Autumn 2013

Authors
i n r i k u s , M a i r e I r o a n d M a r e t V a h e r
essence of things she reveals something
surprising and escapes the difference
between the big and the small”. Pärtna
writes about the small, simple and ordinary,
but she does it in a well-refined way so that
the results are harmonious and refreshing
against the background of modern poetry.
Pärtna has been publishing her poems in
magazines since 2005; her début collection
At the Grassroots appeared in 2010. This
first collection contains plenty of “cosmic
romanticism”, which hints at her orientation
towards the future and yearning for something
better, and at a search for ways to
achieve this better future. On the other hand,
it is the poetry of solitude, where solitude is
something much more than simple loneliness.
It embodies the relations between a
voice, present here and now, and absent
others, and speaks to readers through a
common everyday milieu.
Thresholds and Pillars is Pärtna’s
second collection; devoid of cosmic romanticism,
it digs deeper into something else.
Pärtna’s poetry has become more pictorial in
the sense that she is verbally mapping her
surrounding environment and her own,
sensually experienced places, and her
poems form a kind of verbal-mental geography.
Generally, her poetry centres on
nature, but natural objects and temporal
moments are compacted into her personal
experience, backed up by her solitude in the
city. The “rain has grown into silence, tree
branches are heavy / and the sun has set.
under the blades of grass / and among old fir
needles somebody’s steps are shuffling. /
something is rustling on a tree trunk,
somebody’s wings / are brushing against
sleepy tree tops. somebody’s feet are
making a path // through a perfect city:
across the yet unbuilt bridges / and nameless
streets, past / small empty shops and
cafés / on the thick foggy riverbank.” Such
snapshots depict Pärtna’s home town Tartu,
but also her memory of other places and
moments. Landscape and space are the
central themes and forms of existence in
Pärtna’s poetry. “how can one remember
something that remains behind / a personal
experience? some clues can be found / in
the space; the space is the very one that
gives life to stories.” Spatiality and moving
between different places give rise to the
question of temporality: “time simply
happens, there is / nowhere to hide from it.
or even if there were, you can perhaps only /
fail in your attempts to overcome its
happening - / to fail, and to keep waiting for
the whole winter.”
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