Published in 1986, ‘Tule takaisin, pikku Sheba’ (‘Come back, little Sheba’) is a collection of poems written by Finnish poet Sirkka Turkka that won the ‘Finlandia Prize‘ in 1987. Born in 1939, Sirkka Turkka was a stable master and worked as a horse nurse, among other things. ‘Come back, little Sheba’ is a work of poetry in which the world and lived life are viewed from nature and its cycle: seasons and the phenomena associated with them are strongly present in it (summer and lilacs, autumn and rain, winter and snow…). Another strongly emerging element is the human mind heavy with grief, filled with longing and sadness: that mind contemplates the incomprehensibility of life and love, the eyes are flooded with absurd tears. The object of the poem’s greatest longing is, as the title of the work suggests, little Sheba, a dog who sleeps behind the checkered window curtains, already a hundred years old, without waking up. Thus, the collection is primarily a love poem for a dog and as such a very touching, particularly different experience. Sometimes a dog speaks, sometimes a rooster steps out, this time lonely, crying and in a bad mood. Also winner of the ‘Eino Leino Prize’ in 2000, Sirkka Turkka is a delightfully special, surprising in her diversity, poetess worth getting to know.
