My poem ‘Helsinki Love Song’ is one of the featured works in Wild Violet’s Valentine’s Day week series.
I don’t like Valentine’s Day much due to the focus on a very restricted type of love – Finland is better in that respect, because here it’s known as ystävänpäivä, ‘Friend Day’, and is marketed with less of an emphasis on the heteronormative syrupy give-her-roses type romance. Much more inclusive of all kinds of love. 🙂
‘Helsinki Love Song’ is described by the Wild Violet folks as “celebrat[ing] the emotion produced by a place”. Accurate. This city has its ups and downs, but I love it. At the moment I wrote the poem (in August 2012) I was feeling a particularly delirious love for Helsinki and the weird, wonderful things that can take place here.
Have a good Friend Day, and I hope you enjoy the poem! I love the picture chosen to go with it, too – very evocative of the late-summer beauty that inspired the poem.