En kväll i oktober rodde jag ut på sjön

by Tua Forsström

En ny diktsamling av Tua Forsström är alltid en händelse. Sånger hette den senaste, som utkom år 2006. De nya dikterna knyter – ibland handgripligt – an till Forsströms tidigare produktion, och miraklen och kärleken hittar man mitt i det allra vardagligaste. Här bjuder vi på en dikt som står som ett slags startpunkt i den nya samlingen.

Genres: Poetry, Swedish Literature

43 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

Tua Birgitta Forsström (born 2 April 1947) is a Finnish writer who writes in Swedish. She was awarded the Nordic Council Literature Prize in 1998 for the poetry collection Efter att ha tillbringat en natt bland hästar. Forsström's work is known for its engagement with the Finnish landscape, travel and conflicts within relationships. She often uses quotations in her work, sometimes placing them directly into her poems and at other times using them as introductions or interludes in her sequences. She has used quotations from Egon Friedell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Hermann Hesse and Friedrich Nietszche. In the collection After Spending a Night Among Horses (Efter att ha tillbringat en natt bland hästar) (1997) Forsström uses quotations from the Andrei Tarkovsky film Stalker, they are placed as interludes in a sequence of pieces and sit alone on the page, without direct reference to their source on the page, leaving this to a Notes & Quotations section at the end of the book.

She published her first book in 1972, A Poem about Love and Other Things (En dikt om kärlek och annat). Her breakthrough into the English-speaking world came in 1987 with her sixth collection, Snow Leopard (Snöleopard), which was translated into the English by David McDuff and published by Bloodaxe Books. In 1990 the book won a Poetry Book Society Translation Award in the United Kingdom. In 2006, I Studied Once at a Wonderful Faculty was published by Bloodaxe Books, with translations from David McDuff and Stina Katchadourian. The collection contains Snow Leopard (Snöleopard) (1987), The Parks (Parkerna) (1992), After Spending a Night Among Horses (Efter att ha tillbringat en natt bland hästar) (1997) and a new poem sequence called Minerals.

On 7 February 2019 Forsström was elected a member of Swedish Academy succeeding Katarina Frostenson at seat 18. She was inducted in December 2019.[

Reviews

[Edita · Rating 4 out of 5]

The next chapter is called: separating
Small touching fish with striped backs by the jetty,  
look translucent in the water
They freeze to ice if the water freezes to ice
When I was little I wanted to cherish the pretty  
pictures: cut out, paste in, copy over
We don’t know about one another, one can’t  
keep track of everything

[Víctor Bermúdez · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jag stänger fönstret: friskt, fullmäne över snön.
Den klara natten. Ett grönskimrande jus över
Stockholm, som om vi var inne i isen.

///

I close the window: fresh, full moon over the snow.
The clear night. A green-shimmering light above
Stockholm, as if we were inside the ice.

[Anzi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Så fin!

"Fåren går och betar som milda stjärnor"

[Johanna Hedström · Rating 3 out of 5]

Om hösten, ålderns höst. Demens som smyger på eller är det minnet som ändrar sin form när man blir gammal. Personer som återvänder och blandas med de som finns nu?

Språket är enkel och klassiskt poetiskt, inte riktigt min stil (mest matchade utgåvan den andra av Forsström som jag har). Oroar mig inte ännu över ålder så berör inte mig så djupt. Nätt och lite för dyster för maj.

[Christian · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very quick read but an enjoyable one nonetheless, a poem that starts out on a lake and moves through the seasons, incorporating animal and nature imagery such as hares, swans, rainfall and snowfall. For me it was probably a 3.5 star sort of read but it does have the Swedish/Finnish (not quite sure which but think the former) translation in the book, so it is one I will return to to learn a little bit more.

[Carolyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I must have ordered this book by accident. I had never heard of the author, who turns out to be only a couple of years younger than me and who lives in one of my favorite cities, Helsinki. I had never heard of the book, but it turned up as a charge on my Visa and a package in my mailbox. I certainly won’t be returning it! I read through the McDuff translation of these poems in one sitting. I’m sure I will go back to them again and again. I read a lot of poetry and it has been a long time since I was so deeply moved.

This is my second day of reading Forrstrom. I’ve spent the last few hours moving back and forth between the English translation and the Swedish (I think) original. Her sentences are so simple and direct that it’s possible to do this even when one knows no Swedish. Although I don’t know how I’m supposed to pronounce the words, the presence of the original has given me a sense of the alliteration, internal rhyme, and even some linguistic melody.

[Taija · Rating 4 out of 5]

Runoja on vaikea ymmärtää suomeksikin, mutta laitoin itselleni vielä lisähaastetta lukaisemalla tämän runoteoksen ruotsiksi (onneksi ei ollut hirveän pitkä, sillä sanakirjasovelluksen kanssa oli hidasta edetä...)

Forsström maalailee todella kauniita tuokiokuvia. Aluksi pidin tätä sekavana ajatuksenjuoksusta, mutta kyllä siitä sitten rupeaa punainen lanka löytymään. Mutta ei kaikki siltikään auennut. Kuka esimerkiksi on Vanessa?

Tykkäsin kovasti toistosta - tietyt sanat ja tilanteet toistuvat läpi kirjan. Rakeet, tuuli, eläimet. Kirja, joka tulee lukea vielä toisenkin, ehkä kolmannenkin, kerran.

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

pakkohan se oli stipendinä saatu kirja lukee… mut ei tosiaan ollu mitenkään erityisiä ig 😭

[Juurakkotukka · Rating 1 out of 5]

En taaskaan tajunnu tästä yhtään mitään.

[Sanjuro · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read through this book quickly, in a single sitting, and I think it was the right reading choice, at least for a first read through, as it allowed the themes and imagery to wash over me in a way that allowed for the various connections to be more prominent. The book begins on a lake, with darkness and rain and moves slowly into freezing and snowfall. The narrator connects to wildlife; the wolf and the hare, and at various points a stream of consciousness appears to take over which leads to less accessibility but more allusions and associations, more vacillations between dreaming and being awake. The language is full and evocative. I'll need to remember to revisit the collection in the future.

[Abby · Rating 4 out of 5]

"We want so badly to say something real"

This was my first foray into Forsström's work, but I will definitely come back to it. It was lyrical and swift, while simultaneously being transporting and grounding.

Also, I'm not saying that Taylor Swift alluded to this book in folklore, but I'm not not saying that.

"Sometimes I think I glimpse a beloved figure at the bus stop"

"We think we'll grow calmer, but it is chaos that grows."

"Perhaps there are places within us where we haven't been?"

[Heidi · Rating 3 out of 5]

”Hajota pienempiin osiinsa pienimmät
osat, mitä löydät?
Pimeys, sade, ystävällisyys
Ilotulitus leimahti taivaalle lounaassa Kuusitien yllä äkkiä
Valtavat kukat laskeutuivat ja sammuivat hitaasti
syöksyivät veteen ja sammuivat äkkiä tavallisen
iltana jolloin ruusuja hitaasti suli
veteen syöksyi ja putosi”

Suom. Caj Westerberg

Lisää tekstiä tulossa, jos muistan.

[Josie · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first time reading Forsström’s poetry. While I couldn’t connect with all of the pieces, the ones that I did are powerful. The language is simple and easy to connect with, and the imagery is rich. I loved being able to read the Swedish originals alongside the translated English to get a feel for the sound and rhythm of each piece.

[Simon Jenkin · Rating 4 out of 5]

sparse, beautiful and evocative.

[Erja Linnonmaa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Puhdasta kauneutta. Kiitos tekijälle ja suomentajalle!

[Nea · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was beautiful and I really liked all of the poems, but some of them hit harder than others. I don't usually read in swedish but this was pretty understandable

["Robert Ekberg" · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Jag säger att jag har gått en kurs men det hjälper mig inte" (s. 9).

[Saga Hörling · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tung och vacker. Läses långsamt.

[Jonathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought this book on the strength of the cover art alone, on the grounds that I knew that it would be for me (sometimes you can judge a book by its cover).

The collection starts on a frozen street in Mejlans (near Helsinki) on an ordinary evening.

A perfectly ordinary evening, of darkness, rain and kindness.

As the October rain turns to winter ice and snow, the narrative of the collection flows through beautifully vulnerable introspections to outward looking realisations of the wonders of the stars and connections with animal spirits, the wolf, the hare and the wild of the forest.

There is a feeling of beginning again, a new life, a new town and finding new friendship, while struggling with the changing nature of family, ageing parents and the chaos that comes with the passing of the years but tells us not to fear the chaos, well not to fear it too much any way.

Amongst the pages, there are surprise visits from Houdini who vanishes in the glitter and Albert Einstein on being shipwrecked in the open sea.

I love this book. I love it so much, I’ve written my first ever book review about it.

The last two lines of the last page, make me well up every time I read them.

https://sandcastlegalaxy.wordpress.co...

[World Literature Today]

This book was featured in the Nota Benes section of the March/Apr 2016 issue of World Literature Today Magazine.

http://www.worldliteraturetoday.org/2...

[Angelique · Rating 2 out of 5]

I rate poetry by how many poems I loved in a collection and unfortunately, most of the poems in One Evening in October I Rowed Out on the Lake did not resonate with me. I would not blame the translation here, because I thought the poems sounded really amazing in English. This collection overall is really well written - all the poems connect through little pharses and imagery, which is rather clever.

The poems that I loved though, wow, they were really worth reading the rest! So, I am a bit torn and this volume is 2.5 stars for me.