Books from Finland - A literary journal of writing from and about Finland.

Photo: Marja-Leena Hukkanen/Tammi

Anselm Hollo on Riina Katajavuori’s new poems

The tale of Hansel and Gretel is an ancient one, woven around the themes of abandonment, cannibalism, and the terrors of dark forests in those forests’ ancient heyday. Told, edited and retold by the German Brothers Grimm in the early 19th century, the tale’s archetypal magic has inspired composers, writers and artists for hundreds of years.

Riina Katajavuori’s new book of poems, Kerttu ja Hannu (‘Gretel and Hansel’, Tammi, 2007), is an imaginative de-and reconstruction of it. By reversing the traditional order of the names, Katajavuori (born 1968) gives notice that her poems are a her-not-his version of the story, a retelling from Gretel’s perspective. More…

Photo: Heini Lehväslaiho

If I had to describe Tomi Kontio’s new book of poems, Vaaksan päässä taivaasta (‘A span away from heaven’, Teos, 2004, page 93) in ten words or less, I would say that it is a succession of deep breaths taken between catastrophes great or small.

Since I have a few more words at my disposal here, I’ll also say that it meets every expectation set up by his previous three volumes of poetry: sonorous language, an essentially Romantic but not egocentric worldview, and extraordinary skill in combining straightforward narrative with spectacularly effortless runs of metaphors, as in these lines from the poem ‘Pietà’: More…