The function of poetry in our time is difficult to grasp. History seems to be going off the rails, war thunders next door, the promise of utopias and even modest promises are fading. Something else is coming into view—a new era—whose existence is undeniable, but which remains partly out of sight. We are seemingly together, united with all of humanity on an ever-shrinking planet. Our situation’s fragility—the sense of catastrophic imminence—has many names: estar de más en el globo (Garrido),[1] collapsologie (Servigne, Stevens), [2] solastalgia (Aubrecht),[3] oneworldedness (Apter)[4]. We sense that ancient and classical ways of thinking are not enough to envision a future. No wonder, then, that we are afraid. What do we build our new dreams on?
The goal of this anthology is twofold. First, it offers the Finnish-speaking audience a glimpse of contemporary poetry in Spanish, Russian, and Arabic. Secondly, it renders a selection of Finnish poetry in English and Spanish translation, for foreign and foreign-background audiences. Nevertheless, the ideal of multilingualism does not in itself justify such a painstaking project.
The function of poetry is difficult to grasp, partly because we’re living through the primacy of the visual and of disposable entertainment. Poetry does not sell books, it is not made into movies, it doesn’t even get you ahead in academia. Our anthology stems from this gamble: through the selection and juxtaposition of poems, we gain a precious perspective on cultural differences, on the subject matter, worries, and worldviews conveyed by languages. In a few words, poetry encapsulates our complex, heterogeneous situation.
The project required the cooperation of several experts. The literary scouts were: Hamdam Zakirov (Russian), Roxana Crisólogo (Spanish), Omar Al-Jaffal (Arabic) and Sini Silveri (Finnish). The translators were José Luis Rico (from Finnish to Spanish and English), Jukka Mallinen (Russian to Finnish), Emmi Ketonen (Spanish to Finnish) and Aino Vesanen (Arabic to Finnish).
Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine affected the anthology’s preparation. Uzbekistan-born and long-time resident of Finland, the poet Hamdam Zakirov considered omitting the Russian-language section altogether in 2022. Even if the reaction would have been understandable, ultimately Zakirov decided it was worth highlighting those voices that represent the counterforce to Russian imperialism in its own linguistic region. In practice, the issue was resolved by featuring Russian-speaking poets who do not live or were not born in Russia. Three of those poets deal with the war in Ukraine itself. This turn of events, in our opinion, produced a more substantive selection. We got to know poets we otherwise would never have come across. Zakirov details the context and procedures in the preface to the corresponding section.
The anthology includes 54 poets from 23 countries. There are 12 poets from Finland and five from Mexico. Ukraine, Chile, and Peru are represented by four poets each. Three poets represent Iraq. Uzbekistan, Lebanon, Colombia, and Argentina each have two poets. Palestine, Sudan, Syria, Latvia, Kazakhstan, Estonia, Azerbaijan, Spain, Cuba, Bolivia, Uruguay, and Ecuador are each represented by one poet.
The opacity of our era has aesthetic consequences. Topicality seems to dominate current literary production, at the expense of the past and long-term issues. The topic has become a key artistic dimension. We deliberately refrained from commissioning theme-driven selections of poetry. The scouts were appointed to find texts that encapsulate the latest conceptual and aesthetic developments in each language. It was not an easy task, given that they were tackling vast literary traditions stretching over borders and centuries. We can attest that their inquiry has yielded a fitting sample, that will enrich the landscape of Finnish poetry.
Definition
A poem is any written text in verse or prose, that emphasizes the musical, symbolic and sensory aspects of language. It may seem obscure or easy to grasp. Poetry hones our sensitivity, pinpoints the essential, reveals the harsh truth hiding under our self-righteousness. It is shamanistic, affective, social, cardiovascular, hallucinatory, secular, dreamlike, altruist, sexual, comical, arrogant, and muscular.
The material limitations of the anthology did not allow visual forms, such as concrete poetry, video poetry, etc.
The paths and aesthetics of 54 different poets could hardly be described exhaustively in a preface. There are, of course, too many differences. However, we’ll mention the parallels we found, to offer the reader the best entry point into this multilingual anthill.
Language
Over the past century, the language of poetry has shifted with the waning of transcendental meaning. Immanence, hesitation, and sensuality have come to the fore. Perhaps poet Hanna Storm sums up the transition best: “[…] did not know how to change one’s language, / tried very hard to sound plausible // sought meaning, but above all / experiences.”[5] This change is multidirectional and manifests in each case in varying stages and forms, depending on cultural and geographical factors. Despite the variety of styles, small, faint parallels are noticeable throughout our anthology.
The poets and their poems evince a general distrust of language (“The word is brittle like a hair,” says Nidžat Mammadov), and an awareness that communication must be based on something other than concepts (“To speak the same language // we must return to the body,” Violeta Barrientos). Language becomes corporeal (Dámaris Calderón), it can be attacked (Halem al-Kinani), sometimes words are sheer filth on the skin of the dead (Ihab Shgaidel). Finnish poets seem less concerned about words as a theme and more with the tongue as an organ (“The uvula widened and throbbed. The tongue petrified,” writes Maria Matinmikko). Another area of interest among Finns is silence. In this context, Taneli Viljanen‘s research focuses on “[t]he traces left by writing […] the negative space around it; the blanks between language-objects.”
Regardless of what tradition they belong to, the poems in the selection seem lexically straightforward. However complex the topic might be, there is a palpable will to limit the vocabulary to a minimum. There is no decoration, although sometimes ritual or astronomical terms are used when depicting everyday things. Metonymy dominates. Even in the Russian-language section, where many poets introduce philosophical concepts and literary references, all words are in place in the service of thought. Spanish-speaking authors featured here write long poems, but the discourse’s sense and direction remain clear. Their images are far from the deliberate obscurity of Góngora or the neobarrocos.
World
In 2006, American theorist Emily Apter coined the concept of oneworldedness. Building on Immanuel Wallerstein’s study of globalization, oneworldedness conceives of the world as an extension of paranoid subjectivity, tainted by catastrophe and monomania. The human realm is full of gangsters and filthy factories. We believe an analogous experience of the world underpins many of the anthology’s passages. Estonian poet Igor Kotjuh writes: “too much of this, as if pumping a huge balloon full in a cramped room, increasingly displacing the memories, preventing the adult me and the child me from returning” (“January 9”).
Unlike previous centuries (when intellectuals wandered across continents gathering knowledge or even wisdom), travel now seems impossible, futile (Adalber Salas, Yahya Ashour). Traveling is even a scam (Valeria Román Marroquín, “vietnam”). Endless turmoil obfuscates consciousness (Ija Kiva).
To some poets, the world appears desolate (Mammadov: “the empty eye socket of the universe”). Sometimes they speak from the edge of their own realm (Raisa Marjamäki, Takui Nikogosjan), sometimes from their world’s center (Milka Luhtaniemi, Damaris Calderón).
Many are interested in the apocalypse (Reetta Pekkanen, Taneli Viljanen, Ramona de Jesús, Yuliana Ortiz Ruano, Tania Ganitsky), and there are even considerations about saving the world (Niillas Holmberg). Despite the gloom, or precisely because of it, many poets explore beauty (Berta García Faet, Martín Rodríguez-Gaona, Sergei Timofejev).
Nature feels closer but more puzzling. Self-conscious nature can communicate but is indifferent to humans: “The fruit tree reveals its nuptials” (Erkka Filander). Nature is no longer humankind’s enemy but, in a way, its evil creation: “On windy nights plastic bags rustle against each other / in satisfaction” (Raisa Marjamäki).
In this anthology, the world sometimes emerges as a being that should be left alone: “You close your eyes, allowing the world to rest / from the poison of the human gaze” (Mammadov, “Continuity II”). In many instances, the world acts as a screen on which poets project metaphors. However, such metaphors do not channel clear human meanings, but rather shock us with their enigmatic character: “Like the godwit’s, the planet’s eyes are on the two sides of the head” (Pauliina Haasjoki).
Human
Cybernetics, poststructuralism, ecology, and science fiction agree on at least one thing: the human’s time is up. This ominous claim is rooted in many scientific observations and means different things depending on the frame of reference.
In the 1950s, early cybernetics revealed a mechanism that later became the basis for explaining the functioning of many self-directed and living beings. The feedback loop mechanism describes a situation “in which the signal produced by the system returns to control the operation of that system,” a principle that is valid for machines, cells, animals, and communication systems (Lummaa &; Rojola, Posthumanismi, 2020, 15). The ancient boundaries set by philosophy and science—between animate and inanimate, animal and human, subject and environment—have crumbled. What remains of all this? What new concept is emerging in the void left by these changes?
Creation is no longer the human’s play toy. Gone is the Baudelairean wanderer on the prowl for startling experiences in the big city. The human is an object among objects. We stretch out in the sun, sneeze, and sometimes drink from puddles. We intuit we’re made of the same elements and aspirations as objects and animals (Ihab Shgaidel). On the other hand, there is no transcendental message behind these fellow beings—let alone a god. Ambling past us, hiding from us, these beings pose more questions than answers. In the geological scope, a human is insignificant (Raisa Marjamäki, Reetta Pekkanen).
The body is a central target of attention, but anatomical orthodoxy has gone out the window. The body is a transparent, cloud-shaped, machine-like gadget. The fear of the body’s decay is addressed in many poems (Maria Matinmikko, Hernán Bravo Varela). Mental and physical fatigue affects many (Mikko Väänänen, Malú Urriola, Daniil Zadorozhnyj, Lynn Najm). Sometimes repose is endowed with subversive attributes: “velvety pleasure? / revolution of the lying body?” (Alexander Averbuh).
The body sometimes acts as a direct metaphor for the self (Ángel Ortuño). The self is discontinuous, fragmented (Taneli Viljanen). The person distrusts their own thoughts and even spirituality (Juha Rautio). Memories are false, the senses lukewarm (Takui Nikogosyan). Instead of reasoning, the poems come up with dreams, allegories, hallucination (Silvia Goldman, Aleksandr Averbruh, Soufiane Elbali, Mahmoud Wahba). Wonder, disgust, and desire guide discourse and action: “what a shame it is to be human” (Žanar Sekerbayeva).
The awakening from the dogmatic dream of humanism has been rough, but it affords its own kind of satisfaction. That awakening has meant abdicating the crown of creation, relinquishing its throne. Humans are peasants, mammals, cyborgs. Awareness of this fragmentation and outsider status, however, opens up a new way of thinking, a third space in which objects and the world are more organically intertwined. In their company it is possible to marvel at the inhuman beauty of creation. The strangeness of everyday life sometimes acquires metaphysical overtones (Hanna Storm, Milka Luhtaniemi).
*
Archipelago leads the reader down winding paths, to return with hands full of sensations and enlightening questions. From Palestine to Finland, Chile to Azerbaijan, poetry drills openings in our claustrophobic planet. Fresh air blows through them. You can see space through these openings, gas clouds whistle there. We hope that these poems will leave a taste of constellation in the reader’s tongue, a hint of asymptotic presence.
Helsinki, 2023
Proofreading: Sini Silveri & Lasse Poser
[1] Garrido, M. 1999: Estar de más en el globo. Meditación desde el progreso y la civilización. Mexico City: Editorial Grijalbo.
[2] Servigne, P.; Stevens, R. 2015: Comment tout peut s’effondrer : petit manuel de collapsologie à l’usage des générations présentes. Paris: Ed. du Seuil
[3] Albrecht, G. 2005: Solastalgia: a new concept in human health and identity. PAN Partners.
[4] Apter, E. 2006: “On oneworldedness: Or paranoia as a world system”. American Literary History, 18, 2, Summer 2006.
[5] This quote is not included in the anthology, although it comes the same book (i’ll invite myself home, Aviador, 2018) our excerpt was taken from. In the preface, we do not cite the sources when the quotes are included into the anthology. Instead, a link directs the reader to the poem in question and the author’s information.
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