Leena Lambert Comments on Hauen Laulu - The Pike's Song

The famous poem Hauen laulu (The Pike’s Song), often called,”the Poem of Poems” (“runojen runo”), was included in Hellaakoski’s sixth collection of poems, Jääpeili (Ice Mirror).  He considered it one of his best poems and since its publication in the fall of 1928, it has been subject to many interpretations and learned opinions, and it has also remained, for generations of ordinary Finns, a favourite poem to love and to recite, despite its enigmatic nature or perhaps because of it.  It is a part of the national, literary treasure.

Some have seen in Hauen laulu an excellent, surrealistic self-portrait of the poet. Others see in it a powerful, descriptive vision, where seriousness is combined with playfulness and humour.

When asked about the poem, Hellaakoski remarked how needlessly difficult the understanding of the poem had been made.  “You just have to live through it with pure intuition and it will open to you”.

According to him, one August night he woke up, and the poem presented itself to him.  Barely awake, he wrote it down by candlelight as each stanza came to him almost complete. In his words: “I felt that I had expressed everything that needed to be said”. The inspiration came from the tranquil surroundings and happiness of the summer of 1928, spent at Kalalahti Lake near Sääksmäki.

                                                                                                          Leena Lambert