Eira
Stenberg
Born 8 April, 1943, in Tampere. Five
collections of poetry, novels, radio
plays, children's books and plays.
Studied at the Sibelius Academy,
'Poetry is the well of Narcissus that reflects the face of Medusa:
love and death have presided over its birth. At the backdrop of
art there looms a loss, both one that has really happened and
those chances that life has denied. And in the final analysis, a
loss that is the most merciless: one's own death. But the pain
that gives birth to a poem, springs from love. An artist is
possessed by an unusually strong will to live and an awareness
of her own uniqueness My fear of death is the fear of being
buried alive, the revolt against the fact that life will not allow
the realization of all possibilities. And exactly that, life won't
allow. Even the fact of having been born a woman or a man
predestines the lot that denies the other alternative.
I feel that writing is, at bottom, a kind of deep narcissism: it
means a love relationship with oneself, and as is always the case
with love, the whole spectrum of feelings is displayed within it.
A poem is Orpheus's call to Eurydice to come back to life, its
purpose is to sing the dark side of one's self, to become alive. It is
an internal act of love where the different sides of one's persona
passionately seek one another. It requires courage, as love does,
and skill and patience to search out the right words that would
move the sovereigns of loss.'
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