Welcome to Modern Finnish Writers!
The database includes the authors’ personal details and introduces their work. The sources selected for further reading are mainly web-based, but there are references to other documents as well. Some texts on these web pages have been especially written for the database by the authors. The English pages are not identical to the Finnish and Swedish ones, as they mainly focus on authors whose work has been translated into English.
We hope you enjoy your visit!
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This section is only in Finnish!
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IN THE MALE THERE`S A CAVE
In the male there's a cave
that he came out of.
He doesn't know it.
It's no womb, it's stone,
a place where he retreats
to protect himself from the woman
who sleeps hunched up inside him.
He keeps weapons there,
nails and teeth,
the early image of his sex,
goes to dream his dreams there
curled up like a caterpillar
chin on knee.
When the woman wakes, the man starts up,
and doesn't know where he`s got to.
He sees the breasts and the womb,
the ikon of a body, like a window into heaven,
and the lap's creamy swamps,
the toothless mystery of thirst
and hunger's mother-of-pearl handsaw,
the teeth and the blood.
Halun ikoni (1997). Translated by Herbert Lomas (Three Finnish Poets, 1999)
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