Triin Soomets’ poetry collection confronts intimate partner violence

Triin Soomets’ poetry collection “Jäälind” takes on intimate partner violence in its many forms, from its routine presence to its absurdity. Annabel Juhkental reviewed the book for ERR; the review first appeared in Värske Rõhk.

Forty-one percent of women in Estonia have experienced violence in a relationship: 39 percent have faced psychological violence, 13 percent physical violence, including threats, and 9 percent sexual violence. Among men, 33 percent have experienced violence in a relationship: 32 percent psychological, 8 percent physical and 1 percent sexual.

“Jäälind” was the first book published by Loomingu Raamatukogu in 2026. Last year, the series opened with Kairi Loog’s “Tantsi tolm põrandast,” which resonated warmly with Estonian readers. Soomets’ collection, by contrast, appears to have divided opinion. Juhkental writes that controversy is to be expected when a book addresses a socially charged subject. The statistics, she says, show why works like “Jäälind” remain important and highly regarded.

The collection’s structure reflects the many forms of violence. It opens with the poem “Sõidab läbi Eesti,” which uses invented place names to portray the ironic position of domestic violence in Estonian society: everyone knows it happens, but no one wants to talk about it. As Tõnu Karjatse has written, the injustice has “seeped into the landscape and become as ordinary as a forest, river and lake.”

The opening poem is followed by 48 short free-verse poems, or miniatures, each titled with a woman’s name, including Triin, Amanda, Linda and Alexandra. They portray different victims and different stages of relationships and violence, drawing on real-life events reported in the media. The collection includes women still caught in cycles of violence, women who have found the strength to leave, and women who have lost their lives.

Readers have heard these stories before, Juhkental writes, and know people like the women in the poems. The short format and large number of pieces intensify their brutality, making even experienced readers pause. Although violence in poetry can sometimes seem less raw and direct than in prose, the scenes in “Jäälind” feel vivid; the recurring first-person perspective makes them more personal.

A faint note of irony running through the stories adds to their unsettling effect. The women have been pushed so far that they cope by cynically saying it was their own fault or that fate was involved. In a review, Sveta Grigorjeva notes that, unlike Carolina Pihelgas’ collection “Ikka veel,” “Jäälind” offers no optimism about a better future. It is as if society has dug itself into a hole so deep that it cannot easily climb out, no matter how loudly it cries out.

The collection’s final section is a prose text resembling a stream of consciousness, which broadens the discussion to women’s existence and its paradoxes. Society is supposed to guarantee freedom and equality, yet women still find themselves hurt by the so-called stronger sex. Sometimes, the speaker suggests, women also put themselves in such situations: “I am a collaborator, I thought my line was here: you don’t betray your friends. But what if twenty-one roses make you change your mind?” Is it intentional or not?