Modern Woman (Paperback)

The trailblazing debut collection of Edith Södergran, a modernist visionary and one of the most influential poets to write in Swedish. Södergran's daring, avant-garde work outraged many of her Finland-Swedish contemporaries who clung to traditional literary sensibilities.

Through dynamic symbolism and fluid logic, the poems comprising her first collection fundamentally questioned early twentieth-century notions of what poetry is and what it can do. 'Something like this has never been heard before,' noted critic and fellow Finland-Swedish poet Hagar Olsson about her work. During her short life, Södergran enacted the poet's ultimate task of imagining previously unexplored possibilities for language, ushering literary modernism into Swedish-language writing and inspiring generations of writers since.

Edith Södergran (1892-1923) was a Swedish-speaking Finnish poet living in the Russian Empire who is widely credited with introducing modernism to Swedish-language poetry. Born in St. Petersburg and educated in German, Södergran held a unique polyglot status that allowed her to be influenced by a variety of early modernist literature, setting her on a path toward creating her own brand of challenging poetry. Though her writing was largely ridiculed by more conservative critics, she released four collections during her lifetime. She died of chronic tuberculosis at the age of 31 receiving little positive recognition. However, her impact on Swedish-language poetry has become monumental, and today she is remembered as one of the most influential modern poets in Nordic literature.

CD Eskilson is the author of Scream / Queen (Acre Books). Their work appears in Kenyon Review, The Offing, Pleiades, Georgia Review, Ninth Letter, and others. They are a recipient of the C.D. Wright / Academy of American Poets Prize and have been nominated for Best of the Net, Best New Poets, and the Pushcart Prize. CD earned their MFA from the University of Arkansas where they were awarded the Walton Family Fellowship in Poetry, the James T. Whitehead Award in Poetry, and the Lily Peter Fellowship in Translation.