Edith Södergran : a portrait

Clothed in old shadows is the forest
a carpet of soft sounds –
an abode of secret thoughts –
a green wilderness of peace –
Silently, endlessly waiting is the forest of
               Finland.
Here lie the heavy stones men have never touched.

Here on the edge of the world will you learn to feed
and carry your passion beyond the sex of woman –
               and of man –
to gather from all the winds the seeds of your
               thoughts.
Here you may quench your thirst, away from old
               St. Petersburg,
from Europe’s centres, of power and thought:               
               Vienna, Paris, Berlin –
where air is thick and low and smoke gathers,
cities made of thirst and sweat and stones that long
               to fall.

Here your thought became an eagle in flight
high above and out of sight, and your mind,
uncommon in this land like a snow leopard
prowling alone – his belly full of the bones
               and ashes of the future.

Gounil Brown

Gounil Brown’s Poetry

Gounil is both a poet and an accomplished translator of poetry. Of her own poetry, David Britton has said ‘True poems emerge through the occasional shocks that occur when something within the ordinary wheel of the poet’s existence comes up against the sea of the infinite or the unconditioned to which a true poet’s soul is always trying to point itself… One can tell Gounil Brown has experienced the initial shock and thus has a genuine subject on her hands… Most of Gounil’s poems are founded on a responsiveness to moods in nature, and a recognition, as natural to her as breathing, of the correspondences of these to the dynamic life of the human soul… To such poems one goes back; a time comes around when one needs to read them again’.

Read sample poems
by Gounil Brown:

Edith Södergran : a portrait
My walk to School
The Island
Life

Publications

My Poems & My Translations.
Gounil Brown
Icon Press
ISBN 1873812132

Poems by Edith Södergran.
Translated by Gounil Brown
Icon Press
ISBN 1873812035

Links:

Poet  | Translator |  Artist |  Biography

Icon Press
Wikipedia: Edith Södergran

Website by Sphere

Agent:

Email:christina_bonnarp@hot.nosp@m.mail.com

Phone: +46 (0) 70 6102324