Editing Aniara (section)

==The poem ==
The poem consists of 103 [[canto]]s, each relating the tragedy of a large passenger [[spacecraft]]<ref>{{Cite book |last=Andersson |first=Karl-Olof |title=Harry Martinson: naturens, havens och rymdens diktare |date=2003 |publisher=Bilda i samarbete med Harry Martinson-sällsk. |isbn=91-574-7688-8 |location=Stockholm |page=123 |language=sv |trans-title=Harry Martinsson: poet of nature, sea and space |id={{LIBRIS|9199287}}}}</ref> originally bound for [[Mars]] with a cargo of colonists from the ravaged Earth. After an accident, the ship is ejected from the [[Solar System]] and into an [[existentialism|existential]] struggle.

{{Blockquote|<poem>
We listen daily to the sonic coins
provided every one of us and played
through the Finger-singer worn on the left hand.
We trade coins of diverse denominations:
and all of them play all that they contain
and though a dyma 1 scarcely weighs one grain
it plays out like a cricket on each hand
blanching here in this distraction-land.
</poem>}}

The first 29 [[canto]]s of ''Aniara'' had previously been published in Martinson's collection ''Cikada'' (1953), under the title ''Sången om Doris och Mima'' (''The Song of Doris and Mima''),<ref name="italian" /> relating the departure from Earth, the accidental near-collision with an asteroid (incidentally named [[Honshu|Hondo]], another name for the main Japanese isle where [[Hiroshima]] is situated) and ejection from the solar system, the first few years of increasing despair and distractions of the passengers, until news is received of the destruction of their home port, and perhaps of Earth itself. According to Martinson, he dictated the initial cycle as in a fever after a troubling dream, affected by the [[Cold War]] and the Soviet suppression of the [[1956 Hungarian revolution]]; in another recounting, he said the first 29 cantos were said to be inspired by his observation of the [[Andromeda Galaxy]].<ref name="italian" />

A major theme is that of [[art]], symbolised by the semi-mystical machinery of the ''Mima'', who relieves the ennui of crew and passengers with scenes of far-off times and places, and whose operator is also the sometimes naïve main narrator. The rooms of Mima, according to Martinson, represent different kinds of life styles or forms of consciousness.<ref name="kirjasto">{{Cite web |last=Liukkonen |first=Petri |title=Harry Martinson |url=http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/harrymar.htm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20030409202033/http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/harrymar.htm |archive-date=9 April 2003 |website=Books and Writers (kirjasto.sci.fi) |publisher=[[Kuusankoski]] Public Library |location=Finland}}</ref> The accumulated destruction the Mima witnesses impels her to destroy herself in despair, to which she, the machine, is finally moved by the ''white tears of the granite'' melted by the ''phototurb'' which annihilates their home port, the great city of Dorisburg. Without the succour of the Mima, the erstwhile colonists seek distraction in sensual orgies, memories of their own and earlier lives, low comedy, religious cults, observations of strange astronomical phenomena, empty entertainments, science, routine tasks, brutal totalitarianism, and in all kinds of human endeavour, but ultimately cannot face the emptiness outside and inside.

The poems are [[Meter (poetry)|metrical]] and mostly [[rhyme]]d, using both traditional and individual forms, several alluding to a wide range of Swedish and [[Nordic countries|Nordic]] poetry, such as the Finnish [[Kalevala]].