Helvi Juvonen

Helvi Juvonen (1919–1959) was a Finnish poet and writer known for pushing the boundaries of modernist poetry in Finland. Synthesizing the old and the new, her poems occupy the natural world as both setting and vehicle in her explorations of illness, suffering and religion, toward a metaphysical understanding of the world. A respected poet in her own time, Juvonen also translated the work of Emily Dickinson into Finnish. For the last ten years of her life, she lived with her female partner Sirkka Meriluoto, and in 1957, she was awarded the prestigious Eino Leino Prize for literary achievement. Her works continue to find new audiences, giving Juvonen a permanent place in the Finnish imagination.