Poetry
The Winter Palace
Talvipalatsi
Paavo Haavikko · 1959
Synopsis
A cycle of nine poems, under the title of a winter palace. In these complex pieces the poet continues the reflection on the art of poetry begun in the earlier collections, where the poet's task was to interpret the common suffering of men. The language is stripped bare, the image is given without comment, and the reader must fill in what is left unsaid.
Context
Published by Otava in 1959, the sequence crowns the four collections of the fifties, from 1951 to 1958. Its effect on young poets has been compared to that of Eliot's The Waste Land; John Ashbery admired it. It appeared in English around 1967-1968 under the title The Winter Palace, and Art House brought out a facsimile of it in 1999. Its author's verse exists in twelve languages, but not in French.
Who it is for
A slim collection, in Finnish, and a most elliptical poetry: one has to accept not grasping everything.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as a milestone of modern Finnish poetry; it made its author the foremost writer of his generation.