poetry

Watching the City origami chapbook!

Published on by Sara Norja

Yay! My mini-chapbook for the Origami Poetry Project is out!

Well, it’s been out since last week, but since I was away and internetless at the Kaustinen Folk Music Festival,(*) I only found out about this last night when I got back.

My chapbook Watching the City is on the home page right now, but you can also print it from my poet page. After printing, fold it according to the instructions here and ta-da, you have a mini-chapbook! Tiny poetry!

As I mentioned in my previous post about this: consider this mini-chapbook a prelude to a longer Helsinki-inspired chapbook/collection that I’ve got in the works. So much in the works that it’s basically already done, all that’s left is sending it out to potential publishers. That’s required enough energy that I’ve had the project on hold for quite a while. Will do my best to get it sent out this summer!

(*) After a series of ridiculously unfortunate events, my folk dance group finally got to perform. And we danced well!

Poems, poems! (inkscrawl & origami)

Published on by Sara Norja

The June issue of inkscrawl is out! (Well, it came out last week already, but I was busy travelling so didn’t have the chance to post about it.) Huzzah! It looks wonderful and I can’t wait to read the rest of the poems. So happy to be a contributor – I’ve loved inkscrawl for years.

Here’s my own contribution: “Betweening”

This poem was first born years ago, back in the summer of 2009. That first version was much longer, and it took me eight edits – the eighth happening after a four-year break from the poem – to pare it down to what it is now. It’s quite rare for me to have so many versions of a poem. But I’m really happy with the version now published! Eight lines is much better than the original 20-line version. The last three lines are the only ones that have remained virtually unchanged throughout the process.

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And then some forthcoming poetry news: the Origami Poems Project will be publishing a micro-collection of my poetry! I love their concept and am so glad to have a small collection coming out. It’s called Watching the City, and contains six Helsinki-inspired poems. Consider it a prelude of sorts to my still-in-the-works “proper” chapbook. The origami collection will be free to print from the website. Open-access pocket poetry!

Sunday recs: art lessons, limestone, berries

Published on by Sara Norja

Two poems and a story today.

First, an oldie but goodie from 2010: “Art Lessons” by Yoon Ha Lee (in Stone Telling). This is a really good poem, witches’ daughters transforming into a great feminist punch.

Then something more recent, from February this year: “Limestone, Lye, and the Buzzing of Flies” by Kate Heartfield (in Strange Horizons). This story is vivid, strange and lovely. Such a strong summer atmosphere, with the weirdness creeping slowly in.

Finally: “Chant for Summer Darkness in Northwest Climes” by Neile Graham (in Goblin Fruit, the same summer 2014 issue I have “Sorrow-stone” in). This is utterly gorgeous! The atmosphere reminds me of a Finnish summer (which is finally almost upon us!), the mysterious white-night countryside and berries bursting on the tongue.

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Bonus book rec – well, series rec actually – Jo Walton’s Small Change series (Farthing, Ha’penny, Half a Crown). I just finished reading Half a Crown today and was in tears at the end. A chilling vision of an alternative Britain where fascism has reared its ugly head. But they weren’t depressing books, although they did make me feel that heart-clenching horror I always do when I think how inhuman people can become because they simply don’t care enough to defend those who are weaker.

The art of interpretation

Published on by Sara Norja

At my writing group meeting last Friday, we had a pretty cool poetry exercise: using literal English translations of poetry originally written in other languages, we had to transform the translations into our own poetry, or make the literal translation more “poetic”. Since I’m rather pleased with what I came up with, I thought I’d share my efforts here.

The literal translation I worked with is based on the Romanian poet Nichita Stănescu’s poem “Emoţie de toamnă”, translated by our Romanian group member as “Emotion in autumn”. (ETA: the group member in question is Marlena Bontas, who, among other things, writes awesome poetry.) Here is the original poem in Romanian. Even though I know French, Spanish and a bit of Latin, it’s not enough to open up the Romanian for me – so the poem below is based entirely on the literal English translation we had at our meeting. It’s pretty close to the translation, but I’ve put my own spin on it. It turned out quite a “me” poem in the end, methinks.

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Autumn Tremors

Autumn’s arrived –
draw a veil over my heart,
send a tree’s shadow to cover me,
or send your shadow.

Sometimes I’m afraid I won’t recognise you,
that I’ll grow bat’s wings and take to the sky,
that you will hide in a stranger’s eye
which will close, lidded by a wormwood leaf.

But then I reach the standing stones
and fear leaves me, speech leaves me.
I take these words and drown them in the sea.
Newborn, wordless, I whistle to the moon,
transform it into a crescent of love.

***

Poem sale to Goblin Fruit

Published on by Sara Norja

Some lovely news I’ve quite forgotten to share – my poem “Village Woman” is going to appear in the Winter 2015 issue of Goblin Fruit!

So happy to get that poem out, and to be included in GF again. I lovelovelove that magazine.

Poem up in The Stare’s Nest

Published on by Sara Norja

My poem “The World in Springtime” is now up in The Stare’s Nest. Yay!

Here is the direct link to the poem.

It’s still not very spring-like here – it’s rainy and grey today. I wrote this poem in late April 2013, though, so there’s always hope that in about three weeks’ time even Finland will have some proper spring action going on. I think it’s so unfair that here in Helsinki we had an unsatisfying winter with way too little snow, but now the weather isn’t even compensating with a warm, lovely early spring. Bah, I say!

The crocuses in my apartment block’s yard seem to be ready to burst into bloom though, so we may have hope yet. 🙂

Easter recs

Published on by Sara Norja

Other people have written wiser words than me on the Hugo debacle, so I’ll leave that for now (suffice it to say I’m disgusted; here’s a pretty good summary of it).

Instead, let’s escape into beautiful words! Three poems for this Easter Sunday:

“Seeds” by M Sereno (in Strange Horizons): Oh, this poem calls to be read aloud. The words flow with such delicious force, like a drenching storm. Powerful stuff, very grounded in place.

“The Nagini’s Night Song” by Shveta Thakrar (in Mythic Delirium): More word-strength and beauty. The voice is so intriguing here and the story is achingly beautiful.

“Long Shadow” by Rose Lemberg (in Strange Horizons): A long poem utterly worth the reading. Several voices and interesting structures, word-magic and marsh-magic.

Three short poems in Snakeskin!

Published on by Sara Norja

Three of my poems are included in April’s Short Poems issue of Snakeskin:

Read “Pomeranian”, “Lauttasaari Bridge”, and “Human Nature” here!

“Pomeranian” is part of a silly series of dog poems I’ve been writing occasionally, with an emphasis on cuteness and word-play. I really like other people’s dogs (would not have the time or inclination of one of my own). I’m glad to see this little doglet-poem see publication! Also, I absolutely adore the Pom picture that the editor George Simmers has added. 😀 SO CUTE.

“Lauttasaari Bridge” is one of my Helsinki poems, written last summer while – surprise – I was biking across Lauttasaari Bridge, near-ish my home. The sunset was incredible, and thus, I poemed.

“Human Nature” was written in January 2013. I was upset about news of some sort, desperately needed comfort that wasn’t available at that moment.

Poem to appear in The Stare’s Nest

Published on by Sara Norja

My poem “The World in Springtime” will appear in The Stare’s Nest in about a week’s time! Huzzah!

Springtime seems very far away in Finland right now, though. We had horrendous sleety weather yesterday (which I biked through heroically); today it’s grey and rainy, and I’ve got a sore throat and a cold. Siiiigh. Come on, spring, hurry up!

Sunday recs

Published on by Sara Norja

I probably should’ve spent this evening recovering from a busy three-day medieval studies conference and a day of active exploring. Instead, I submitted poetry to quite a few places. Not very restful, but useful – I’ve been lax with submitting poetry, or anything really, the past month.

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My recs for tonight:

Myrrha by Mari Ness (in Through the Gate): This poem made me feel tight-throated and aching. It’s based on a fairytale that I’ve written a novelette about (currently on submission), and so it somehow hit me extra hard. The rest of the issue is wonderful too.

The Paper Menagerie by Ken Liu (in Fantasy & Science Fiction): This is from a few years ago but I just read it a few days ago. So good, in an aching way. I love fiction about family and the challenges of immigration, and this story really delivers.

Arm’s Length by Rosemary Badcoe (in the March issue of Snakeskin that I had a poem in too): Beautiful vision of the end of the world, with an ending that touched me with its poignance.