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