Henriikka Tavi

The title of Henriikka Tavis third poetry collection, Toivo (Hope), can be experienced as a paradox. There is a dark and melancholy thread running through the poems which touch on subjects like death, transience and loss. The contradictions become most apparent in the second part which has the same name as the title of the book and concludes with a laconic listing of the names of people who have died by their own hand and their dates of birth and death.

In an interview, Tavi says that the starting point for the collection, which came into being over a long period of time, was a tragic family event but Toivo (Hope) is nevertheless not a work which should or be allowed to be read in any narrow autobiographical sense. The key intertext is the Danish poet Inger Christensen's famous sonnet requiem Sommerfugledalen (Butterfly Valley). The butterfly valley is a symbol for life's volatility and fragility but also its beauty potential and transformational power return in Tavi's poems. The collection begins and ends with poems which both have the title ”Kehtolaulu” (Lullaby) and with a four-strophe line consisting of the names of butterflies: ”Haapaperhonen, hallakehrääjä/kylmäperhonen, havununna/heinähukka, hukkasiili-/käs, herukka rukka, lasisiipi.” (”Aspen moth, December moth, Fox moth, Muslin moth, Dried Currant moth, Hornet moth.”)