Poetry
Uni ja kuolema
Not translated into English
Uuno Kailas · 1931
Synopsis
Rhymed and measured poems, in which death, the fear of dying, guilt and pain take the largest place. One man feels a stranger wherever he goes, even within himself; another has only two doors, one towards sleep, the other towards death. A few love poems let hope through; a long piece runs at speed through a whole human life; two patriotic poems, one on the eastern border and one in the form of a prayer for the country, close the book.
Context
The fifth and last collection by its author, published by Werner Söderström in 1931, it closes ten years of intense creation; the following year, a selection of poems reprinted its pieces. Two patriotic texts came out of it to become national. The prayer, written for the Independence Day celebration of 1930, was set to music for choir by Taneli Kuusisto and sung for the first time five days before the Winter War, in 1939, at the Messuhalli in Helsinki; it has appeared in the hymnal since 1986. The book was reprinted in facsimile in 2007 and 2012.
Who it is for
A collection of about a hundred and sixty pages, in Finnish, rhymed and regular. Nothing to know in advance; the tone is dark from start to finish.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as the author's most important book, the one that earned him the name of the poet of dream and death.