Gripenberg is the poet of images. Her linguistic repertoire encompasses semiotics in terms of scenographs, signs, symbols towards a commitment to the creation of new terms and verbal innovation in language, in order to construct a “language” which enables the poet to express herself and her message in poetry. But, since Gripenberg is a play writer as well, her work is illuminated by the aura of drama on a stage of poetry. Good examples are “Käckas Doll” and “Broken nose during dinner”

“Take my hands, it would be strange” is complex of different compartments. The first part, “Edith”, is a revisit of the work of the famous Swedish-Finnish poet Edith Södergran. The second and third part of the book are influenced by mythology and project “men” and their lives, in the process of their transcendence towards myths. In one of her interviews Gripenberg says: “my poems, are of men and women who put their efforts in create a life that seems to be lost between real life and lyrical life”.

In an interview with her translator Robab Moheb, she says: “My first impression with Södergran’s poetry was “aesthetical” and “lyrical”. This opened the doors of poetry to me. The in a next phase her poems returned to me as “forbidden words” or “clichés”. But recently when reading her poes again, I was encountered by “clarity” and a kind of “excitation”, or even “absurdity”. This is new to me and I feel her words find a new projection in my spheres. Now her “roses” are not just flowers to me but “the poem of roses” the same with the word “master” in the old aristocratic context that is not more used today. Exactly this artificial sense of words that got old and not more used makes them new and reusable.”

Catharina Gripenberg was born in 1977 in Jakobstad on the west coast of Finland. She studied literature in Helsinki. At the moment she is living in Copenhagen. Her first book På diabilden är huvudet proppfullt av lycka (On the slide the head`s crammed of happiness, 1999) was already a succes, followed by two collections of poetry: Ödemjuka belles lettres från en till en (Humble belles lettres from one to one, 2002) and Ta min hand, det vore underligt (Take my hand, it would be strange, 2007). She belongs to the Swedish speaking minority in Finland and writes in Swedish. She also writes for the theatre.