Arto Paasilinna

Herbert Lomas

A journalist and a photographer set out on an assignment, but as they drive along they hit a hare. The hare then adopts the journalist, and together the two scamper through farcical adventures and political scandal.

The Year of the Hare

Pico Iyer

After his car hits a bunny, which ultimately survives, a man decides to quit his job, leave his wife, sell his possessions and spend a year wandering around the countryside of Finland--with the rabbit as his only companion. Original.

A Novel

'Finnish poetry is a popular poetry. It does not solve problems, or try to, but people turn to it for solace, inspiration, stimulation to think about themselves, extensions of experience, and the shaping spirit. This poetry has fed a clearly felt hunger: the need for companionable reports on what it is like to be a Finn in this phase of the muddle for survival. But like all authentic local reports, its appeal is universal. It is very spare. Our own poetry can look baroque to the Finns, not leaving enough silence between the words. The younger poets are already moving in new directions. Inheriting a flexible common idiom, forged by the previous generation, they have been liberated.' - Herbert Lomas.Herbert Lomas's anthology traces the history of post-war Finnish poetry, showing the rise and repercussions of Finland's own revolution in poetry. In a wide-ranging introduction, he describes the poetry of all 21 writers featured in the book, and presents a detailed analysis of the two major poets with international reputations, Paavo Haavikko and Pentti Saarikoski, the most famous of the brilliant generation of 21 year-olds who led the rejuvenation of Finnish poetry in the 1950s. The selections from the towering and controversial figures of Haavikko and Saarikoski cover their whole careers. But the other poets too - ranging from Eeva-Liisa Manner (born 1921) to Satu Salminiitty (born 1959) - are comprehensively presented. Among the book's surprises are the animal parables of Kirsi Kunnas, Finland's Stevie Smith, and the satires of Jarkko Laine, whose work is fuelled by a hatred of conventional poetry and religion.

Contemporary Finnish Poetry

Contemporary Writing from Finland

Territorial Song

Todmorden is a little town in the Pennines, and in the late 20s and early 30s it was a cotton-milling town of about 22,000 inhabitants. In The Vale of Todmorden, Herbert Lomas presents us with a sequence of short poems by way of a personal history of the lost Todmorden of that time. It is not political history, but it records the private pains of public history - of how people dealt with and endured the ups and downs of the violent and rich culture they'd been thrown into, and of how creative they were, inventing themselves and making language, music, companionship and love out of an often bleak inheritance.

Herbert Lomas

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