Sirkka

Turkka


Born February, 1939, in Helsinki.
Nine collections of poetry, prose volumes.
Head stable man and librarian. Finlandia
Prize in 1987.

'The summer has been windful in places and the crust of the lake behaved accordingly. The window of my lodge faces the shore where trees dangle their branches. It is raining now, more than that I cannot say. In this small room, bed clothes, books and old letters are floating. I am floating in life, which I do not comprehend. The dog is my friend, that I comprehend. I enter the forest and stare at gigantic blueberries, just as if a thousand solar eclipses were looming from the midst of the mossy ground. Behind the cottage, on the slope of a hill, there are large mossy stones: I have looked at them for twenty years and hoped that they would hold out, and fare well.
The whole summer my typewriter has been standing on the table by the window. Not even once have I removed its cover, let alone written anything. I hear that I am a poet of the first rank. I do not know what is being manifested in me.'


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