The First Thread of my Red Dress
Summer, and the poetry of Edith Södergran
“My poems are to be taken as careless sketches,” wrote Finland-Swedish poet Edith Södergran in 1918. In fact, Södergran was a formal innovator, a modernist pioneer writing across linguistic and national borders while suffering poverty and illness in the shadow of world war, and a feminist who challenged gender binaries. She died at the age of 31 from tuberculosis in her hometown of Raivola, Finland, which is now part of Russia.
My favorite quotation from Södergran’s writing about her work, which I keep taped above my desk: “My self-confidence comes from the fact that I have discovered my dimensions. It does not behoove me to make myself smaller than I am.”
I first came across Sodergran’s poetry over a decade ago when I asked a close Swedish friend of my sister Brita who her favorite Swedish-language poets were. When Brita then loaned me the volume she already happened to have on her shelf (which I’ve never returned to her, I realize as I write this) and I began to read the poems of this authoritative, cosmic voice, I was amazed. How did this mysterious young woman write with such boldness and brevity, tethered so completely, so purely, to both heaven and earth? To the pure joy of existence, and to mortality?
The bilingual (Swedish/English) selection of her work, Love & Solitude, translated by Stina Katchadourian, has been an honored companion for me over this past decade (it appears to be out of print, but another wonderful translation is this one by Malena Mörling and Jonas Ellerström). It is one of the three or four books I always bring with me if I’m going off to write for any length of time, and I turn to it again and again for inspiration and poetic and spiritual sustenance as one would a sacred text.
I’m slowing my pace for the summer months, currently catching up on some work I set aside while staying home with my son for the first couple of weeks of summer vacation, which included a weeklong trip to the Sawtooth Mountains of Idaho to visit my husband’s family. This week’s post will be short as a result. But I wanted to share three poems from Södergran as a gift to welcome the summer, including my very favorite, “On foot I had to walk through the solar systems.” This gift (which is, of course, from her and simply passed along by me), is a beautiful example of how poetry can help us learn to live in times of uncertainty and cultivate deep companionship with both life and death.
Forest Lake I was alone on a sunny shore by the forest’s pale blue lake, in the sky floated a single cloud and on the water a single isle. The ripe sweetness of summer dripped in beads from every tree and straight into my opened heart a tiny drop ran down. On foot I had to walk through the solar systems On foot I had to walk through the solar systems, before I found the first thread of my red dress. Already, I sense myself. Somewhere in space hangs my heart, sparks fly from it, shaking the air, to other reckless hearts. Triumph of Existing What do I fear? I am a part of infinity. I am a portion of a cosmic force, a separate world within a million worlds, a star of the first magnitude, the last to die. The triumph of the living, the triumph of the breathing, the triumph of the existing! The triumph of feeling time flow, glacial, through my veins, and hear the silent stream of night and stand atop a mountain in the sun. I walk on sun, I stand on sun, I know nothing but the sun. Time — transformer, time — destroyer, time — enchanter, do you come with new intrigues, a thousand schemes, to offer me a life as a little seed, as a coiled serpent, as a rock out in the sea? Time — you murderer — begone from me! The sun fills up my breast with lovely honey to the brim and she says: some day, all stars are bound to die, yet they always shine without dread.
May all of you reckless hearts out there be filled with honey to the brim, and may you shine without dread.
Looking for a poetry workshop this summer? Registration is open for my upcoming class Thresholds: A Poetry Workshop, which will meet on Zoom on Monday nights at 6-8:30pm ET, July 15-August 12. Reach out with any questions.