By Adam Buhck
Aki Salmela, a writer in the International Writing Program, talks about the themes and inspiration for his poetry. (Audio compiled by Adam Buhck & edited by Lily Abromeit)
Aki Salmela never feared becoming a “starving artist.”
“Finland supports artists,” the poet and translator said. “It is a small country, and to have a proper cultural identity, we need these things more than [Americans] do.”
Salmela is coming to the end of a three-month stay with the University of Iowa’s International Writing Program. He was nominated by Finnish literary organizations and selected by the U.S. Embassy in Finland and the IWP.
During his stay in Iowa City, Salmela has lived and worked alongside 33 other writers from all over the world. His time has been split largely between giving talks on his craft, learning from the other participants, and working on his writing.
This trip marked the Helsinki native’s first time in the United States, which ended up being a pleasant surprise for the plainspoken poet.
“I like it surprisingly a lot,” he said. “I was prepared not to like it. I’d seen and heard all kinds of things about the U.S.”
Some of Salmela’s knowledge about the U.S. came from translating American poetry.
One of the inherent difficulties of translation is ensuring the deeper meaning of the work is not lost when removed from its native language. That’s not always the case, though, Salmela said.
“I translate a lot of American poetry, and some of the stuff is so embedded in American culture and the American way of using language, so of course it loses something,” he said. “But then again, people in Finland, we grow up with that American culture, watching TV and stuff, so lots of it kind of carries over.”
Salmela didn’t grow up knowing he wanted to be a writer. In fact, it wasn’t until his late teens that he developed a passion for writing, partially because of the musicians he was listening to at the time, Velvet Underground and Lou Reed.
“They were all really literate guys,” he said. “I started reading the things that they were reading.”
Once Salmela started writing, publication quickly followed, although finding the self-confidence to attach his name to his work took some time.
“I first published some poems anonymously in this scientific magazine,” he said. “I just happened to know the editor, and she accepted some of my poems, but I didn’t want my name to appear at the time. I’m highly self-critical.”
When Salmela first decided to attach his name to his work, it was for a high-profile début in the legendary Finnish literary magazine Parnasso, which has been in circulation since 1951 and features, among other things, poetry and short fiction.
“It was a great feeling,” he said. “The poems were also very good. I had several pages of that quite prestigious magazine.”
The majority of Salmela’s writings don’t reach those glossy pages. With good reason, he said.
“You should not be afraid of doing useless work and discarding lots of stuff you write,” he said. “There’s no point in trying to publish everything you do. I see that happen, and it’s horrible. I probably only publish about 10 percent of what I write.”