Forfattersignatur

This article is about Tua Forsström and the impact and power of poetry. It is based on the assumption that the signature of a work, and sometimes an author’s entire oeuvre, is not primarily located in the author or narrator, but rather in the mood, atmosphere, voice and tone that characterize the work. These phenomena, however, are difficult to deal with. With reference to various researchers, I examine the concepts of tone, voice, mood and atmosphere, in order to find central points of attention in an affective and ambient-oriented reading. More specifically I build on Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht’s and Horace Engdahl’s approaches to these issues and use their insights as I delve further into Forsström’s work. Here I examine the author’s poetological basis, and, with special focus on the poetry collection Songs, I exemplify how an affective and ambient reading can unfold.