REBECCA LOUDON Reviews
The Finnish
Orchestra by Kathryn Rantala
(Ravenna Press,
Washington, 2013)
The Finish Orchestra is a collection of poems that describes Rantala’s
family history in a series of lovely descriptive poems of place, desire,
danger, transcendence, transcending. The orchestra itself on the book’s cover,
depicts the author’s grandfather, a pale moody looking man holding a double
bass, as if ready to let fly a note that will arrow itself into the mouth of
the Columbia River near Astoria, Oregon, where the family
finally settled. The orchestra itself is described in the poem Andrew
as:
Not just players, an
orchestra.
Not just orchestra,
the players;
Andrew among them
standing at double
bass.
There are photos
accompanying almost every poem. Faces peering out at we readers look stern,
thoughtful, tired, frightened, interested. The photos allow the poems to weave
an even richer history.
The second poem of the
book, “Paavo and Anna, on Love,” invokes a strange ripple that eddies
throughout these poems. There are people, and there is nature, and, in the
poems, nature is more often sexual than the people themselves, who are
stridently quiet and [seemingly] unemotional. In “Paavo and Anna, on Love,” Paavo
stands before Anna / who globed in him a grief / but he cannot tell her all his
heart / which broke above the black river, / his hands and thoughts / deep in
it. In this poem, / Anna held a plate / and washed in right hand circle, /
dried in left hand circle / remembering all their meals but it is only when /
the river came in him, / rushed and rough, and he was out, / his silence with
him / and she never heard him say it, / not once
“Paavo and Anna, on Love”
feels like the true beginning to this collection to me. It introduces a family
of tough people, grim fiery people who take what they are given with tight
lips, and bound hearts, a family in love with nature; water, wheat, animals,
that struggles to show their love for family itself, though the love is there
as rich as gold in a river.
Paavo and Anna, on
Love
Paavo in the furred wood strode
where canted trees
leaned to slipping shore
and hung sadly in the
mirror of his current days
His Anna globed in
him a grief
and now he stood
and could not tell
her all his heart
which broke above the
black river,
his hands and
thoughts
deep in it.
Anna held a plate
and washed in right
hand circle,
dried in left hand
circle,
all the times their
meals made them stronger.
Once, but once she
asked at night
within the murmurs of
the tight house:
what curtains sigh to
glass, caressed;
what branches feel in
leaf;
and, very, very low,
what word he’d make
of them
if there would be a
word..
and then the river
came in him,
rushed and rough, and
he was out,
his silence with him
and she never heard
him say it,
not once
pg.
5
Rantala handles the next poem in the collection, “Don’t Say If I Love You,” with the same deft abundance of creature life:
Don’t Say If I
Love You
Behind brown
greatcoats, we
when walking,
clasp our own hands,
uneasy where we
surface in our skin,
uncomforted
by the pardons on the
bridge.
Fish Dance
on spreading
splash tails
alarming
with their
vertical joys.
Hands behind, oh,
please refuse me
though I carry what I
can of lamp
in clean, red palms,
the pieces slipping
through
to light the magic
forests.
How is love a
sequence, then;
the piercing through,
bliss?
We cannot, do not,
arch, thump, whumpf, bleed,
oh,
please refuse me
deeper now
Trees, ferns, and greens
dance on spray
and fish darken.
This mossy, antlered
life,
the sharp young
bolting things in coats
held back,
the arrowed hearts
within,
the wild wounded wood
that sings us sad
without
pg.
6
The power and magic of
physical sex, emotional turmoil, caught up once again in the description of
place. This mossy, antlered life. Gorgeous, lyrical, and, for now,
firmly rooted.
In the poem Sirkka,
the narrator says / I ask: / am I what you hear coming off the sea? / This poem
is to the left of a photograph of a beautiful woman in high black pumps, a
lovely gown made of miles of silk, blonde curls and a Mona Lisa smile.
Rantala is at her finest
when describing place:
Some People Say
a lake has no tides
like a sea,
that it is placid,
and by this they mean
serene.
In Finland there are
thousands of lakes
those that are deep
those that are wide
those that rise and
fall unmeasured
but go down darker
and farther and wider
and this is where the
parted heart streams,
absent
edge-of-the-world rhythms,
and breaks columned
wood
and plumbs hard
pasture
and grows, lifts,
rises, sinks
and fills contested
space
then blues so it can
show you
it is not calm at all
but deep
tireless, full,
estranged
and sometimes deeper
pg.
10
There is no question where
we are now and what we are feeling. The land the water as parted heart streams,
the rhythms of sex, the pressure, the lifts and rises and sinks. It’s all here
in the land.
Water again makes a definitive
physical appearance in “Loon Lake” and in the poem “Finland” where
/ Sky, glass, stream, / the higher you go in the world / the tighter everything
is. / which sounds like a fishwife’s tale or a grandmother’s warning. The first
stanza ends with / A hard art pebbles under fish. / the poem ends with:
Hardening, brinkling,
familiar if not your
own,
the iced-up sons
lithe within the
lakes
and all the time
water;
plunging
juiceberries,
small plenties.
pg.
23
Even with cold water and
dangers of early life in Finland, Rantala gives up delicious sounds and song,
the mouthfeel of edible poetry. Her language is rich with the cream that is
missing from the tables of the poor hardscrabble folk who people the first part
of the book.
The section of The
Finnish Orchestra is titled Runes and subtitled anything gnawed
by winter. These poems seem to me to be a series of love letters. The poem
titled “Lingering Poem” is one of my favorite in this section. The
narrator is lively and ardent:
Lingering Poem
She sends her letters
frequently
like waves on rocky
beach.
She strings her lines
in dead drape
to pools
just as, one would
say,
she pulleyed out to
school,
was pointed to,
or loved straight by
magic animals.
And she draws them
back.
Sunny wet veins,
a kiss of surface
tensions,
then,
yank!
still too fast for
the lizard-eyed boy.
pg.31
This second section
includes poems titled “The Bouquet,” “Liquid,” and “Achene,”
poems that ache with tenderness and strong palpable language.
Achene
Silk would warm
apparent vessel
iridic moon would
splay
its sheer elongate
thirst.
Still vertical from
god
she moves oblivion
to cool thinness
and all at once
subtracts.
That directly over
keeps her shadow.
pg.
35
An achene is a one-seeded
fruit developed from a single ovary, for instance in the sunflower or
strawberry, and iridic relates to the iris of the eye. So this poem contains
seeds, vessels, iris, moon, all female strengths, taken with sheer elongate
thirst. This is one sexy poem.
In “Finland (2)” we are
given / Arch of dark, / the sun, low in love, /as used as smooth as sauna /
and, toward the end, the warning that / you are no superior being, / Skin
pale, fishing poor, / the tired come loose— / all must eat / and now there is
snow / even in the holy places. / / A baby, small as rain, / his spirit
wandered too far north / in fog. / Now he strains to look at you, / eye to eye,
/ (and your mind on things that mean: / choke cherries, flush; / the
reindeer, fat.) / His fingers curl, / his hands asking tree and
gold-breasted martin, / the shrike in the yardarm, / and you: / will it thrive.
/ / There is crush in all you make, / in all he will make for you. / Now is the
time for the poem that says nothing. // Lift him near a light / so you can see
/ each other. (pgs.38, 29, 40)
Finally the he and she
of this love story are revealed in fleshy bodies, struggle and light. It is the
poem in which the poet begins to name herself: / and this strangest place: a
shore, / the ranta / and even though the reader knows it is Rantala’s
family story here, this is the poem in which the poet appears hard enough to
knock the wind out of us. / There is crush in all you make, / in all he will
make for you. / Now is the time for the poem that says nothing. / ( and yet
says everything.)
We are finally introduced
to The Finnish Orchestra with the poem “Andrew,” a poem that
contains one of the most searing and pure descriptions of this family’s move to
the new world, their braveries, loves, and failures, we find in this poem a
family that is strong and pure of heart:
Andrew
Worst-weather Oregon,
Astoria,
the rooming houses,
immigrant art of
flickering
most like love
in the new world.
Borrowed, too:
an opera, play,
stroll—Hilma and Andrew—
and after the long
row from the co-op
poems and flowers
for the daughter
named for a pearl.
The Theater Finns
of Astoria.
Not must players, an
orchestra.
Not just orchestra, the players;
Andrew among them
standing at double
bass.
Gasps of families,
gaps,
hunger to hunger,
from wars and
Russification,
for work,
from religions
requiring a house,
requiring the
house-bound;
afloat from the time
near the end
of the large-furred
animals.
A carpenter, laborer,
actor
crosses the upright
strings
and, as other
extinctions
is mystery.
Hilma married you for
love,
which we know is
diligent tax.
Airmail:
the field-grouse,
black-grouse,
hazel- and blue-eyed
others,
the look of sounds
the inner sides of
expression.
That is a kind of
silence.
What you might ask of
us:
Your daughter moved
north, up the coast.
Her children:
artists, musicians, poets.
That is a kind of
happiness.
What we might ask of
you:
See the restless home
each night
and each day
send them out again
to fly.
That is a kind of
joy.
And do not die
before the chance to
meet us.
pgs. 67, 68
I flat out loved this
book. A must read for anyone with Finland in their history, for anyone who
wants to discover an unknown land, for anyone who loves a fine romance on a
cold winter night.
I’ll end with my favorite
poem from the book that appears beside a photo of a woman wearing a huge fur
skinned coat with a furry collar her right hand on the neck of what might be
dog and might be wolf.
Will You
Wolf heavy,
my sinking footsteps
want you
where the dark armies
left you—
o moon weight on
pondering blue.
Will you won’t you
if I wear the white
suit,
the snowing hood—o sea-bank burrower,
simmering-over?
Will you peer or want
me
shall I not shoot
or do?
Will you, where the
ice edge sings its leaves
down watering air,
where twigs tell and
small furries roll
up—
o bright
bouldering brow—
where pooling swims
the closer
and the slightest
stars emit,
will you sign to me,
your least,
your sweet danger?
*****
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