Music

It must be somewhere, the orginal harmony,
somewhere in great nature, hidden.
Is it in the furious infintie,
in distant stars’ orbits,
is it in the sun’s scorn,
in a tiny flower, in treegossip,
in heartmusic’s mothersong
or in tears?
It must be somewhere, immortality,
somewhere the original harmony must be found:
how else could it infuse
the human soul,
that music?

…

Liiv’s poems, Talvet says, “have had an impact not only among the cultivated Estonian literary public but across Estonian society.” In American culture, the closest analogue would be Robert Frost. Liiv’s poems do not resemble those of Eliot and Stevens, in which elevated diction and complex syntax issue a warning that one is entering depths; instead, Liiv’s poems, like Frost’s, present themselves as simple and homely rather than sophisticated, welcoming rather than imposing. One senses the depths and mystery only after one is welcomed inside.

Above is a poem by Juhan Liiv and an excerpt from the Translator’s Note which comes from the June 2011 issue of Poetry, published by the Poetry Foundation.

I was struck initially by the simple beauty of Liiv’s poems, but began to love him even more after learning of his tragic death: On 1 December 1913, Liiv was found aboard a train without a ticket because he could not afford one. He was thrown off into a deserted area and forced to walked home. By the time he arrived, however, he had been in freezing temperatures for two weeks and had contracted a fatal case of pneumonia.

…

Artwork above:

You Better Hold On To The Wind My Friends
by Alex Callendar
2010
charcoal, graphite and erasures on paper
24″x19″

Tags:Alex CallendarJuhan LiivPoetryPoetry FoundationRobert Frost