Aaro Hellaakoski

Aaro Hellaakoski (June 22, 1893 – November 23, 1952) was a Finnish poet whose work includes some of the earliest examples of modernism in Finnish literature.

Aaro Hellaakoski in 1913

Quotes

• When the early morning sun

first pierced the grayness in the sky,

a pickerel rose from his watery home

to climb a pine tree, singing.

And high in the branches, he looked upon

the morning's glowing beauty -

the wind-blown ripples on the lake,

dew-freshened flowers and fields below.

• Aaro Hellaakoski. "The song of the pike hauen laulu." Aina Swan Cutler (trans.) in: Aili Jarvenpa, ‎Michael G. Karni (1989), Sampo, the magic mill: a collection of Finnish-American writing.

• From his hole so wet and drenching

a pike rose up to tree to sing

when through the greyish net of clouds

first gleam of day was seen

and at the lake the lapping waves

woke up with joyous mean

the pike rose to the spruce's crone

to take a bite at reddish cone

• Aaro Hellaakoski, "The Pike's Song," (1927), Leevi Lehto (transl.), in: Leevi Lehto. Leevi Lehto. Finnish poetry: then and now, January 2005. Published online at upenn.edu. Accessed 20-03-2013

Quotes about Aaro Hellaakoski

• For the poet Aaro Hellaakoski there was 'negative fire' in the steely blue skies of winter.
  • William Richard Mead (1993), An Experience of Finland. p. 58