Poetry of Finland and Finnish Christmas Songs
I finally extricated myself from LibraryThing, and set to work on a site I started back in 2002, but never finished. Not that it's finished now, but version 1.1 is ready.
Over the last few years, due to Luminarium and my name being so obviously Finnish, I've received repeated requests from Finns, or people whose ancestry is Finnish, for translations of Finnish poetry into English. Not enough has been done, or published, in my opinion. The main reason may well be, that translating from the Finnish is a *insert any favorite expletive*.
In 2002 I had translated some poems from two Finnish poets, to which I added the Kalevala excerpt I posted here in May of this year. And, since it is Christmas time, I translated two of the most beautiful Finnish Christmas songs as well. Since I could not find sound files for them, I crooned them a cappella myself. My apologies if someone suffers serious emotional or physical injuries from listening to them. Listen at your own risk. Without further ado, here is
Poetry of Finland.
I'll add more poets and poetry as inspiration strikes.
Over the last few years, due to Luminarium and my name being so obviously Finnish, I've received repeated requests from Finns, or people whose ancestry is Finnish, for translations of Finnish poetry into English. Not enough has been done, or published, in my opinion. The main reason may well be, that translating from the Finnish is a *insert any favorite expletive*. In 2002 I had translated some poems from two Finnish poets, to which I added the Kalevala excerpt I posted here in May of this year. And, since it is Christmas time, I translated two of the most beautiful Finnish Christmas songs as well. Since I could not find sound files for them, I crooned them a cappella myself. My apologies if someone suffers serious emotional or physical injuries from listening to them. Listen at your own risk. Without further ado, here is
Poetry of Finland.
I'll add more poets and poetry as inspiration strikes.
posted by Anniina | 3:34 PM
4 Comments:
Wow.
I listened to the Shine forth, ye Christmas stars song. Somehow I expected it to be sung in Finnish, but this way I could do the singing with you. Almost all the way, b/c I cried a little bit.
Thank you!
I was unable to listen to Sylvia's song, however.
Thanks for letting me know, I'll see what's up with Sylvia's song. Yeah, both songs are so sad, that I had to record them so many times, because the first ten times I'd start weeping before I'd reach the end. I like the thought that we were singing together, because that's what Christmas is all about :)
We visited Helsinki and the South Karelian forest this summer. Such a lovely time. Thank you for the poetry and Christmas song.
Hi Norma,
And what great weather this summer! I'm glad you had a wonderful trip.
~A
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