of the new language imposed a constraint, and initially, this was useful as they began to write.  The simple and direct style was a necessity, and the style achieved a sense of mystery that might not have existed otherwise.

Empty Spaces

"Cities haunted by ghosts, ghosts that are a metaphor for language in their haunting doubling and mistranslations, language that's full of holes, while the holes themselves are suggestive of abandoned places and writing that fails to describe anything accurately enough—this is Valeria Luiselli's terrain," says Jennifer Kabat.  She interviewed the writer Valeria Luiselli about her books, Faces in the Crowd (novel), Sidewalks (essays), and The Story About My Teeth (novel).  Luiselli said:

"writing is not about furnishing, or about filling up a space with things and voices and stories, but about moving around an empty space and allowing that space to have enough holes for one's imagination to unfold."
http://bombmagazine.org/article/10109/valeria-luiselli

See another good interview "Every Book I've Written Has Dictated Its Own Laws." http://www.vol1brooklyn.com/2015/11/17/every-book-that-ive-written-has-dictated-its-own-laws-an-interview-with-valeria-luiselli/

Tiina Pystynen

Tiina Pystynen in Finnish Comics Annual 2013 (images via Rackham)

In her books, Tiina Pystynen combines her own visual art and text. These are modern-day illuminated manuscripts.

Tiina Pystynen is a writer and a graphic artist, born in Finland in 1955. Since 1987 she has published novels, non-fiction, illustrated poems and autobiographical graphic novels for adults. 
She dwells mainly on sensual, eternal, female subjects like love, motherhood and sexuality. Pystynen deals with her subject matter with experience, wisdom and broadmindedness. She is well loved among comic and poetry readers as well as all women fiction readers who, in turning points of their lives, look for knowledge, joy and support in her work. 
Among her works are an autobiographical picturebooks for adults, The Memoirs of the Queen Widow and The Lonely Woman´s Love Stories, about life of a family after the father´s suicide. A novel, The Cage of Shame, showing the process of psychotherapy from a patient´s point of view.

See more of her artistry on her website: http://tiinapystynen.com/IN-ENGLISH/

Interview: https://www.lukulamppu.fi/mita-luet-tiina-pystynen/

Profile: https://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&hl=en&prev=search&rurl=translate.google.fi&sl=fi&u=http://www.kirjasampo.fi/fi/kulsa/kauno%25253Aperson_123175949240251&usg=ALkJrhjbirN278EerAkoima8WqsrKn5ytg#.VkzCBt-rRp8

Henri Cartier-Bresson

The photography of French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson is on exhibit at the Ateneum Museum in Helsinki.   

"In photography, the smallest thing can be a great subject. The little, human detail can become a Leitmotiv.”  

“As far as I am concerned, taking photographs is a means of understanding which cannot be separated from other means of visual expression. It is a way of shouting, of freeing oneself, not of proving or asserting one’s own originality. It is a way of life.”

“Thinking should be done before and after, not during photographing.”

http://www.ateneum.fi/en/henri-cartier-bresson
http://www.henricartierbresson.org/en/

To find out more, visit the Henri Cartier-Bresson page at artsy.net.  This provides visitors with Cartier-Bresson's bio, over 100 of his works, exclusive articles, and up-to-date Cartier-Bresson exhibition listings. The page also includes related artists and categories, allowing viewers to discover art beyond this particular, incredibly talented individual. 

  https://www.artsy.net/artist/henri-cartier-bresson

Pentti Saarikoski

Poet
Pentti Saarikoski (1937–83)

According to Wikipedia, Pentti Saarikoski was one of the most important poets in the literary scene of Finland during the 1960s and 1970s. His body of work comprises poetry and translations, among them such classics as Homer's Odyssey and James Joyce's Ulysses.

The beginning of this poem rejects a criticism
of the poem.



Today He Is Critical

…
that when I'm writing I'm picking mushrooms
and you can only find mushrooms by wandering in the forest
without haste
and when I find one I don't take just the cap
but also the stalk and the stem
even mycelium
though it might be short-sighted and stupid
but a poem must be a complete organ
not a mere fruiting body
a good poet
doesn't make poems
but looks for them

Teemu Mäki - Research with Art

In Art and Research Colliding, artist Teemu Mäki presents a strong case for art and research:   

"I am more interested in the valuable insights that art or artistic research can produce about the world and in the kinds of changes it can cause in society than in what research of art can tell me about the family tree of artistic movements, the structure of artworks, or the way some of the players in the field manage to steer the art world according to their own agendas.

…
"art's greatest strength is in the continuation of thinking beyond verbalisable reasoning. Especially when perceiving, testing, and creating values, this is an essential dimension, since the ability to appreciate things, the will to live, and the joy of living are mainly experiences, not conclusions of rational pondering."

...

"Art creates and distributes the kind of silent, tacit, or experiential knowledge and values that are only partially verbalisable. Art (and philosophy) are essential, because values cannot be derived from mere facts. In other words: from how things are we cannot directly draw any conclusions about how things should be. 

... 

"Art is the most efficient (though not the most used) human-made method for moulding our lifeworld, and thus an excellent form of innovative and embodied moral pondering." 

Read the entire article, and see many examples of his strong artwork at
https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/49919/49920

He recommends his book, A Practical Utopia, as the one that best represent his ideas and teaching:  https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/89494/89495

Visit the artist's website for more images and current projects: http://www.teemumaki.com/

100,000 Poems of Hilja Onerva Lehtinen

Finnish Poet and Novelist

L. Onerva

1882-1982

At her death, 100,000 poems were found, according to the University of Helsinki:

"Hilja Onerva Lehtinen was a variously talented individual whose interest extended beyond literature to visual arts, music and theatre. She wrote poems, prose and drama under the professional name L.Onerva. She also wrote reviews on arts, literature and theatre for newspapers and translated French poetry into Finnish.
...
"In the first decade of the twentieth century L. Onerva published three collections of poetry as well as a novel Mirdja (1908). In her writing she brought out her rebellious nature and took a stand against the conventional morality of the time. L.Onerva’s later works dealt with the conflict between freedom and commitment in the life of a woman.

Hilja Onerva Lehtinen died shortly before her ninetieth birthday on March 1, 1972. In her household effects literarily a hundred thousand poems have been uncovered, a mere fraction of them published."

Read More:
http://375humanistia.helsinki.fi/en/hilja-onerva-lehtinen/a-woman-of-over-one-hundred-thousand-poems

In an essay by Taina Kotti, "Finnish Women Writers at the Turn of the 19th and 20th Centuries And Their Impact on Modern Finnish Literature"

In Onerva’s first novel [Mirdja] in 1908,  "the main character’s femininity is depicted differently from the traditional way. Mirdja is a feminine character with male traits, an androgenic. She is not a motherly madonnalike character with a built-in willingness to have children (Parente-Čapkova 222)." 

Read More: https://www15.uta.fi/FAST/FIN/A14PAPS/tk-women.pdf

A poem sample:

Falling to Shadow 

As you see, as you see, my forehead is wet,
from the sweat of death and fright,
you already managed to get too close,
let me go alone into the night. 

Please let me just like a shadow pass
to wilderness quietly sighing,
drop on the hummock and wake up as grass
in the holy morning.

See more at :https://jewelsfromfinlandtwo.wordpress.com/2011/01/23/l-onerva/
and http://classical-iconoclast.blogspot.fi/2010/12/l-onerva-feisty-poet.html

Many of L. Onerva's poems were made into songs.   Sample: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-jmUgMi2HQ

Lastuja (Splinters)

Finnish Writer
Juhani Aho
1861 – 1921
"Aho’s literary output was wide-ranging since he pursued different styles as time passed – he started as a realist and his first novel “Rautatie” (Railroad, 1884), one of his main works, is from this period. Later he moved towards neo-romanticism with his novels “Panu” and “Kevät ja takatalvi” as well as Juha, his most famous work which has been twice adapted an opera, and filmed four times, most recently in 1999 by Aki Kaurismäki. In addition to his novels Aho wrote a number of short stories in a distinct style, called “lastuja” (“splinters”). Their topics varied from political allegories to depictions of everyday life. The first and most famous of the short stories is “When Father Brought Home the Lamp”, depicting the effect of technical innovation on people living in the countryside. Nowadays the title is a Finnish saying used when something related to new technology is introduced. Aho was one of the founders of Päivälehti, the predecessor of the biggest newspaper in Finland today, Helsingin Sanomat." (see source)

Here is an English translation of "When Father Brought Home the Lamp,"  : 

http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/5336/pg5336-images.html

Writers History: Realism: Juhani Aho:  http://writershistory.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=293&Itemid=43

Wikipedia Information Juhani Aho: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juhani_Aho

The idea of splinters or wood chips intrigues me. It seems closely related to the proletarian "sketches" that were done by some US writers, in the early 1900s. These sketches were sometimes profiles, sometimes a scenario, without a plot.  Now perhaps the form might be called a short short story.

Hyvää ruokaa keittiössä

Here's the kitchen at Arteles where we make our lunch and dinner.  In mid November, daybreak is at about 8:00 am and sunset about 4:30.




In the studio, I've finished first drafts on new short stories so far.  In addition, I'm revising a manuscript.


Foods: http://foodfromfinland.com/recipes

Hyvää ruokaa:

Ruisleipä (Rye Bread)

Leipäjuusto (Finnish Squeaky Cheese)

Puolukkahilloa (Lingonberry Jam)

Silliä (pickled herring)

Viili (soured whole milk)

Lohikeitto (salmon and potato soup)

Poem XXIV by Antonio Machado

Traveler, your footprints
are the only road, nothing else.
Traveler, there is no road;
you make your own path as you walk.
As you walk, you make your own road,
and when you look back
you see the path
you will never travel again.
Traveler, there is no road
only a ship's wake on the sea

See more of his work at http://www.whitepine.org/noroad.pdf

Near Arteles

In Finland

Our studio at Arteles

The neighbor farm

In Tampere, the Vanhakirkko

Tampere Keskus/Centrum

An art opening at a gallery

Picasso Said

Everything you can imagine is real.

Art is the elimination of the unnecessary.

Action is the foundational key to all success.

I paint objects as I think them, not as I see them.

                                     --Pablo Picasso

Silence

Three Notches

Detail of studio / log buildings at Arteles.  Built in 1902.

Arteles

Metsässä

In the forest, the sun casts a band of light on the deep moss.

Arteles

 We arrived today, to this historic log building near Hämeenkyrö, Finland. This is our amazing work studio.  Eleven artists are here in November, in "Enter Text," for poets, writers and text based artists (digital arts, typography, graphic writers).  Each artist has a private room and studio, and there are shared studios. Plus kitchens, baths, a sauna, and a lake view from the windows.

http://www.arteles.org/creativecenter.html

According to Wikipedia, Artel (Russian: арте́ль) is a general term for various cooperative associations that existed in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union between the 1860s through 1950s. The term eventually was phased away with the complete monopolization of economy by the state. Historically, artels were semi-formal associations for craft and artisan enterprises. Often artels worked far from home and lived as a commune.