I just read a fantastic book called Danger of Verses. It consists of Finnish poems chosen by seven writers. Each writer has written a short essay of the poem chosen by him or her. The book was hilarious indeed. Then I found online the English version of this rural parody by the poet Ilpo Tiihonen. He is one of our most appreciated contemporary poets, born in 1950. In Finnish this poem was so cheerful and excellent that I thought his rural parodic scenes might be a joy for you too. Of course I and others who are not native English speakers miss its nuances but I know some can enjoy :)
A SUMMER EVENING’S SLIGHT CONCEPTUALNESS
Ah summer evening, and its eveningness,
its prodigious wonders and their bridgefulness
when the nightunited seamlessness
steals into one’s heart with restfulness
O heiferiness and humanness,
ah shivering shimmeringness,
innocents’ innocuousness
and vastness with its stresslessness –
five or six chicks of a dabchick,
and deep water, lapfulness.
Our blue sky’s mirrored changefulness!
the spruces’ tall topliness, their tips’ sacredness
the yellow-billed black singer’s flutiness.
Nested cosiness, mutual tootiness!
And oh the idler’s idling idleness
and the shuttling rower’s glidingness
on his holiday trip to goal-lessness
the fisherman’s undemanding uncatchingness
the innocent non-offendingness
of the leadhead’s letting-go-ingness.
Summer, great echoing summer’s heatstrokiness,
the haiku-puffs of the sauna’s smokiness, lip-lap
unsteady jettiness, lip-lap, rocking-about-edness
the naked skin’s nothing-about-it-edness
aerial echoing of seagulness
and goodies grilling for forkedness.
Ah gulfiness, lakiness, streaminess
ah featherlight set-free-again-ness
and seismic earth’s ecstatic staticness
and summer calm’s so easy boatliness.
Ah cows’ exuberant udderliness,
humanness, quiescentness,
ah Finnish horses’ trusty horsiness,
and foxcubs’ frisky foxiness,
hazelhens’ henness, snakes’ snakiness,
ah far-off-ness of quaky autumn, and its headachiness!
Oh microscopic wormy mouldiness
dandelions’ sunny harvest of goldiness
the headland’s swaying hayfulness
witchgrass’s whimsical playfulness
and sheep-sorrel’s sweet salt-tastiness!
Oh the saliva-licking of all unchasteness
hot musk-orchid’s scented headiness
passion flowers’ glad gift of unsteadiness
and the minty gluiness of sticky lipfulness
yes, and at the edge of happiness, thistliness.
But detail by detail the cosmic interdependenceness
and ref by ref its green inter-referenceness
sing the appendixness of human songfulness
Oh all the heiferiness, humanness, hoveringness
wafting cloud-loftiness, lofty melodiousness –
our heavenly household’s wallhung wise-sayingness –
oh summer cradling us, its total cradlingness.
Translated by Herbert Lomas (assisted by Soila Lehtonen)
A summer evening’s slight conceptualness
III song: Summer symfony, dedicated to the author Joel Lehtonen (1881–1934)
From Eros (WSOY, 2002)
The Finnish lyrics can be found here.
Mosaic Monday
Natur-Donnerstag
I know, the poem is in English and it translates very poorly into German with Google.
But I wish you can enjoy the photos - and maybe learn some English...
Natur-Donnerstag
I know, the poem is in English and it translates very poorly into German with Google.
But I wish you can enjoy the photos - and maybe learn some English...
I wish you enjoyed!
