Elisabet

Elisabet

Unbridled youthful adventure with poignant depth.

Part 1: Histories in which are fabled poems at the expense of historical figures.
Part 2: On the General, in which the aim is very specific thinking.
Part 3: Paris Notations, the collection’s trickiest section, in which a pelican is buried in a hole in the air and advice is given in the style of the ancients.
Part 4: Fibonacci, Jazz, and Narcissus, in which a light-hearted mood is sustained into dancing about and thirteenth-century doings, until animals begin to die by violent means.
Part 5: Elisabet, in which can be found a beautiful and mature epistle to a mother who died too soon. From this part is dispersed the grief that can be detected everywhere in the work, though over the course of the collection it was folded out of sight.
Part 6: A Wintergarden in which farewells are ushered in by a stunning deluge of pictures.

Miki Liukkonen’s bold and experimental writing has earned him the recognition of being the most innovative author in Finland today. Elisabet is his second work of poetry.

Praise
Elisabet (2012) is as brief as the novel O (2017) is voluminous: we see here the two extremes of Miki Liukkonen’s work, two complementary sides, two representations of the same universe. In Elisabet, the author already reveals his taste for historical references, enumeration, name-dropping, the staging of the iconic artist… and above all for the most unpredictable associations of images and ideas. At the heart of this unbridled youthful adventure, the motif of mourning and the way the author approaches it add a poignant depth. In short, it is an eclectic and touching collection where the poet does not hesitate to lay himself bare, under the pretext of stylistic experimentation and self-mockery, in order to access the elusive forces that govern our lives, our thoughts and our emotions. – Sébastien Cagnoli, Translator

Material
Finnish edition

Rights sold
French (Le Castor Astral)