I was honoured - thanks, Karri - to be asked to write an accompanying article, what Leevi Lehto who translated the piece - thanks, Leevi - describes as a "sympathetic memoir-essay". Part of the translation:
Silti hän on julkaissut vasta nelisen vuotta, ja enimmän ajan tästä hänen yhteytensä muihin kirjailijoihin ovat olleet yksinomaan sähköisiä. Muutama kuukausi sitten hän mailasi minulle kertoen tavanneensa ensimmäisen suomalaisen runoilijansa. Tuon jälkeen hänen paikalliset kontaktinsa ovat selvästi lisääntyneet. On miellyttävää saada seurata, miten virtuaalinen muuttuu (myös) reaaliseksi.For those of you for whom Finnish is their first language, Leevi has posted his translation here. For the small remainder, the original sympathetic memoir-essay is posted in full below.
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Mark,
Much obliged! And, as you may have noticed (re: Muistikirja), I actually met the perp last night, spending a nice summer evening with Jukka and his wonderful family, talking like we've known each other for ages (the first email between us just turned a year). His studio is only a nook in the family room. He's got his lap top there, a few cameras, a keyboard to play music on, a selection of books (a Complete Wordsworth among them). And that's about it. A couple of caged birds chirping above his head, the kind you might see looking out your window, I guess. He showed me how he works. He selects a piece of writing from my blog. He taps away on the lap-top keyboard for a minute or so. Strange-looking code come ang go on the screen. And just like that, out of the blue, and image, a newly-composed nonlinear poem, appears (re: Muistikirja). He's done it again. He shows me his mail-art collection. I wonder about the mailman (actually a lady) who delivers the stuff. If there's any more art, they may have to hire more mailmen. He shows me his work as publisher. There's a lot of it for a guy working out of a nook in his living room. Among them there's a book or two by a poet living far and away in QLD. We decide to invite him over. This is how it happens.
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