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Love and Solitude: Selected Poems, 1916-1923
English, Swedish (translation)
Original Swedish
Original Swedish
194 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1992
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144 people want to read
About the author
Edith Södergran
83 books111 followersEdith Irene Södergran was a Swedish-speaking Finnish poet.
Södergran was born in St Petersburg in 1892. In 1907 Edith's father died from tuberculosis, and in the following year Edith was also diagnosed with the disease. She was sent to a sanatorium, but did not feel at ease there. The feelings of captivity caused by the disease and the sanatorium are a recurring theme in her poetry.
In October 1911, Edith and her mother traveled to Arosa in Switzerland where Edith was examined by different doctors. After a few months, she was transferred to the Davos-Dorf sanatorium. In May 1912, her condition had improved enough for her to return home. Eventually, the disease returned and Edith Södergran died in 1923 in her home in Raivola. She was 31 years old.
Södergran was born in St Petersburg in 1892. In 1907 Edith's father died from tuberculosis, and in the following year Edith was also diagnosed with the disease. She was sent to a sanatorium, but did not feel at ease there. The feelings of captivity caused by the disease and the sanatorium are a recurring theme in her poetry.
In October 1911, Edith and her mother traveled to Arosa in Switzerland where Edith was examined by different doctors. After a few months, she was transferred to the Davos-Dorf sanatorium. In May 1912, her condition had improved enough for her to return home. Eventually, the disease returned and Edith Södergran died in 1923 in her home in Raivola. She was 31 years old.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
November 13, 2019
When Edith Södergran died in 1923 aged thirty-one she had very few friends or followers of her work, and was laughed off as a poet after releasing four slim books of poetry.
Tuberculosis and malnutrition blighted most of her life, she experienced the harshness of civil war in Finland, never fully recovered from a disheartening love affair, and due to the Russian Revolution, saw much needed finances she and her mother were receiving from St. Petersburg cut off. Yet Edith truly believed in the value of her poetry and was undeterred, even in the shadow of death.
Over time, rather than just fade away, her poetry has gone on to influence and inspire Scandinavians, and through the wonderful work of translation (something that can be easy to take for granted) Södergran has now gained admiration in the English-speaking world. She belonged to the Swedish-speaking minority in Finland, and wrote most of her work in Swedish, but started out writing poetry in German as a fourteen-year-old, whilst studying French and Russian, and by the time she reached sixteen it was discovered she had Tuberculosis, which had previously claimed the life of her father.
Her poetry speaks with a lyrical purity, and she had many different voices as a poet. There is poignancy, but she also sings of life's joy. They can appear simple on the surface, but carry a deeper level of meaning. They can be light and sweet, but can also carry darker pain. She expressed her concerns and feelings about being a woman, and her clear ambivalence towards men. There is also a prophetic feel, and an almost primeval force at the heart of some of them, while in the last poems Södergran ever wrote, she accepts death with a calm grace. Love and Solitude was another book of poetry that I greatly admired.
"Beautiful sisters, come high up to the strongest rocks,
we are all fighting women, heroines, horsewomen,
eyes of innocence, brows of heaven, rosy faces,
heavy breakers and soaring birds,
we are the least expected and the darkest red,
tigerspots, taut strings, fearless stars"
"You looked for a flower
and found a fruit.
You looked for a well
and found a sea.
You looked for a woman
and found a soul.
I disappoint you"
"All my air castles have melted like snow,
all my dreams have run off like water,
all that remains of what I've ever loved
is a blue sky and some pale stars.
The wind moves quietly through the tree.
Emptiness rests. The water is still.
The old fir tree stands awake thinking
of the white cloud that he kissed in his dream"
"My life has turned ominous like a stormy sky,
my life has turned false like a reflecting pond,
my life walks a tightrope high up in the air:
I dare not look at it.
All the wishes I had yesterday
droop like the lowest leaves on a palm stork,
all the prayers I sent yesterday
are irrelevant and unanswered"
"Your love darkens my star,
the moon rises in my life.
My hand is not at home in yours.
You hand is lust,
my hand is longing"
Tuberculosis and malnutrition blighted most of her life, she experienced the harshness of civil war in Finland, never fully recovered from a disheartening love affair, and due to the Russian Revolution, saw much needed finances she and her mother were receiving from St. Petersburg cut off. Yet Edith truly believed in the value of her poetry and was undeterred, even in the shadow of death.
Over time, rather than just fade away, her poetry has gone on to influence and inspire Scandinavians, and through the wonderful work of translation (something that can be easy to take for granted) Södergran has now gained admiration in the English-speaking world. She belonged to the Swedish-speaking minority in Finland, and wrote most of her work in Swedish, but started out writing poetry in German as a fourteen-year-old, whilst studying French and Russian, and by the time she reached sixteen it was discovered she had Tuberculosis, which had previously claimed the life of her father.
Her poetry speaks with a lyrical purity, and she had many different voices as a poet. There is poignancy, but she also sings of life's joy. They can appear simple on the surface, but carry a deeper level of meaning. They can be light and sweet, but can also carry darker pain. She expressed her concerns and feelings about being a woman, and her clear ambivalence towards men. There is also a prophetic feel, and an almost primeval force at the heart of some of them, while in the last poems Södergran ever wrote, she accepts death with a calm grace. Love and Solitude was another book of poetry that I greatly admired.
"Beautiful sisters, come high up to the strongest rocks,
we are all fighting women, heroines, horsewomen,
eyes of innocence, brows of heaven, rosy faces,
heavy breakers and soaring birds,
we are the least expected and the darkest red,
tigerspots, taut strings, fearless stars"
"You looked for a flower
and found a fruit.
You looked for a well
and found a sea.
You looked for a woman
and found a soul.
I disappoint you"
"All my air castles have melted like snow,
all my dreams have run off like water,
all that remains of what I've ever loved
is a blue sky and some pale stars.
The wind moves quietly through the tree.
Emptiness rests. The water is still.
The old fir tree stands awake thinking
of the white cloud that he kissed in his dream"
"My life has turned ominous like a stormy sky,
my life has turned false like a reflecting pond,
my life walks a tightrope high up in the air:
I dare not look at it.
All the wishes I had yesterday
droop like the lowest leaves on a palm stork,
all the prayers I sent yesterday
are irrelevant and unanswered"
"Your love darkens my star,
the moon rises in my life.
My hand is not at home in yours.
You hand is lust,
my hand is longing"
August 7, 2022
For my little songs,
those curious laments, those sunset-colored ones,
spring offered me a shore bird's egg.
I bade my lover paint my portrait on the thick shell.
He painted a young bulb in brown soil -
and, on the other side, a round soft mound of earth.
*
September 8, 2016
"I am no woman. I am a neuter.
I am a child, a page-boy, and a bold decision,
I am a laughing streak of a scarlet sun . . .
I am a net for all voracious fish,
I am a toast to every woman’s honor,
I am a step toward luck and toward ruin,
I am a leap in freedom and the self . . .
I am the whisper of desire in a man’s ear,
I am the soul’s shivering, the flesh’s longing and denial,
I am an entry sign to new paradises.
I am a flame, searching and brave,
I am water, deep yet bold only to the knees,
I am fire and water, honestly combined, on free terms."
Edith Södergran is regarded as a pioneer of Modernism in the Swedish lyric.
At the beginning of the last century, she has boldly exemplified her vision for new art in Poetry in a solo manifesto "that heralded an historic break from lyrical convention and the birth of a new, modern poetry".
Her article-manifesto echoes the other, however collective, European avant-garde movements such as Futurism in Russia.
In this review that I recommend,(http://scholar.harvard.edu/lindqvist/...), Ursula Lindqvist interprets some of her poems to highlight the idiosyncrasy of her style and tonality, the characteristics of her creative imagery and how she has skillfully "recast such natural imagery in a linguistically simple yet philosophically complex poetics that celebrated individual creative power"..
Edith Södergran is regarded as a pioneer of Modernism in the Swedish lyric.
At the beginning of the last century, she has boldly exemplified her vision for new art in Poetry in a solo manifesto "that heralded an historic break from lyrical convention and the birth of a new, modern poetry".
Her article-manifesto echoes the other, however collective, European avant-garde movements such as Futurism in Russia.
In this review that I recommend,(http://scholar.harvard.edu/lindqvist/...), Ursula Lindqvist interprets some of her poems to highlight the idiosyncrasy of her style and tonality, the characteristics of her creative imagery and how she has skillfully "recast such natural imagery in a linguistically simple yet philosophically complex poetics that celebrated individual creative power"..
June 26, 2014
The translation was too literal to make these poems come alive in English for me, but the Swedish is on the facing page if you can work your way through it.
Södergran's mythic, embodied, folk-inspired death imagery fascinated me and reminded me of the American poet Frank Stanford. Both died tragically in their early 30's, fifty years apart (Stanford by suicide, Södergran from tuberculosis). While they wrote about very different places -- the Mississippi Delta and the Baltic -- both opened a door for Death to walk into their poems, sit down and have a life-long dialogue with Beauty.
The Nietzschean influence on Södergran gets a little melodramatic, but hers is a compelling, unique, and beautiful voice. A Swede born and raised in St. Petersburg and Finland, she wrote in the shadow of the Russian Revolution, but evokes the angsty, edgy atmosphere of Munch, Strindberg, and Chekhov and the twilight world of the turn of the century.
Södergran's mythic, embodied, folk-inspired death imagery fascinated me and reminded me of the American poet Frank Stanford. Both died tragically in their early 30's, fifty years apart (Stanford by suicide, Södergran from tuberculosis). While they wrote about very different places -- the Mississippi Delta and the Baltic -- both opened a door for Death to walk into their poems, sit down and have a life-long dialogue with Beauty.
The Nietzschean influence on Södergran gets a little melodramatic, but hers is a compelling, unique, and beautiful voice. A Swede born and raised in St. Petersburg and Finland, she wrote in the shadow of the Russian Revolution, but evokes the angsty, edgy atmosphere of Munch, Strindberg, and Chekhov and the twilight world of the turn of the century.
March 25, 2023
This beautiful collection made me realize I should really be reading more poetry in the future, I'm so grateful I have friends willing to lend me their books and expand my reading habits.🩷
January 8, 2025
This was a treat to read, rife with drama, imagery, and shrouded with mystery and sweet moments.
October 12, 2009
wanted to read.,,
found those poems online
.. decided not to read :) now.. maybe some other time..
THE STARS
When night comes
I stand on the steps and listen,
stars swarm in the yard
and I stand in the dark.
Listen, a star fell with a clang!
Don’t go out in the grass with bare feet;
my yard is full of shards.
***
THE ARMORED TRAIN
Fifty coaches of hopes I loaded up for your America.
They came back empty...
Disappointment cargo
Now I’m sending an armored train with stonehard masks in the threatening portholes:
thousands of packed coaches are coming home.
***
LITTLEOLDMAN
Littleoldman sits around counting eggs.
Every time he counts, one egg is lost.
My friends, don’t show him your gold.
***
MY ARTIFICIAL FLOWERS
My artificial flowers
I send them to you.
My small bronze lions
I set up at your door.
I myself sit down on the steps --
a lost oriental pearl
in the big city’s noisy sea.
Translated by Johannes Göransson.
found those poems online
.. decided not to read :) now.. maybe some other time..
THE STARS
When night comes
I stand on the steps and listen,
stars swarm in the yard
and I stand in the dark.
Listen, a star fell with a clang!
Don’t go out in the grass with bare feet;
my yard is full of shards.
***
THE ARMORED TRAIN
Fifty coaches of hopes I loaded up for your America.
They came back empty...
Disappointment cargo
Now I’m sending an armored train with stonehard masks in the threatening portholes:
thousands of packed coaches are coming home.
***
LITTLEOLDMAN
Littleoldman sits around counting eggs.
Every time he counts, one egg is lost.
My friends, don’t show him your gold.
***
MY ARTIFICIAL FLOWERS
My artificial flowers
I send them to you.
My small bronze lions
I set up at your door.
I myself sit down on the steps --
a lost oriental pearl
in the big city’s noisy sea.
Translated by Johannes Göransson.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews