poetry

Without her she gets made, a kind of other, malformation of sex. She needs persona and identity of her own. What does she make of herself, of this lot? Out of these forms of hers. She must build herself.

| Henna Timanttimetsä

Character of mist that makes you feel cold inside. Her reputation precedes her, irregular person, despicable.  She is what you heard, you think. What you made of her in your mind via your and other people’s speech. Isn’t she. Talk works like clay. Story of her could be continued in this way unless she would not act for her defense. Get that clay into her own hands. She needs herself to oppose, resist and defend herself. Nobody else does it. Nobody else is interested in her life. Her life what it really is, what she really is like and able to do. Her reality is not interesting to anybody but herself, she lives it, not you and makes it interesting. She makes her life even there is discouragement, contempt, laughter, ill talk, threat, there is so little faith in her that it is unbelievable and unbearable. To accept passively what goes on and on, because others accept it, it suits them and they say there is nothing one can do, for her it is not an option. That is her exceptional quality, active resistance, energy of hers.

Evaluations, descriptions, adjectives, measurements and comparisons, faults, flaws, drawbacks. Qualities we need. Qualities we have made us and what are they worth, how do qualities change. We imagine, make, consume and refine ourselves.

She is not right. Characteristics that is stated as a fact without further evidence than hearsay. Demonizing her to people who listen. Who asked about her. Without her she gets made. As if she died. Character of mist that makes you feel cold inside. Is this the same world we inhabit? You speak of me, but you do not confront me nor speak to me. How little respect there is, how little trust. She is what you heard as a fact. To think otherwise would be unthinkable. Thinkable pleasure, envious joy of dragging her down speaks mountains. She is not right.

She is not right. To kill is to entertain. It is to better yourself. To paint a picture of malicious woman is to draw a separating line. Pointing her out from above, from a distance, from acclaimed perfection, from accepted shameless perfection undeniable.

To know her is to say what she is. She is loud, she is noisy, she is quiet, she is broken, she is tense, she is irrational, she is shameless, she is lost, she is dead.

 

Must be imagination. The things of a thing, what a thing is. It’s a she. She is, and still she is not.

| Henna Timanttimetsä

She is beautiful she is fat she is boring she is weird she is dowdy she is stupid she is jumpy she is grumpy she is ugly she is shy she is unfashionable she is immoral she is slutty she is colorless she is old she is distant she is opinionated she is straightforward she is stubborn she is impossible she is intolerable she is unapproachable she is presentable she is nice she is cute she is arrogant she is scary she is messy she is crazy she is frizzy she is fuzzy she is edgy she is angry she is hostile she is fragile she is lame she is eatable she is fuckable she is bitchy she is nerdy she is in the way she is the way she is not found she is unknown she is hidden she is a burden she is childish she is cranky she is whiny she is evil she is jealous she is treacherous she is intelligent she is bright she is moody she is talented she is alone she is a monster

The kind of thing anyone can crush.

http://www.motherjones.com/media/2014/10/corporate-crisis-manager-interview-eric-dezenhall-glass-jaw
Mother Jones: ”Glass jaw” is a boxing metaphor for the big, tough-looking guy who can’t take a punch. What are some examples of this in your profession?

Strength of Poetry now

| Henna Timanttimetsä
It is as if poets have vanished. Vanished into an old world making way to ’progress’ and ’development’. In need of being an absolute professional poetry is in distress. In desperate need of stating total professionalism a poet is something incomprehensible (how do you make a living. Do you get paid for what you do?), because anything else than professional money-making is ridiculous. Same goes for fine artist of course, but it is obviously more rare to be a poet. It takes something else. To say I am a poet and publish my work online is a hobbyist way unless one makes money. I personally resent the idea of professionalism since my professionalism has been under suspicion always, whatever I did, whatever position I had. It is not enough, never enough. At worst it is nothing, my art is not art and there is always a consultant telling how to make things so that I would be convincing to those who need to be convinced. To be an artist, a female standing alone and do art, should be finding a role of a saleswoman, advertiser, entertainer and please. Poetry to me represents the opposite of that role. I don’t have to please in any way. That is what I am set to do. I enjoy the marginal outsider position for that reason. That is freedom. Professionalism as such is not something of a goal at all. That itself is a flawed way of seeing making art.

Strength of poetry now is to break the need for absolute professionalism, to disturb a search for stability and getting entertainment to keep politics, activism, feelings and other distresses aside and away, to absolutely jeopardize contemporary consciousness and threat the norms. To question the mindset of absolute money-making machinery, ideology of winning, the exceptional of it, smugness of it. To bring anarchy into writing in the net, to making art altogether. To question the ways of making and why make.

Even within the fine arts it is not self-evident there is interest or knowledge over poetry. It is somehow below the image, below the hype and contemporary ’self-evident’ excellence of educated and notified skill and talent.
http://www.cprw.com/stalking-the-typical-poem
When I tell people I teach and – God help me – even write poetry, they often say, “I wish you could explain modern poetry to me. I just don’t understand most of it.”

Escaped surprise

| Henna Timanttimetsä

Green the color, yellow the color, leaves the color, color that left. Or it is there to notify, some shade of bright to make us see an enterprise, initiative of particular. Endless topic of us of what color are we, what season, what ideology do we stand for, we do stand for always for something and like. Necessity to like to feel enjoyment and standing. What color to like, what colorless question to let out and what plain answer to give, short answer, because one is entitled to answer to such question of basic personal favorite. What is your personal input in this? Could one ask why do you want to know? Such attitude is hostile, to question the question. Does the answer make one more soft, acceptable and friendly when you know person’s most liked shade, named, preferred, enjoyed the wavelength of light hitting that wall of corrugated iron.

tough is sadness deleted, embraced battle of will and ability

| Henna Timanttimetsä

rough rough rough rough rough rough rough rough, it’s as if dog was barking for hours with no end, no change in tone, me thinking how long will it last and what does it want. Does it belong to anybody?
Rough rough rough disgust, boredom
disturbance and irritation to get used to, to feel no pain by it, to let the disturbing angst go by letting those little things not get you. Thinking the possible sadness of a dog.

Place all your bets on that horse

| Henna Timanttimetsä

It is mathematical perfection, magical measurements,
vintage crystals on her harness mark her worth,
mark the everything she has felt,
little fake, little truth,  little needle, little fingers and white thread putting it all together as one glimmering dress. Prize horse, override and buzz, running meat, galloping gown sewn in this  first world vehicle and room like a carriage with anticipation and hope with good night sleep. Wagon of a gypsy who is happy for she has got her valuables in her hands.

What is to wait and wait and wait and when one gets the thing one has waited for, what becomes out of that process of reaching out and having reached out and having.

When is Revolution, the book

| Henna Timanttimetsä

When is Revolution, irrational right and wrong, essays and poems (pdf)

For me revolution is emotional and as a happening it is irrational, violent and brutal. During political revolution everything happens fast and we don’t know what happens next. Future looks like an endless fight and filled with unkept promises. Idea of political revolution is to take power from those who abuse the nation and its people. The word revolution is about something orbiting the same route without stopping. The irony is that it is what many man-made revolutions end up doing, going in circles. To throw over bad leaders to make new bad leaders and bad politics. It is the case in many current revolutions. The importance is emphasised on the event, which is a thrill, act of taken freedom, but to make the nation actually democratic is much more difficult. It takes a long time, serious work and dedication and actual will to want democracy. Reasons why democracy and peace are difficult to find and accomplish I go through in my book. Most important issue is who has got the power, how is it used and gained and held on to. Other issues closely linked to how power is used and by who are ideology, religion, gender issues, basic values on which society is built. Politics is power play and a show, but it has appeared that the ones who truly have power are hidden behind massive fortunes. World economy keeps politicians in tight leash and us as well. Finance world creates the empires we look at. Here comes the role of the consumer, voter, citizen and the part played by the individual. Do we live to benefit our own good only? To make revolution is a question of existence and how to exist.

My work consists of written text only, poems and essays. No images added other than what my texts make and a burning need to do something. I began my search and research in a tormented way, thrilled and with joy for having this opportunity. I understand what to make revolution means. It is total belief in what one is doing. It is focus. It becomes meaning. As finished, the item, my book, looks like a copy of next year’s budget. It is grim, but so is the state of the world. I did not want this book to be polished work of art, nor a clean correct scientific statement of having searched for something and reported the results. Results of human activity are in the news, in landscape, all over. If one bothers to dig deeper, evidence is there. I had to break a pattern of making and saying. Lots of patterns to be broken over and over. But then I had to also make something whole, something new, not just to break and put to pieces, but to build. One helpful thing was to start writing without thinking about the mistakes I might make. Not to think what other people might think about my work. My research method was to dive in, into the sea of information and try to find the truth and make an image of the world in need of total turn over.

I wanted to make a manifesto and do it as an artist and a writer mixed with the role of researcher. My approach to subject revolution is that everything is linked, every action has a reaction and those things happening far away affect us here. Making revolution becomes a difficult and delicate task, it becomes a task of everybody and not only of those far away. That is what I am after. Making a revolution which is not bound by borders of nations. To break walls inside people’s minds meaning prejudices, class, traditions, misogyny, racism and superstitions.

My meaning is to provoke to think, not only of oneself. What is the possible revolution, that may seem impossible, because a lot is wrong and those who have the ultimate power are truly mighty. We are surveilled and under heavy rule of capitalism, which seriously looks like totalitarianism and brainwash. Where owning as much as possible is seen a good thing. It also seems that those mighty ones’ make us feel powerless and small on purpose. It is to enslave us. Our world is filled with propaganda on how life should be lived. Media is the one powerful force, which is difficult to be defeated and changed. It is not luckily one entity. There are unbias news and neutral reports, one just have to be able to find them. We are at mercy of what is given to us if we don’t know where and how to look for information. I have been interested in finding revolution that would benefit people instead of the leaders, a revolution of information, wisdom and do it yourself. Can such revolution be found in the news via articles and columns in the net? How to connect with those who think the same? Many current revolutions have been implemented and reported by other than reporters of magazines in the internet as we know and we can follow very closely what happens in Ukraine, Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Bahrain and Tibet etc. if we wish. We can choose if we want to follow what happens, what concerns us. We can choose what interests us, what makes us choose. How free and individual are we in our decision-making? Social media have become an important way to put activism through. For example Feminist organization Femen has an active online of images and videos in social media from their demonstrations around the world. Change is happening fast because information and agitation get noticed and is very much-needed. We need the courage to do the right thing.

There is something about fragmented way of doing, which interests me. It reflects the world we live in. How we put together the bits and pieces and make the picture of it all. That is one part of what my work is about. Essays and poems which talk with each other, so they have become chapters of this book. I have framed my work to grow from radical feminist point of view. It is feared and hated movement, diminished by many. Feminism is the ideology, ethical and philosophical ground from where I write and do art. Rights of women and children are my main focus, crucially important to take into consideration and pay attention to, because they are the ones violated in a massive manner. They are the weak and the powerless. That includes how we take care of the environment. It has a direct influence on lives of poor people, who very often are women and children.

Question is not what needs to be done to make a complete turnover of way of life. We have the answers but are we ready to put them in use in a scale that would make the needed impact. The means and actions to do something have to be implemented immediately, not in twenty years. It means giving up one’s comfort and winnings for comfort and well-being of someone else somewhere else.

The book I begin with introduction to poetry and a collection of poems of mine. In general in history poetry has been making social change and we can think how does it do it. Who is the poet? What is part of an artist? It is a relief to read stories and texts of people who have been through difficult times, it is to reflect. It is about sharing. Same goes with music which is poetry as well and history is filled with powerful protest songs. Music has played tremendous role in waking up, inspiring and unifying people. Poetry and truth provokes. Because truth can be ugly.

Spillover

| Henna Timanttimetsä

Carnage over lunch, arrow in his eye, swollen shields. I am not even trying  to find faults in me anymore. I do not want to be in that inferior place desperately trying to fit in, because I am not fucking inferior to you. If there is a reason to know you why don’t you show it, I am not quite sure I see it.

I had a thought, couple of words. It was perfect couple of words.

| Henna Timanttimetsä
and now and now and now and now and now and now and now and now and now and now and now and now and now and now and now and now and now and now and then I started to feel anxious and I said I am sorry I am sorry I am sorry I am sorry I am sorry I am sorry I am sorry I am sorry I am sorry I am sorry I am sorry I am sorry I am sorry I am sorry I am sorry I am sorry I am sorry I am sorry to explain what this is, I probably should, it is when you repeat a couple of words multiple times out loud they begin to sound something else and you see the letters in your mind and begin to wonder what do they mean and what does it actually mean when I repeat what I just repeated