“I don't create poetry, I create myself, for me my poems are a way to me.”
~Edith Södergran
Introductory Note from Complete Poems
That my writing is poetry no one can deny, that it is verse I will not insist. I have attempted to bring certain refractory poems under one rhythm and have thereby discovered that I posse the power of the word and the image only under conditions of complete freedom, i.e. at the expense of the rhythm. My poems are to be taken as careless pencil sketches. As regards the content, I let my instinct build up what my intellect sees in expectation. My self-confidence depends on the fact that I have discovered my dimensions. It does not become me to make myself less than I am. Vierge Moderne I am no woman. I am neuter. I am child, a page and bold resolve, I am a laughing stripe of scarlet sun... I am a net for all greedy fish, I am a skoal to the glory of all women, I am a step towards hazard and ruin, I am a leap into freedom and self... I am the whisper of blood in the ear of the man, I am the soul's ague, the longing and refusal of the flesh, I am an entrance sign to new paradises. I am a flame, searching and brazen, I am water, deep but daring up to the knee, I am fire and water in free and loyal union... Complete Poems Edith Södergran translated by David McDuff Bloodaxe Books, Newcastle upon Tyne @1987, 2nd edition 1992 ISBN: 0 906427 38 X
Södergran (1892-1923) was a Finnish poet who wrote in Swedish. See this for more detail: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edith_S%C3%B6dergran
