Edith Södergran published only four slim volumes of poetry and a book of aphorisms before she died at the age of thirty-one, almost unknown outside of a small circle of fellow poets and critics in the Swedish-speaking part of Finland. More than one hundred years after her birth, however, she is widely regarded as the harbinger of Nordic modernism, and her striking imagery and urgent poetic voice still influence new generations of poets. Södergran is one of the few Nordic poets whose work has reached an international audience. Translations of her poems exist in more than thirty languages, and her work continues to attract the interest of scholars, to be included in anthologies, to be set to music, to inspire plays and public readings, and, most significantly, to attract new readers far beyond the borders of Scandinavia.

That modernism, with its free verse void...