Poetry
Pilvet
Not translated into English
Elvi Sinervo · 1944
Synopsis
Poems written in prison during the Continuation War, on toilet paper, by a political prisoner. They trace the formation of a worldview: the poet comments on the history and society of her time, and promises that those who wrote history in their own blood will one day be remembered. The best-known poem in the collection, “Natalia”, tells of a Ukrainian partisan.
Context
The poems were written in Hämeenlinna women's prison; a fellow inmate, a bookbinder, secretly assembled them with potato glue, under a cover cut from a prisoner's uniform, and the notebook was smuggled out. Their author very nearly did not publish them, judging her words to fall short of what she wanted to say. The collection appeared from Tammi in 1944, the year of her release. Several of her poems were set to music by the political song movement of the seventies.
Who it is for
A slim collection, in Finnish; it is better to know why wartime Finland imprisoned left-wing activists.
Prizes and reception
Her best-known collection, and one of the few Finnish books written entirely behind bars.