Now, I'm going to read a poem that is 50 years old.
Because it's 50 years old, it's politically incorrect.
So in case anyone picks up on this.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, what do I read first?
The poem or--
I'll read-- I'll do it like this.
50 years ago, I wrote this poem.
It was based on this book I had, with pictures in it.
It's called "Lapland."
The little Lapp girl wanders around picking cloudberries
while the bluethroat sings one of his 100 songs.
There are tiny white flowers, too--
angelica,
and the wild white ranunculus.
The reindeer eat lichen and moss under the melting snow.
Some of the lichen are a thousand years old
and do recognize the modern world.
The geography lessons are young in comparison,
though this one is older than most, since
Lapland lies on no map and the little Lapp girl
must be at least 80 by the looks of the book.
It is doubtful she remembers the day
of this photograph.
The pencil-stroke of a birch
can be seen in the distance.
Once in a while
she must still hear the bluethroat and think
of her childhood.
Out of a hundred songs
he has not forgotten the one he sang
on an afternoon when the snow left and
the wild white ranunculus took its place.
But he is the peripheral sort
and not at the center of anything.
So when I wrote that poem, I had never heard of the word Sami.
I have since met a Sami poet and heard
him sing his own poems in his own language, as well
as traditional poems--
songs that over 100 years old.
The Sami are the Indigenous peoples
of northernmost Scandinavia.
If you want to learn more about them, a good place to start
is to watch the film Sami Blood.
If foreign films are not for you,
try the Disney hit, Frozen, which is based on a Sami legend,
and the Sami people were delighted by it.
They loved the fact that Disney took an interest
in their legends.
Anyway, Lapp, a word I use twice in the poem,
is now considered a disrespectful word
to use for the Sami people.
But the word Lapland is not disrespectful,
as it is still the Swedish word for the territory the Sami live
in.
Lapland is accepted.
Lapp is not.
What a world we live in anyway.
None of this has anything to do with the poem.
And if you don't understand that,
I would go so far as to say you don't understand poetry.
Although the poem is titled "Lapland,"
and it's set in Lapland, it's not about Lapland.
Read again.
"Lapland."
The little Lapp girl wanders around picking cloudberries
while the bluethroat sings one of his hundred songs.
There are tiny white flowers, too-- angelica
and the wild white ranunculus.
The reindeer eat lichen and moss under the melting snow.
Some of the lichen are a thousand years old
and do not recognize the modern world.
The geography lessons are young in comparison,
though this one is older than most, since
Lapland lies on no map, and the little Lapp girl
must be at least 80 by the looks of the book.
It is doubtful she remembers the day
of this photograph.
The pencil-stroke of a birch
can be seen in the distance.
Once in a while
she must still hear the bluethroat and think
of her childhood.
Out of a hundred songs
He has not forgotten the one he sang
on an afternoon when snow left and
the wild white ranunculus took its place.
But he is the peripheral sort
and not at the center of anything.