I can remember reading with enjoyment Anselm Hollo's translation of Paavo Haavikko's
Selected Poems (1968), but at this point can't really sort out his precise contribution to
world literature and/or formal innovations from which I can extrapolate. I note that he
won the Nobel Prize and that subsequent selected poems in English have been published
by Penguin and Carcanet, but why exactly do you invoke Creeley and Ashbery? Could you
cite the best critical essay on his work and perhaps a good interview?
Barry Alpert
On Wed, 8 Oct 2008 09:45:56 -0600, Douglas Barbour <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
>Which means I have read at least a poem or two, Rachel.
>
>Yes, many of us remain 'provincial,' no matter how hard we might try
>to escape that fate; I did not 'know' his work in any thoughtful way.
>
>Will go re-read in Poems for the Millennium.
>
>Doug
>On 8-Oct-08, at 7:20 AM, Rachel Loden wrote:
>
>> Interesting that the only response is here, on this least provincial
>> of
>> lists.
>>
>> And he's in /Poems for the Millennium/, for crying out loud. (Pierre
>> Joris,
>> are you out there?)
>>
>> It's as if Creeley or Ashbery died and nobody said anything. But of
>> course
>> my own ignorance is vast.
>>
>> I've put up another poem ("A Flower Song") and an early picture of
>> him,
>> taken around the time the poem was written.
>>
>> http://wordstrumpet.blogspot.com/
>>
>>
>>> lepää rauhassa---Rests in peace
>>> P
>>>
>>> lepää rauhassa
>>>
>>> KS
>>>
>>> 2008/10/7 Rachel Loden <[log in to unmask]>
>>>
>>>> Life being short, poverty and wealth
>>>> are final verdicts, in that
>>>> poverty and life are of equal duration
>>>> and wealth and cold indifference
>>>> are perennial and hereditary, like diseases.
>>>>
>>>> (from /May, Eternal/, 1988, tr. by Anselm Hollo)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> And, briefly:
>>>> The old part (1754-1762) is known as
>>>> The Winter Palace.
>>>> Accordingly everything,
>>>> Floor, ceiling, walls
>>>> Is covered with these exalted beings:
>>>> Venus, Jupiter, many ladies
>>>> Of a full-bodied vintage.
>>>> You can still see how many a man
>>>> Lost head and hat
>>>> By the Berezhina River,
>>>> You can see that Borodino
>>>> Was a victory;
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Of such
>>>> I'm talking, here,
>>>> Under the roof
>>>> Thatched by my hair.
>>>>
>>>> (from /The Winter Palace/, 1959, tr. by Anselm Hollo)
>>>>
>>>> http://wordstrumpet.blogspot.com/
|