The Finnish poet Eira Stenberg writes mainly about home life, but she deals with family relationships like an exorcist casting out demons. She views the conflicts of marriage, divorce, motherhood and childhood with a ruthless eye. The male may meet a hostile, disenchanted eye, a levelled carving knife, but the mother too must see its point, and the rather demonic child. Her poems are full of politics - sexual and family politics, observation of the living strategies of dead grandfathers and grandmothers, and the often ...
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The Finnish poet Eira Stenberg writes mainly about home life, but she deals with family relationships like an exorcist casting out demons. She views the conflicts of marriage, divorce, motherhood and childhood with a ruthless eye. The male may meet a hostile, disenchanted eye, a levelled carving knife, but the mother too must see its point, and the rather demonic child. Her poems are full of politics - sexual and family politics, observation of the living strategies of dead grandfathers and grandmothers, and the often unwise ideas their wise men left behind. There are also more overt gestures to the larger family: 'The concentration camps are set up at home.' In spite of her tragic view, her poetry can be tender and playful, and she writes with wit, even humour, and a relish of the tongue in her head. Hers is a deadly mind, but the deadliness springs from a lively love of life. Her work is a tool for locating the enemies of happiness, whether these are decomposing ideas, family history, psychological cesspools or institutions.
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