Lauri Arvi Viita (17 December 1916 – 22 December 1965) was a poet hailing from the
Pispala
Pispala is a city area 2.5 km from the centre of Tampere, Finland. It is located on the northern slope of Pispalanharju, the highest esker in Finland.
Together with Pyynikki, Pispala is widely considered the most beautiful area of Tampere ...
district of
Tampere
Tampere ( , , ; sv, Tammerfors, ) is a city in the Pirkanmaa region, located in the western part of Finland. Tampere is the most populous inland city in the Nordic countries. It has a population of 244,029; the urban area has a population o ...
,
Finland
Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...
.
Viita was a verbally talented son of a carpenter who became a self-taught writer. He only published four poetry collections, but they became very popular. He also inspired other writers who had a working-class background. Viita's last creative years were shadowed by a mental illness, and he spent several periods in hospital.
Viita wrote mainly traditional poetry with rhymes. In 1950s, he was shadowed by emerging modernists such as
Paavo Haavikko
Paavo Juhani Haavikko (January 25, 1931 in Helsinki – October 6, 2008) was a Finnish poet, playwright, essayist and publisher, considered one of the country's most outstanding writers. He published more than 70 works, and his poems have been tran ...
and
Tuomas Anhava
Tuomas Anhava (5 June 1927, Helsinki – 22 January 2001, Helsinki) was a Finnish writer and recipient of the Eino Leino Prize in 1989.
Anhava's works closely follow the mold of modernist tradition of Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot. Anhava was a ...
. He played with words and published e.g. a poem where all words started with letter K.
Viita was married three times and had seven children. His second wife was famous poet
Aila Meriluoto. Viita died in a car accident in December 1965,
when the taxi he was in was struck by a truck driven by a
drunk driver
Drunk driving (or drink-driving in British English) is the act of driving under the influence of alcohol. A small increase in the blood alcohol content increases the relative risk of a motor vehicle crash.
In the United States, alcohol is i ...
.
Selected works
* ''Betonimylläri'' (poems, 1947)
* ''Kukunor'' (a poetic fairytale, 1949)
* ''Moreeni'' (a novel, 1950)
* ''Käppyräinen'' (poems, 1954)
* ''Suutarikin, suuri viisas'' (poems, 1961)
* ''Entäs sitten, Leevi'' (a novel, 1965)
References
External links
*
Lauri Viita Museum
{{DEFAULTSORT:Viita, Lauri
1916 births
1965 deaths
People from Tampere
Finnish male poets
20th-century Finnish poets
People with schizophrenia
20th-century male writers
Road incident deaths in Finland