The FinNALA Newsletter
Communication
of the Finnish North-American Literature Association
Volume 9, No. 1
Publication
of the Finnish North American Literature Association
© April
1, 2016
Sirpa
Kaukinen, Assistant Editor
G.K. Wuori,
QC Watchdog
It’s
time to Subscribe/Renew your Membership for 2016 in the
Finnish
North American Literature Association (FinNALA)
The Perks of
Membership:
·
Receive
online access to Kippis! Literary Journal· Receive access to the FinNALA Facebook group
· Get announcements of what’s happening in the Finnish-North American literary community
· Get online issues of the FinNALA Newsletter
Membership Fee for
2016
·
$20.00
US
By Mail
·
Send
your name and address and your membership fee in the form of a check or money
order made out to “FinNALA” to the following address:Beth Virtanen, President
FinNALA, 931 Bayshore RoadL'Anse, MI 49946
USA
Online
·
Use
your credit card for online payment. o Visit us at www.finnala.com
o Click on Membership and submit payment with PayPal
o You don’t need a PayPal account—look for link to pay with your credit card.
Announcements & News
Kippis is now accepting submissions for our next issue. Send us your stories, poems, remembrances, essays. We’d especially like to see your poetry, but all submissions will be thoughtfully considered. Don’t be shy! Your work will be seen by a kind audience interested in what you can do. Guidelines for submission can be found at http://www.finnala.com/Kippis_subs.html and submissions can be sent to gkwuori at hotmail dot com.
--
FinNALA Website Working on
New Look
The FinNALA websits is updated and functional, but we are still waiting on our professional update. Look for details later in the year. In the meantime, the website is functional and can be used for renewals and for viewing our latest updates.
--
Membership in the
FinNALA Facebook Group Growing
For the past couple of years,
FinNALA has operated a private group for its membership to share announcements
and updates, and to provide opportunities for networking among its membership.
Membership participation has grown and each month sees new members joining the
group. Please do feel free to request membership in that closed group in order
to share information about your own publications and publications of interest
to you, including links to your own websites where your publications might be
purchased. As well, readers can share reviews of the works they would like to
recommend. FinNALA is pleased to see a vigorous exchange among our members and
guests.
To join, simply search for
"FinNALA" and request membership. An editor will approve your request
quickly.
--
John Hirsimaki’s First Novel in
Print
Lesser Mortals is the story of Aino set against the sweep of Finland's history from its days as a Grand Duchy of the Tsarist Empire through its war of independence, its fight for survival in the 1939-40 war against Soviet Russia and beyond, with a touch of intrigue and mystery. Independent minded characters, stalwart and courageous, often out of time and place people Aino's life from Finland to America and back again in search of her national identity.
Find it at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Lesser-Mortals-novel-John-Hirsimaki/dp/0692621970/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1460064957&sr=8-1&keywords=hirsimaki
Publisher: Timberhill Publishing (February 22, 2016)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0692621970
ISBN-13: 978-0692621974
--
Hekkanen Declared a Literary Landmark
Ernest Hekkanen’s collection False Memories and Other Likely Tales
(978-1-894842-26-6, $18.00) has become one of his best-selling titles. Alan
Twigg of BC BookWorld has declared
Hekkanen a Literary Landmark. Go to the Literary Map of BC and click on the only
balloon over Nelson, and you will find his particulars.
--
Lehto’s Latest Book in print
Steve
Lehto’s book “Dodge Daytona and Plymouth Superbird: Design, Development,
Production and
Competition” was published in February, 2016, by CarTech Books. The book tells the story of
Chrysler’s development of the fastest “stock” cars
ever built and sold to the public. The cars were so fast, in fact, that they
forced NASCAR to rewrite their rulebook. The cars have also become collector’s
items. Originally selling in the $5,000 range, one recently sold at auction for
$1,000,000.
Competition” was published in February, 2016, by CarTech Books. The book tells the story of
--
Finnish-American Architect Beautified St.Louis
New Book out by Rand and Sorila
In
1947, Finnish-American architect, Eero Saarinen designed the Gateway Arch in
St. Louis, Missouri. Construction began in 1963 and was completed in 1965. The
cost was 13 million dollars. In today’s currency that price would be
$97,300,000.
Gateway
Arch is the tallest memorial in the USA and is the highest arch in the world.
Saarinen designed the 630-ft arch to be earthquake proof by embedding 60 feet
deep footings. He created the structure out of hollow stainless steel that can
sway up to nine inches in either direction, withstanding 150 miles per hour
winds.
Inside
the tube a tram system takes visitors to the observation deck at the top. From
here a panoramic view of St. Louis unfolds to over four million visitors a
year.
Among
Saarinen’s other accomplishments are the design awarding Tulip and Womb chairs
and JFK International Airport’s TWA Flight Center.
For
more information on American icons, see the following:
American Monuments-The Stories Behind Our
Icons
by Mirjam Rand and Eric Sorila.
To
order copies of this book, contact:
Xlibris1-888-795-4274
www.Xlibris.com
Orders@Xlibris.com
Mirjam Rand has always loved photography and journalism. Having immigrated to Canada from Finland many years ago, she loves to visit undiscovered local delights as well as exotic locations around the world. She has had her work published by Alberta Tourism, many calendars and the Red Deer Advocate. She earned her B.F.A. and Teaching degree from Sir George Williams University in Montreal and has just recently retired from a career in education.
--
New and forthcoming titles by
Helena Halme
Helena Halme
Can love stay on
course?
Kaisa
knows she should be happy.
Marriage
to the Englishman, the dashing Peter, was a mere dream when she was a student
in Helsinki. But now the newlyweds are constantly arguing.
Kaisa
still loves Peter, even more when he goes away to sea, but she also wants a
career, and no one wants to give a job to a foreign Navy Wife.
Kaisa
needs to do something to change her new life, but she has no idea what.
One
thing she mustn’t do is fall for another man …
The Navy Wife is the
long-awaited sequel to The Englishman,
which attracted thousands of readers when first published on Helena Halme's
blog.
The Navy Wife can also
be read as a standalone novel.
Praise
for The Englishman:
"The Englishman will be one of the best
true stories you'll read this year!"
"A
cracking read"
"This gave me goosebumps"
The
Navy Wife by Helena Halme
Newhurst PressISBN-13: 978-0957371194
ISBN-10: 0957371195
BISAC: Fiction / Romance / Military
Paperback $10.99
Kindle copy $3.99
The Finnish Girl
Helena Halme
Can you be too
young for love?
Midsummer in Finland is a magical time ...
Kaisa is the new girl in town – again.
When a messy divorce forces Kaisa's mother to move to a small flat in
an island suburb of Helsinki, Kaisa isn't looking forward to another new
school. But in Lauttasaari she meets Vappu Noren, and begins to spend most of
her time in Vappu's large, chaotic house, filled with her three unruly siblings
and their friends.
Kaisa doesn't notice that she is being quietly observed by the friend
of Vappu's brother, a much older, serious boy called Matti. When spring turns into
Midsummer, Matti finally decides to approach the girl of his dreams.
The Finnish Girl is a prequel to the 1980s romance, The Englishman, and tells
the story of Kaisa before she meets her handsome English Navy Officer.
The Finnish Girl, a Nordic romance, will be out April 15th 2016.
The novella can be preordered from Amazon.com [link: http://www.amazon.com/The-Finnish-Girl-young-Englishman-ebook/dp/B01DNQMH30] now!
About the author, Helena Halme
Helena
Halme grew up in Tampere, central Finland, and moved to the UK via Stockholm
and Helsinki at the age of 22. She is a former BBC journalist. She has also
worked as a magazine editor and a bookseller and, until recently, ran a
Finnish/British cultural association in London.
Since
gaining an MA in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University, Helena has published
four novels, The Englishman, The Navy Wife, Coffee and Vodka,
and The Red King of Helsinki. Her novella, a prequel to The Englishman, The Finnish Girl will out in April 2016.
She is working on the final novel in The Englishman trilogy.
Helena
lives in North London with her ex-Navy husband and an old stubborn terrier,
called Jerry. She loves Nordic Noir and sings along to Abba songs when no one
is around.
You
can find out more about Helena and read her blog at www.helenahalme.com, where you can also sign up for her Newsletter and Helena’s Review
Crew.
Connect
with Helena online:
www.helenahalme.comEmail: hello@helenahalme.com
Twitter: @helenahalme
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HelenaHalmeAuthor
Pinterest: https://uk.pinterest.com/helenahalme/
--
Creative Submissions
If You Must Fall
Don HagelbergBecause those behind drug-bars bleed broke and dead.
Cry out your hope for the tattered prisoners.
Those
strung-out excavate their graves, disinter.
They
could do nothing less than life-shed, backward,If you must fall, fall upon a comforter.
Un-drugged
clans rule by law and officers.
Their
genes keep their children in the austerity of pure beds.Cry out your hope for the tattered prisoners.
Drunken
men, who swear and urinate luster,
halt
mid-stream, partial watersheds, and say instead,“If you must fall, fall upon a comforter.”
Still-born
by swallowed alcohol, they transfer
the
prayer-step mocked to the one pled.Cry out your hope for the tattered prisoners.
You,
who have the drunken mirror of false belief,
do I
reflect your sober wish there, unsaid?If you must fall, fall upon a comforter.
Cry
out your hope for the tattered prisoners.
--
Breakfast Volcanology
Jim
Heikkinen
The
egg has lava, she says
carving
vents into the overeasy dome.
Bright
yellow flow moves up her raised butter knife
which
she licks attentively, then hungrily.
Before
a yoke sill can devlop along a wheat toast block
both
are suddenly lifted into the space between.
White
mums held in a simple jar,
water
growing milky green. --
The Present: En Dikt Inne
Minne Av Injmar Bergman
Don Hagelberg
As
I do what I do,
what
I dopulls me through
from the present into
the future as this word
flows from the edge
of contained ink into
the surface of
the becoming page,
satisfying the urge
to mean something
which I both choose
and which also hides
unknown in the verge.
--
Jim Heikkinen
Billboards
here offer welcome distraction to scenery that appears
bulldozed
but actually is quite natural.Matted garbage and blowing litter serve the function of
keeping the dust down—
the relentless dust the consistency of talc mixed
with a thousand years of filth, bacteria and ancient fecal
decomposition.
Half–buried tires are formed into circular desert formations
for no reason.
Hacking up phlegm eventually becomes a salute of
comradery .
During the afternoon bus commute, highway traffic was
backed up
due to a double bed truck that had jack knifed spilling white
boulders
the shape of large prettified watermelons over four lanes.
You instantly regret not freezing an image like everyone
else but soon forget why.
The scene provided a salutary relief
from sitting yet once again on the company bus
staring at the hands while trying to ignore
the drone or whine of a white haired expat’s replay of
complaints and futile comparisons to “Back Home”
somewhere:
Pirate
John (everyone has a nickname) perches
clip on
sun shades inside his prescription lenses and wears his watch strapped tightly to the outside
of a windbreaker he wears year-round even
when the temperature breaks 125 degrees in the pointless
shade.
A new compound wall collapsed soon after the final strands
of barbed wire were strung by worn down Paki workers
clad in sun blasted Punjabis and cracked sandals or sockless
boots
who may or may not resume rebuilding in a few days or
weeks
or whatever … In Sh’Allah*
The windy season you feel first in your throat then inside your skull
is starting…
it may even rain a few
spatters
--
How Could It Happen?
Kaarina
Brooks
As I cooked in my kitchen
and happily sang to my African Violets,
I didn’t see the noxious liquid
seeping slowly into our marriage,
cunningly corroding the core,
until the the whole thing just…
fell apart!
As I picked raspberries
and, singing, weeded the garden,
I didn’t notice that our marriage,
teetered precariously on the wall,
and was slowly starting to topple,
til it fell and broke apart
and couldn’t be put together again.
And I still don't know
how it happened.
The Golden Cuckoos
A Kalevala Folktale
Translator and Illustrator
Once
long ago there lived a very powerful old shaman named Vänämöinen who wanted to
marry the young and beautiful Aino. Her mother urged her to accept and so on
her wedding day Aino left the farm and went walking by the sea lamenting her
fate.
‘Better
I were a fish swimming in the ocean than to be married to that old man!’ In her
despair Aino cast off her wedding finery. The jewels bestowed on her by her
bridegroom she threw into the water to sparkle like jewels in the bottom of the
sea. Aino dived into the sea and promptly turned onto a silver fish.
Word
quickly spread through the forest among the animals.
‘Someone
must go and tell the bride’s mother!’
‘Let
the Bear bring the word.’ But the bear disappeared into a herd of cows.
‘Who
is to bring the word?’ the animals pondered.
‘Let
the Fox bring the word.’ But he disappeared into a flock of geese.
 |
| The Golden Cuckoos Woodcut Print by Hazel Lauttamus Birt |
‘Let
the Hare bring the word.’And the Hare said,
‘The
Hare won’t disappear among men. I will go!’
The
Hare set out, long ears flapping, bandy legs running, hare lips quivering to
bring the news to the farm. The Hare ran to the Sauna and crouched on the
threshold. The young girls came to the door whisks in hand. They joked with
him:
‘Did
you come, Squint-eyes to be boiled or roasted for supper?’
‘I
set out to bring the word. The beautiful young Aino has drowned. She with the
silver cross on her chest has changed into a fish and is even now swimming with
the whitefish of the ocean.’
On
hearing the word that her lovely daughter was dead the mother began to lament
and weep.
‘Oh
what a great wrong I have done forcing her into that marriage!’
Her
tears fell from her blue eyes onto her cheeks.
Tears
fell on her breasts and unto her fine skirt unto the red tops of her stockings
and onto her lovely shoes.
Soon
tears covered the ground and began to flow like a river. In no time the tears
had formed three rivers. In each river there grew three rapids and in the foam
rose three birch trees. On each birch tree three golden cuckoos were lamenting.
One Golden cuckoo called,
‘Dear Love! Dear Love!’
The second Golden cuckoo called, ‘Suitor! Suitor!’
The third Golden Cuckoo called, ‘Joy! Joy!’
The
first cuckoo called ‘Dear Love! Dear Love!’ for three months for the love girl
in the bottom of the sea.
The
second cuckoo called, ‘Suitor! Suitor’ for the one who was to marry.
The
third cuckoo called ‘Joy! Joy!’ for ever to the joyless mother who was forever
weeping.
Spring Letter 2015
Lauri Anderson (or
Laurie)
Some
people drift without going anywhere or doing anything. Changing circumstances toss such people
nowhere at all. I sit in my chair,
stained and often wet from the damned dog.
I try to watch the news but there isn’t any because this is contemporary
America. We all get trumped 24/7 unless
we’re cruising with Cruz and his ignorant whores and lackeys. The rest of the world only exists on the BBC,
CBC, and NPR and it too is swinging to the right—freedom in danger everywhere
from demagogues, would-be dictators and narcissistic certainties. Europe is drowning under the flow of George
Bush’s Middle Eastern refugees. Even in
France the National Front and Marine LePen are gaining neo-Nazi converts. So I sit and read my magazines—The New Yorker, The New York Review of
Books, Harper’s, The Atlantic, Archaeology, Astronomy, Friends of Nigeria,
DownEast, Discover, Time. I have
stopped reading literature and no longer write.
I love real writers and they are my friends but are generally long dead…dead. I loathe fake writers, the millions of
self-published, rarely read egos who push themselves onto the rest of us. In April when I do a reading, they will be
there—poets who have not read the great poets and who have never bought a book
of poetry; novelists who have only read middle-school fantasies about zombies,
vampires, and apocalypses—Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, Twilight.
I haven’t met anyone new and worth
knowing in a bar or mall, Hancock, the Copper Country, Michigan, or the lower
48. I did meet a botanist from north of
Fairbanks. He likes my books and stopped
in for Turkish coffee, pie, and conversation.
A woman journalist from France interviewed me for 3.5 hours in my
kitchen. Her husband is France’s Ambassador
to South Sudan. A young Finnish guy
interviewed me for 2.5 hours. He and she
both received pie and Turkish coffee.
But I still cook. Recently I’ve eaten oyster stew; traditional
State of Maine beans with molasses, dry mustard, and salt pork; Cornish hens in
an orange sauce; Finnish cold beet salad with chopped apple, chopped beets and
potatoes, pickled herring, raw green onion, sour cream. But there is no one to eat it. Lucy is living with me but she is on a
meatless diet. 2.5-year-old Arvid is
full and done after the equivalent of three adult bites of something. In a couple of months Lucy will be married
and they will be gone and I’ll still be in my chair. For three weeks in May Lucy will be in
Finland as a Paloheimo scholar. The
scholarship covers her expenses. Yes, I
take saunas at Finlandia but all sports are in the past. I have a cane. My hip has been replaced. My guts have been shortened—the cancerous
section cut out and tossed into a hospital’s version of a landfill.
I used to know people but they’ve all
disappeared into (or maybe under) the ether.
Karen has disappeared into the United States or whatever it’s called on
the other end of the five-mile-long Mackinac Bridge. Kristen has become a recluse. John is frequently ill. Dan putters.
Etc. Old friends (literally OLD)
have disappeared into their own chairs.
Only Timo Koskinen is still around.
So I’ve become my uncle who lived in the pantry—who attacked visitors
with a pitchfork and Finnish. I only
listen to classic country music about death, damnation, misery, pain,
suffering, and divorce. I don’t like
today’s electronic and digitized music made up of a lot of noise while someone
soundlessly sings into a mike, unheard, already buried, but noticed. I still teach a class or two. Right now I teach the Art of Film. The seven students and I watch a film on
Tuesday and discuss it on Wednesday. I
paid my taxes, so part of me is still alive.
Why? The Milky Way has
200,000,000,000 suns and there are 100,000,000,000 known galaxies, each the
size of the Milky Way or larger. So who
are you? Billions of neutrinos pass
through each of us every fraction of a second.
We are mostly empty space. So who
am I? Aye. Ai!
In the summer I shall go fishing in
northern Maine in Lost Bog, so lost that even the locals do not know it’s there,
hidden off a long-unused railroad track right in the town where I grew up, a
town that has become a ghost. The town
and the unseen bog are an existential kind of place, a perpetual mystery, a was
and is and maybe. Want to join me? I may not be there when I’m there. There may not be a there there. Bye.
Au revoir.
Today is Good Friday, the day Jesus was
knocked off by Roman right wingers.
Nothing much changes, does it?
Yadeyadeyade. To madala. Alla ya kai mu. What does it mean to be a poacher, professor
and PCV with a cane?
--
‘Cock-A-Doodle Done!’
Opens Cage Doors for Business
Charles Peltosalo
Veteran
Lowcountry shredding and breakdown expert Bridger P., a 25 year old Moluccan
cockatoo hailing from Hilton Head’s South Beach has announced the opening of
his document disposal/ wood-splintering service in uptown Grahamville. “Get it,
got it, done!”-reads his business card. “Sensitive materials personally handled
by bonded owner.”
“Depending on the customer’s needs, I work a
3-corner system in my workspace where I can either shred, crunch, or mulch
material”, stated the self-described ‘one-man wrecking crew.’
“It’s like a sawmill in there when he gets
going”, said one customer while he waited for his custom bundle of picks and
tinder and bag of ‘secret mulch’, “Not only are my confidential documents
indecipherable, but their final mulching makes them nearly untouchable. But you
should see my tomatoes!”
--
To Whom It May Concern: Memorandum
found posted on refrigerator door 12Feb2016
Charles Peltosalo
Now that I’ve reached 16 human years of age,
only surpassed by the 30 years of Raja the parakeet, it saddens me to remind
everyone of some basic rules of courtesy around here. I suspect much of this
need arises because of my poor hearing, weaker eyesight, and slower movement;
in a word, my inability to swiftly bite or bark to enforce my space. A word to
the wise: don’t test me!
I appreciate the cats who thoughtfully steer
around me most times except when they are high on catnip and leap over or race
by me. It used to just take a well-pitched growl to remind folks, but now I
guess an editorial is my last resort.
The valet service at the door is as superb as
ever and my half of the bed is as comfortable as I would ever want. I just wanted
to remind everyone that life around here runs pretty smoothly, but that a
little bit of consideration from everyone could make it even better.
Your
Shih-Tzu Housemate, Babe
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