Jyrki Kiiskinen on the poems and poets of 1997 'I often feel like telling her that I love her, but I get blocked by the pile of rubbish that immediately starts crashing through my mind when I use that word.' Thus Pentti Saaritsa (born 1941), an established poet and translator, in a poem published in 1969.       Writing poems short on assertions or howls of doom, modern Finnish poets have for the most part avoided all pompous décor, romantic imagery, or excessive sentimentality: instead, they let their works offer the reader shifting points of view, allowing for '3-D' ways to approach them. But in recent years, this low profile seems to have gone out of style: we are now seeing an increasing number of new poets quite unafraid of strong feelings and word magic ­ this at a moment when everyone was expecting some form of language- and theory-conscious postmodernism. It never came. What we got was a new wave of romanticism.       Jukka Koskelainen (born 1961), author of two books of poems, travels between two continents, but his sea charts are misleading. The eternal return has begun, and all that is left is the compulsion to repeat ­ and this is what the speaker of these poems tries to escape. In Taistelun kuvaus ('The description of a battle'), vegetation is on a rampage, myths are overgrown, but a sense of proportion remains: the honest pathos of a love letter is accompanied by ironic parentheses.       Panu Tuomi (born 1968) is also clearly attracted to a similar touch of melodrama. His collection Karkausvuoden laulut ('Songs of a leap year') is carefully constructed: these songs can be read as independent poems, but they do form a unified narrative. Tuomi writes decorative love poetry whose imagery, conscious of layers of tradition, is one of centuries-old grand gestures:      Dearest eternity, I would not want      to leap into your cloak. You      look for your limits in disappearing songs.      Without me, you would be merely a rumor,      could never find a home anywhere, because      arrival lasts only a moment. After a number of novels, Eira Stenberg (born 1943) gives us Halun ikoni ('Icon of desire'), her first book of poems in 14 years. Its theme is female sexuality, and Stenberg approaches it both passionately and ironically through the myths of the Minotaur and Grimm's fairy tales. The old narratives provide reference points even for a modern woman lost in labyrinthine hotel corridors, looking for a whimpering Frog Prince. This literary-archeological approach still allows for emotional expression.       Arcana, a first book of poems by rock musician A.W. Yrjänä (born 1967), combines mythology, religious terminology, and a 'words of wisdom' tradition in a manner that seems less conscious of its literary origins. Yrjänä's poetry is as straightforward as good common-chord rock. The poet grows quiet, ponders eternal questions in the quotidian existence of the dark century of satellites:      To write, here      is to sneer at death      after breaking one's knife      on the stone in the bread      I'm getting too old to learn      too young to teach      too tired to argue      to believe in the corroding      power of truths Puukkobulevardi ('Cold Blade Boulevard') by Arto Melleri (born 1956) represents tried-and-true outlaw romanticism. He writes warmly about an acquaintance who 'liberated' the works of Plato from his shelf and took them to the used book store. He writes a ballad about the 'flower shop murderer', strides energetically down the dark side of the street, praises the pandemonium of destructive forces, even though a trace of weariness is beginning to show through it all. Poems.       Were one to look for a conscious antithesis to the romantic tradition among this autumn's poetic offerings, one might find it in the works of two very different authors. Pimeän parit ('Partners of darkness') by Helena Sinervo (born 1961) is a bravura treat for lovers of riddles. Looking at an animistic, metamorphic reality from unexpected angles, her poems do not offer readymade interpretations, not even of love. When the reader finally surfaces from all the darkness, it is up to her to attach sorrow to its objects. Because sorrow is what it all seems to be about.       By contrast, Jarkko Laine (born 1947), former 'underground' author, hippie emeritus, presently chair of the Finnish Writers' Union, revisits his old antipoetic genre in a refreshing way. There is a serious undercurrent in his new writing, an ambition to strengthen what is good and real in us, but its style is down-to-earth, unromantic, and mischievous. The central section of his book Savukkeen sininen ajatus ('A blue thought of a cigarette') consists of a long chatty travelogue:      In America      where everything is possible, even the sentences      of French philosophers, here      they're fed to dogs in the drugstore parking lot,      and the ocean's water, the slosh of fucking      like a big dog lapping water from a cup,      that, too, is a quote,      learned by rote      like our whole civilization.... Hannu Mäkelä (born 1943) deals with fundamental questions matter-of-factly, in terms of a life lived. He looks for connections between the past and future, and for vestigial kindness in the human species. The work in Rakkaus Pariisiin ja muita runoja ('Love for Paris and other poems') is musical and meditative. Poems.       A similarly engaging poet is Juhani Kellosalo (born 1951), a surgeon in professional life. In his Baabelin kartta ('Map of Babel'), Kellosalo writes:      Not yet,      no more.      Between those two you struggle,      consciousness. Against the background of a lost childhood appears a northern snow landscape in which the poet stands contemplating existence, relationships, and current events. Poems.      Translated by Anselm Hollo   Top of page