Elsa Tölli
- Finland -
Elsa Tölli is a Finnish poet and performance artist whose work brings poetry to life both on paper and on stage. Tölli has appeared at numerous art festivals with evocative performances and video poetry pieces. Her heart beats for risky sensitivity, forgotten schlager divas, and dissecting the customary dynamics of a poetry performance. Tölli’s debut collection, Fun Primavera (2020), received much critical acclaim, and her second book, Diiva räjähtää nurmikoksi (2024), continues to expand her bold poetic vision.
Hearing words – On the poetry of Elsa Tölli
The relationship between written poetry and spoken word is intriguing, as they are generally seen as emphasising different elements of language. While spoken word tends to focus more on the sonic and rhythmic nature of words and sentences, written poetry usually feels more quiet and restrained in comparison. However, this is not the case with the poetry of Elsa Tölli (b. 1995). Tölli’s writing is both loud and powerful, utilising the conventions of spoken word on the printed page.
Tölli had already gained a reputation as a prolific performer before releasing her debut poetry collection, Fun Primavera, in 2020. The self-published work embodies the world of spoken word in a variety of ways. In an interview, Tölli stated wanting to convey “the adrenaline of being on stage” within the pages of a book. The primary attention grabber, at least initially, is the book object and its appearance: crayon drawings, photographs glued onto the page, handwritten poems, margins filled with colours, and lines of poems stricken through. While the book object has occasionally been a locus of experimentation in Finnish literature, books like Fun Primavera are unusual. The novelty of the visual surface can be traced to art forms other than literature: Tölli draws inspiration from “riot grrrl zines, camp aesthetic, the art of Carol Rama and especially from the intense fashion shows of Alexander McQueen”.
At heart, Fun Primavera is an emancipatory and empowering work of literature. The poems, which are mainly in prose form, are fast, intense, and immediate. A sense of community emerges from the poems, which aspire to connect with her audience in the manner of spoken word performances. The personal experiences of the speaker are intended to be related to. For Tölli, Fun Primavera encourages “both the reader and myself to reclaim power”.
Becoming somewhat of a literary phenomenon among younger readers, Fun Primavera did not go unnoticed by the Finnish literary establishment: it was nominated for the Helsingin Sanomat Literature Prize, and it won the prestigious Tanssiva Karhu Poetry Prize awarded by the Finnish public broadcast company YLE. Fun Primavera was the first self-published work to receive the award. The jury described the book as a “horn of plenty, openly boisterous”.
In 2024, Tölli released her second poetry collection, Diiva räjähtää nurmikoksi (“Diva Explodes into Grass”). Released by a major publishing house, the collection marks a shift towards a more traditional view of a poetry book. The poems are more refined and literary, and the flamboyant page embellishments are traded for a conventional black-and-white design. Nevertheless, the poetry itself remains rooted in spoken word. Akin to Fun Primavera, many of the poems in Diiva were originally written for the stage, to be read aloud.
Thematically, the collection deals with performance, which takes on different meanings throughout the collection: performing poetry in front of an audience; performing various social roles; and performing oneself to others. According to Tölli, the eponymous character featured in the poems is “inspired by old schlager singers and the divas of the Golden Age of Hollywood”.
Compared to the visual abundance of her debut, Diiva embodies excess in its own fashion. Firstly, the collection spans over a hundred pages. One could fit two or even three poetry collections in there. But abundance manifests itself in the poetry as well. The poems are a diverse bunch: there are long prose poems, phone calls, texts in the dramatic mode as well as poems consisting only of theatrical parentheses, to name a few. Diiva also employs different registers of language with ease. The flow of a metaphor-dense prose poem may be disrupted by an unexpected colloquialism.
The prominent aesthetic principles of Tölli’s poetry condense into three: openness, immediacy, and abundance. Tölli’s poetry is open in that it seeks to connect with readers, providing a possibility of community through poetry. It is also, in a sense, immediate: the aura of obscurity and complexity is absent. Lastly, the poetry overflows with the abundance of experiences, emotions, and affects.
Tölli has described her poetic ethos in an interview: “I want to write so that the reader can feel, taste, and hear the poetry”. This ethos is also evident in her interdisciplinary approach to writing. Tölli’s writing is more based on the poetics of spoken word and performance art rather than on the more conventional tradition of written poetry. The emphasis is placed on the sonic essence of language, on how the sentences linger in the reader’s mind. Similarly, the influence of DIY culture, underground zines, and scrapbooks is clear in the unorthodox book format of Fun Primavera, instead of the highbrow aesthetics of the 1960’s experimental literature. With this idiosyncratic yet refreshing approach, Tölli has found an unoccupied place within the contemporary poetry scene in Finland.
Essay by Iikka Arve
Poetry
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TABLE OF DIVA CONTENTS / DIIVASISÄLLYSLUETTELO
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Intro / Intro
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Eyes Watched Closely / Silmät katsoivat tarkasti
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Phone Call 1: Where Did I Go? / Puhelu 1: Minne menin?
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Blood and Elm / Verta ja jalava
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Rockfest 2017 / Ruisrock 2017
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The Masochist / Masokisti
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Costumes for Fitting / Rooliasuja sovitukseen
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Donkey / Aasi
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Volatile Displays / Väkivaltaisia esityksiä
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Phone Call 2: I Am Not It Anymore / Puhelu 2: En ole se enää
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Dead line / Deadline
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Prompter’s Tips and Tricks / Kuiskaaja (ohjeita esiintyjälle)
