#suorva

[aaknopf]

A multi-generational saga courses across the pages of Ædnan, by Sámi-Swedish author Linnea Axelsson, translated from the Swedish by Saskia Vogel. The verse epic follows an Indigenous Sámi family who have herded reindeer for generations, as the forces of colonialism and modern development of their ancestral lands threaten their culture and livelihood. The story is told by a small chorus of characters from the 1910s through the current day, and we become especially close to Lise, who left her Sámi family, following her brother Jon-Henrik, to be educated at a residential school for “Nomad” children. This excerpt from Chapter XII takes place in the early 1970s, along the Great Lule River Valley, where the state-owned Vattenfall company was developing hydroelectric resources, and Lise is graduating into a world unimaginable to her parents.

. .

The river climbed silently up the hills

as soon as Vattenfall whistled it came creeping:

–

Streamed backwards up its deep channel and drowned the earth

When the great Suorva Dam for the third time was to be regulated

–

Entreaty

shone from Mama’s eyes

–

She explained clearly to the Swedes 

that the fishing will suffer if the water rises

–

There was probably no one who understood what she was saying

– –

After the social studies lesson I went with the others to sit on the gymnasium floor

–

Almost all of Malmberget’s students had been dismissed from class

– To participate in the miners’ strike meeting

 –

Someone had heard that Olof Palme was coming

that he would travel all the way up here 

–

To the mining company’s and Vattenfall’s world the one that he himself had helped build

–

It is what he is guarding

It is all that he can see

–

The mine boss’s voice

flowed wildly above the crowded hall which was hot with bodies

–

His voice was so robust his conviction so intense

–

I glanced at Anne who was sitting beside me leaning against the wall bars

and she smiled back at me

–

Soon we would be leaving school too 

–

And could start working join the union

–

You took the job you wanted that’s all there was to it 

– 

Switchboard cleaner or cook

with the old folks at the Pioneer or the children in day care

– –

I spend the weekend up at Mama and Papa’s 

–

I stand with Jon-Henrik

 –

Watching the river flow murky across the slope

–

That brushy slope

where he and I used to go it’s underwater now

 –

How are our tracks ever to be heard Among the Swedes’ roads and power stations

–

It’s Jon-Henrik who says this he had also been drawn down to the dam

–

To work for Vattenfall as soon as school was done

 –

I’m surprised when he says

That he’d preferred to have taken up with the reindeer

–

Been elected into the Sámi community

And learned to guide that wandering gray soft ocean across the world of the fells

–

Just as the lot of us were once taught at the Nomad School that this is what the Sámi do

that this is how we all live

–

He laughs and says:

–

Who knows what the spring flood will bring with it

this drowned  earth may yet be fertile

More on this book and author:

Learn more about Ædnan by Linnea Axelsson.

Check out The Rumpus for a conversation between Linnea Axelsson and Susan Devan Harness about Axelsson's Sámi heritage and the decision to write Ædnan in verse. 

Click here to read Linnea Axelsson's op-ed piece for LitHub on Scandinavia’s hidden history of Indigenous oppression.

Visit our Tumblr to peruse poems, audio recordings, and broadsides in the Knopf poem-a-day series.

To share the poem-a-day experience with friends, pass along this link.

[the-cricket-chirps]

Helmer Osslund

Suorva om hösten

Oil on canvas

[lihikainanea]

What are Tiger and Bill’s plans for Midsommer today ? I imagine they would be with the whole skarsgard fam on the glorious day. Also love it when you write stuff with the whole fam. I’d get small af if I was around not just Bill but all of them , obviously since they’re all giants , but also because I feel like they’d all have some protective nature over Tiger. Just since she’s the smallest out of all of them haha

Not gonna lie sweet nani, Misommar yesterday really bummed me out. I was so emotional all day, because this is the second year in a row that I'm missing it. And last year, when I spoke to my friends, we were all just like "ha well at least next year is a guarantee!" and then like...here we are.

My friends all went out to Väddö and rented these small cottages side by side, right on the sea. They sent me pictures all day, they FaceTimed me--and man, they did it so that I'd feel included, but it almost made it worse. It tore my heart in two, and just gave me serious FOMO. Midsommar in Sweden is by far my most favourite holiday and missing it again this year just kind of pushed me into the dark depths of why bother and nothing is worth it.

I think it's also exacerbated by the fact that I'm still a little mad at Sweden. I live in one of the areas that underwent the strictest lockdown and for the longest time. I didn't see my parents or my sister in person for about 9 months, and even then, after 9 months WE got fed up and nothing made sense so we started gathering illegally, for the sake of our mental sanity. Everything was closed. We weren't allowed to do anything. Going through that while seeing Sweden basically carry on life as usual is still the cause of a lot of my ire.

Wow, this got dark.

ANYWAY.

I want to say that Midsommar for tiger and Bill isn't even in the archipelago--no no, the whole family has a better idea. They rent a whole bunch of chalets way the fuck in Northern Sweden, where the night stays REAL bright. Maybe in Suorva or something.

And it's just so swedish. Small red cottages, evergreens, deep blue lakes. The cottages are minimalist and just so fucking beautiful, with white walls and white furniture. The bed creaks a little, but it's also covered in warm blankets and furs for the cool nights, and the fresh air knocks both of them out each night anyway.

And then Midsommar comes and it's just...god, it's magical. All of them seem very intent on making sure that tiger has a perfectly Swedish Midsommar, but also just a perfect Midsommar. She's taken out into the fields to pluck flowers. She's shown how to make a flower crown, and when she excitedly shows Bill he just smiles so big at her, then places it gently on her head for her. She wears a pretty dress with flowers on it, too. A huge table is set in the garden while the brothers put up the Maypole, and tiger admires how well it all comes together--floral centrepieces, chairs lined up perfectly, big baskets of fruits, the most delicious looking strawberry cream cakes that tiger has ever seen. One brother is suspiciously missing from helping to put the Maypole up and when tiger goes looking for some table linens she spots Gustaf in the back of the pantry, hidden from view, eating the pickled herring right from the jar. He gives her a mischievous smirk, waves her over, fixes her a crisp bread just right.

There's a slight uproar when the family notices that suddenly they are 3 jars short of pickled herring. Gustaf just winks at tiger.

There's akvavit--too much of it. Tiger shyly asks one of the smaller kiddie cousins to teach her the frog dance around the Maypole, and Bill is just delighted when he sees her do it. Midsommar fort he Skarsgards is not about huge, loud parties--it's about family, good food, endless food, and staying up all night to relish in the beauty of the motherland. When dusk takes over for a brief while the chairs are set up on the dock, surrounding a bonfire. More food is brought out, and tiger thinks she may just explode--until Bill hands her a tiny glass, pours a splash of akvavit into it.

"Just sip it," he says, "Helps with the digestion."

She quirks a brow as he pours some for himself, but he shoots his back.

"Just sip it?" she says.

"Swedes don't sip."

And it's just magical in every way. They only get back to their small cottage around 7AM, and they both just fall into bed. Bill wraps them up tight in blankets, his big hand rubbing her stomach, and it's the best sleep tiger has had in years--until she’s jolted awake when Bill jumps up.

“I forgot,” he mumbles, stumbling out of bed and getting her flower crown. He undoes a few flowers.

“Hey--” she objects sleepily--”I want to keep that.”

“Seven flowers,” he says, carefully picking out 7 different kinds from the crown and handing her the small bouquet, “You have to sleep with seven flowers under your pillow, and you’ll dream about your soulmate.”

“Don’t have to pal,” she says like the big sap she is, “But if you insist.”

They wake up hours later and both are a little hungover (from food AND liquor), both have that residual sleepy fog that is just so lovely after a great night. They're also the first ones up even though it's well into the afternoon--so Bill gets the fire going again, pulls some chairs around it. He wraps tiger up in another blanket and sits her right on his lap, hands her some coffee--and they just stay like that, drifting in and out of sleep, until slowly but surely the chairs fill up and it's somehow time to eat again.

[johnafahlen-blog]

“Suorva”