FinNALA Newsletter
June
2012, Volume 5, Number 2
The Kippis! Contest has announced its winners. Congratulations
to the prize winners!
First place: Joanne Bergman, for “The
News from Nelmi: A Retrospective” (nonfiction)
Second
Place: Marlene Stoehr for “Death of a Sauna” (poem)Third Place: Elaine Moe for “Cleansing” (poem)
Their work is published in Kippis! Vol. 5, No. 2, and you can get to it here: www.finnala.com
--
Planning for
FinnFest 2013 is underway.
FinNALA
is having a membership meeting there, and
G. K. Wuori and Beth Virtanen are
working with Hilary Virtanen on the
Programming Committee to ensure maximum participation, especially from FinNALA
membership. Please click the link (www.finnala.com) to go to the Proposal form on the FinNALA
homepage. Use the form to submit your presentation idea so that you can ensure
an early acceptance.
--
Nancy Matson
has two new books out from Arrowhead Press. Penelope Shuttle characterizes Finns
and Amazons thus:
These
poems have clarity and poise, conveying the power and fortitude of women as
‘Amazons’ , ensuring that one such woman who vanished into history did not
disappear without leaving a trace, but is given record and honour. This is a
true task of poetry, and it shines from these pages where we find the
‘simultané’ of life, one powerfully-articulated thread in the brutal tapestry
of the twentieth century.
The other new work by Nancy is titled Lines from Karelia. Thousands of North American
Finns, gripped by “Karelian Fever”, moved to the Soviet Union in the 1930s to
help build a socialist utopia. Nancy Mattson’s search for meaning and motive in
that doomed project began with a personal search for her great-aunt Lisi, lost
in Karelia in 1939, and went on to generate poems based on history, family
letters and an autumn train journey to Karelia to meet her Russian step-kin.
This pamphlet contains a few of those poems along with all of Lisi’s surviving
letters and some historical photographs.
The work is
powerful. You can find out more about it here: http://arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/karelia.html
--
Bill Vartnaw readings are coming up in the not too distant
future. On July 12th, at the Sonoma Valley Museum of Art, he will be
reading with two former Sonoma County Laureates, Mike Tuggle & Gwynn
O'Gara, plus Patti Trimble to celebrate Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who is having an
art exhibition, Cross Pollination, at the Museum. Here is the url, http://www.svma.org/,
but the readings are not listed yet. Also, he is reading at the Petaluma
Poetry Walk at noon on September 16th at the River Front Art Gallery with David
Beckman and Ron Salisbury. Here is a schedule of the Walk's readings: http://petalumapoetrywalk.org/2012%20Poetry%20Walk%20Schedule.html
Some readings happen so quickly there is no time to give notice.
--
Ernest Hekkanen will be reading at
the inaugural Elephant Mountain Literary Festival in Nelson, British
Columbia, on July 12, 2012. Be sure to
join him if you are in the area.
--
Steve Lehto has a new book, Drawn to Injustice, that came out last week. It is not “Finnish” but it is of importance
to everyone in this country. What happened to Tim Masters could happen to
anyone.
The book was co-written
with the subject and Berkley is the publisher.
Find the
book here: http://www.amazon.com/Drawn-Injustice-Wrongful-Conviction
Timothy/dp/0425247929/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1317986345&sr=1-1
--
K. A. Laity is currently on a
Fulbright in Ireland which had given her the elbow room to be very productive. Her most recent publications include
the following:
Rook Chant: Collected Writings on Witchcraft and Paganism. Women’s League of Ale Drinkers, June 2012.
“Twitter Wedding.” Poem. Asinine Poetry (Summer 2012).
“Just Waiting.” Short story. Near to the Knuckle, 5 June 2012.
“On seeking a place for a picnic.” Poem. Short Humour, 22 May 2012.
“Wasting Time in a Writer’s Colony.” Clarion Foundation blog: 14 May 2012.
“Biscuits.” Flash fiction. Short Humour, May 2012. Also available at Postcard Shorts, May 2012.
“Chickens.” Short story. ACTION: Pulse Pounding Tales Vol 1. Ed. Matt Hilton: May 2012.
“Horse Clock.” Short story. Burning Bridges: A Renegade Fiction Anthology ed. Heath Lowrance.
“Bill is Dead.” Flash fiction. Pulp Metal Magazine, Spring 2012.
“It’s a Curse.” Short story. Drunk on the Moon: A Roman Dalton Anthology. Ed. Paul D. Brazill. Dark Valentine Press, April 2012.
--“Twitter Wedding.” Poem. Asinine Poetry (Summer 2012).
“Just Waiting.” Short story. Near to the Knuckle, 5 June 2012.
“On seeking a place for a picnic.” Poem. Short Humour, 22 May 2012.
“Wasting Time in a Writer’s Colony.” Clarion Foundation blog: 14 May 2012.
“Biscuits.” Flash fiction. Short Humour, May 2012. Also available at Postcard Shorts, May 2012.
“Chickens.” Short story. ACTION: Pulse Pounding Tales Vol 1. Ed. Matt Hilton: May 2012.
“Horse Clock.” Short story. Burning Bridges: A Renegade Fiction Anthology ed. Heath Lowrance.
“Bill is Dead.” Flash fiction. Pulp Metal Magazine, Spring 2012.
“It’s a Curse.” Short story. Drunk on the Moon: A Roman Dalton Anthology. Ed. Paul D. Brazill. Dark Valentine Press, April 2012.
Stephen Kuusisto has a new book of
poems forthcoming from Copper Canyon Press on October15 entitled Letters to Borges.
He also recently bought a horse for his wife Connie. The horse's name is Luigi! Stephen holds the post of Professor and serves as director of the Renée Crown University Honors Program at Syracuse University.
--
John (Juha) Raikkonen has written an immigrant’s story title, Life
is an Amazing Song . It is a wonderful book of a young boy's life
during the war times in Finland at his grandparents
in Oulu, North Finland. Later he was
sent to Orsa in the Dalarna region of Sweden. After several years with foster parents in
Sweden, he finally returned back to Finland to his mother, sister and brother
in Hameenlinna South Finland; it was a happy
homecoming after some seven years absence, but it was a shock. He found his family's life to be hard and raw. Food was scarce. They lived in a tiny firetrap apartment
building. His mother worked as a prison
guard and with her meager salary was barely able to support the family. His father returned from the war and immediately announced that he wanted a divorce
from mother. After that he disappeared
from their life without any financial support. Not long after their misery, there was a
change when mother regained her old position at the Internationally famous
Hotel Aulanko. The family moved to the
hotel's premises, into a solid large log cabin. Now life turned out for the better. The hotel years were exciting and uplifting. Life was beautiful again. A "miracle" happened to the boy, at
age seventeen, when he received an invitation to America, with
all travel and living expenses paid, plus schooling in Philadelphia. He embraced his new life in America with vigor
- in the land of opportunity-becoming a successful business man years later. He now lives in South Carolina with his wife,
close to their grandchildren.
You can obtain a copy of the book by visiting www.LifesAmazingSong.com ISBN:
1453735100 The author will autograph each book ordered through the web site.
--
Kenneth Lundstrom’s latest book, Return to the Land of My Fathers, is available. It is a fictional story, which follows a
family's struggle from the time before World War Two to the middle of the
1990s.
World War II destroyed
much of Europe, killing hundreds of thousands and changing the lives of those
caught in its path. “Return to the Land of my Fathers” tells
a story of a family’s evacuation from war-torn Karelia and their lives after
the war. Ilmari, the father, travels to
USA and becomes a well-known artist.
Aleksi, the son is
imprisoned in Siberia and becomes a member of the Soviet Intelligence. He trains to be an athlete, representing the
Soviets in the 1952 Olympics, where he defects.
Later he becomes a literature professor, specializing in Russian Literature. Ilmari, returns to the “Land of My Fathers” in his old age, with his children and
grand-children, but is left to question the emotional reality of his return.
Return to the Land of My Fathers (ISBN: 978-1-61897-347-4) is now available for $25.50 and can be ordered
through the publisher’s website: http://sbpra.com/KennethLundstrom or at www.amazon.com or www.barnesandnoble.com.
Author Kenneth Lundstrom has a Ph.D. in molecular biology and is involved in cancer
research and therapy. Originally from Helsinki, Finland, he has resided in
Switzerland for the last 20 years and holds dual Finnish-Swiss citizenship. He
previously published Taxi Trips to Remember or Forget, a travel memoir,
and is now writing his next book. He frequently returns to the land of his fathers.
--
Donna Salli's play, The Rock Farm, centered around her Finnish-American heritage and produced (you may recall) a number of times already, including in Finland, was given a staged reading and panel critique at the Great Plains Theatre Conference in Omaha at the end of May. Her script was one of 35 selected from over 640 scripts submitted. She spent a week there, and says it was amazing. The conference was a play development conference, and it taught her so much. She has since revised The Rock Farm, again, and is very happy with where the script is now. If anyone in the FinNALA world is interested in taking a look, she is looking for opportunities to see the play produced.
The link for the conference is http://www.mccneb.edu/gptc/
--
Salty Dog
By
Jim Heikkinen
Come
to life the Morton Salt Girl steps out of the pantry.
Umbrella
tilted coyly and wearing a cryptic smile, she drawls, “When it rains it pours.”
Reaching for an aerosol can of whipped cream, I smile back
Then fill my mouth to capacity with sweet foam
Until a great cloudburst of wet fluffy matter covers the girl
Her umbrella proves inadequate, her bare legs unprotected
I must get more sleep.
Jim
Heikkinen is
living in Dammam, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, on the Arabian (Persian) Gulf with
his wife and 16 month old daughter, and teaching Royal Saudi Navy cadets
English. It is very hot and getting
hotter (112 F humidity 45%). He says,
“Here is a salt (not ‘bath salts’ gosh—America is getting weirder by the day)
poem”:
--
Musical Meltwater
by Michael L. King(Jiangsu, 6/16/2012)
Between
peaks of ancient voices,
meter melts from glaciers of epic
verses. The trickles carve cadence
into slopes, join streams
that water lyric meadows.
--meter melts from glaciers of epic
verses. The trickles carve cadence
into slopes, join streams
that water lyric meadows.
New
Day
by Michael L. King(Jiangsu, 6/16/2012)
Aurora’s
splendid chariot ignites
the blushing morning sky with rosy-red
and purple flames from flying wheels that chase
the night’s opaque and drowsy veil away.
We wake, embrace, and taste our hearts’ delights.
We kiss, caress, rejoice, and bless our bed.
The sun ascends and warms our sacred space.
We pray at purity’s altar and lay
our fruits together. Wrapped in silken sheets,
we nurture life with love’s ambrosial treats.
We sing in bliss of future days when cribs
get built and friends present their bottles, bibs
and tiny clothes. A gleam engulfs our eyes;
we touch, delay, and rise exchanging sighs.
--the blushing morning sky with rosy-red
and purple flames from flying wheels that chase
the night’s opaque and drowsy veil away.
We wake, embrace, and taste our hearts’ delights.
We kiss, caress, rejoice, and bless our bed.
The sun ascends and warms our sacred space.
We pray at purity’s altar and lay
our fruits together. Wrapped in silken sheets,
we nurture life with love’s ambrosial treats.
We sing in bliss of future days when cribs
get built and friends present their bottles, bibs
and tiny clothes. A gleam engulfs our eyes;
we touch, delay, and rise exchanging sighs.
Urgency
by Michael L. King(Jiangsu, 6/16/2012)
(Inspired by Cao Zhi’s “Quatrain of Seven Steps,”
first draft written in Harbin in February of ’07)
A lyric written in the time it took
to take no more than seven steps might prove that urgency motivates minds to work
efficiently, especially when told
to poetize or die. Like lightning, thoughts
appear in flashes, fade fast; I have lost
a lot before my hand could write them down,
as I have also typed a panicked verse
or two in just a few minutes before
a task was due. But after endless hours
in search of how ideas want to flow,
I found, to find what lines are meant to be,
that diligence works best, at least for me.
--
Hazel Birt from Winnipeg writes
about her beloved Finnish Mummu. She is preparing for a
show at the Winnipeg Library of her woodcut illustrations from her children's
books: 'Festivals of Finland' and 'Flikka and the Magic Bear'.
My Crafty Finnish Mummu
By Hazel Birt
In New
Finland, Saskatchewan, my Finnish Gramma Mummu was a crafter.
She did
all kinds of crafts like weaving and spinning wool but her favorite was
knitting.I mean she knit all the time. She would go walking and knitting to the neighbors for coffee,
looking at the clouds, checking the wild flowers, listening to the birds.
But one
day this habit nearly brought her to harm. She came walking and knitting right
through
the open kitchen door. We heard a big ‘thump’ then Mummu’s angry voice,‘Who left the cellar trap door open again?’
the
shallow dug out with her knitting in her hands.
She
had everyone knitting. When Neighbor women came over for coffee Mummuwould say, ‘You might as well be knitting as just sitting there.’ And she would pass around
some knitting.
She taught all us children to knit. I remember
being this little kid missing all my first
teeth
and sitting in my little rocker beside Mummu knitting. The family would smile
and say,
There’s our two Mummus knitting’.
I’d be
chatting to her and she didn’t answer. I looked up and she seemed to be
sleeping
but she was
still knitting away...
I turned out to be an art teacher and craftsperson.
Mummu once helped me make a an
Easter banner
for a church in the
Arctic. It was to be in blue Inuit Slavic Lettering on white 6 feet
wide
to say,
‘Hallelujah, Christ is Risen.’ So we cut and we pasted. I
was proud to show it to Moses,
my Inuit friend. He said,
‘But Hazel, it doesn’t say ‘Hallelujah, Christ is risen.’ You have the
last symbol upside down. It
says
‘Hallelujah
dead.’ Like oops - we had to fix it before we mailed it up there.
Then
when my children were small one cold day we arrived at the farm. I said,
‘Mummu,
It’s really got cold out. Do you have any spare mitts?’Mummu got up slowly and said, ‘Tulla Lapset’ (Come children).
She showed us a drawer full of mitts. There was at least 50 pairs, all with what the kids
called
‘Idiot Strings’ attached so they wouldn’t lose them.
I taught
all my family to knit and do crafts. My grand daughter Anna took to
finger
knitting,
making
long colorful ropes . She was like Mummu she knit all the time. She and I would sit knitting side by side and we’d plan what she could do with all her long ropes.
"I know!’, she’d say, ‘For my sister Kirsten’s Birthday, let’s decorate the house with
streamers!
Hang them from the ceiling! And Kissa our cat needs a new collar. And I know, I won’t
get lost in the
park anymore - I’ll take my finger knitting and leave a long trail of it so I can find my
way back.’
I have
no doubt that crafting in my family will continue to the next generation.
Especially
Anna
will grow up to teach her children and grand children to be crafty like our
Finnish Mummu.
--
Tax Day
By Albert Vetere Lannon
I awoke this tax day morning
happy the
sun was bright in a cloudless spring sky
quail
were calling and doves were
cooing and a red cardinal
was singing at the edge of
our patio
dogs barked in the distance
and
a woodpecker staked out his territory
on our satellite dish the last spring wild
flowers sparked red and purple and yellow and
white and gold our
treasures
I
filled the bird feeders
fed the cat
brushed the dog
started the coffee and
made our Sunday breakfast
a ham and cheese oven pancake
bananas and melon on the side
we sat in companionable silence
occasionally
bursting into silly song
laughing then
back to eating scanning
the paper
full
of tax stories of course
actually reading a story now and
then
and
I saw this
for
every American combat death
in Afghanistan there are
twenty-five suicides
by
active and returned soldiers our sons and daughters
who wait months
for
an appointment
to even talk
about the
horror
if
they can
Bush’s war
Obama’s
war
our
war
on
our children
and on theirs April
15, 2012 and continuing.
--Less is More
Underwear in a Camera
By Eero Sorila
Too many buttons in a camera and
too much luggage to carry on a trip?
You are not alone if you have
been burdened by such frustrating reality. I reached a point where I had to do something radical to simplify my life on the road.
You may not go to the extreme I did. But I feel that we can all discover the wonderful
reality that, less is more.
I ended up designing a home-made camera as seen in the photo. It is basically an
aluminum box that floats in the water and has a simple lens.
There is only one button to click. The lens opening and shutter speed are easily adjusted by a manual lever. Without batteries the camera is totally reliable.
The back of the camera is removable. Why waste space while on the road. I fill the
“ box” with extra pair of socks and underwear. The rest of my luggage fits into a small
backpack.
Eureka ! For me, a fossil from the Kalevala times, less is more.
 |
| Eero Sorila |
With his simple camera and a small backpack Eero Sorila has travelled the globe.
He has just completed a photo book of 25 Ancient and Modern Landmarks.
Available from Xlibris Tel: 1-888-795-4274 ISBN 978-1-4691-113341
--
Finnish
Farm
by Diane Dettmann
In the dusty barn,
 |
| Diane Dettmann |
Waits to weave
Strips of rags
Into rugs.
The sawdust
covered
Workshop longsFor the Finnish carpenter's
Weathered hands
To spin
A wooden plate
At dusk, Finnish voices
Hum in the kitchen,
While birch bark crackles
In the sauna stove,
Calling bathers to an
Evening of
Rest and peace.
Hummingbirds,
Rutted gravel roadsLilac bushes, and
The crow's caw at dawn.
--
 |
| Lisbeth Holt |
Kaupunki Koti
by Lisbeth Holt
Kaupunki
koti! City home!
Mother’s kaupunki koti
offered comfort yet sophistication,Furnished with colorful rugs, paintings and books -
A private yet welcoming home in which she feted family and friends.
I see her little desk even now on which she wrote her poems and stories
In her bold inimitable handwriting, totally absorbed.
She loved the sound of traffic rushing by the windows.
She loved to be in a charmed circle of events.
She loved to briskly walk downtown with her regal posture
To the grocery store, the post office, her daily routine
In the quaint seaside city of Lake Worth.
Now when I wander room
to room in my city home,
I catch myself saying,
“kaupunki koti…”She never did see this city home of mine.
But of course she sees it now and I know she approves.
We lounge in the living room and sip a glass of wine or two,
Reminisce and ponder and tell riddles, too, with endless laughter!
We always understand each other, don’t we?
Together, then and now…in our kaupunki koti.
--
Newsletter editorial team: Beth L. Virtanen, Sirpa T. Kaukinen, G. K. Wuori.
