It is easy to say of Doris Kareva (b. 1958) that she secures her place like a shining pearl in the strong tradition of Estonian women’s poetry. However, that would be to say that Doris Kareva is simply a very good poet; that she is a master who knows how to deal with words and how to be dealt words, would be closer to the truth.

The most striking feature of Kareva’s poetry is its strict adherence to form; her wording is not so much economical as minimal. Kareva’s method seems to be to use as few words as possible, astonishingly often the message comes across clearly and at the same time with multiple meanings. On the other hand, the multiplicity of meanings can generate the opposite of clarity: a form of hinting which at its most illuminating becomes utterly oracle-like. Kareva’s language can be compared to that early morning moment when the sun has not yet torn the veil of mist into nothingness but still gives the mist a golden sheen. Kareva’s sense of language is unrivalled and unlimited.

But Kareva-like poetry does not find expression only on a stylistic level. Scarcity of words is accompanied by depth of message. At a time when Estonian poetry is dominated by doggerel, by sociality searching for and finding different meanings, by actuality and social awareness, Kareva’s metaphysical sensitivity and unbearable lightness of ontology always strike a fresh and polemical note. Kareva could be criticised for all too often sacrificing the message on the enchanting altar of beauty. Nevertheless, there is at present no other Estonian poet the moral charge of whose message can be sensed so physically.

Utterance on the border of silence has made Kareva speak more and more seldom. The first half of her poetry, from the debut collection Päevapildid (Photographs, 1978) up to the collection Vari ja viiv (Shadow and Instant, 1986), constitutes five collections over a period of nine years. Between her collected poems Armuaeg (Time of Grace, 1991), which also includes new texts, and her most recent collection Mandragora (2002) four collections appeared over a period of twelve years, with a gap of five years between Mandragora and its predecessor Hingring (Soul Circle, 1997). In a sense the final stop for Kareva-like poetry has to be a voluntary retreat into the borderland of falling silent.

Text by Jan Kaus