It has been suggested that in nonsense literature the form sometimes directs the events of the story (Tigges 1988, Lecercle 1994). Translation of a poem may make this even more evident, as with „Mr Pii Poo” (1956, originally “Herra Pii Poo”), a poem by the Finnish author Kirsi Kunnas, born in 1924. „Mr Pii Poo” tells a story about a magician in a conflict between rural and urban elements, a figure who is introduced also as a witch and who could at the same time be interpreted as an alter ego for the poet Kunnas. In this poem, Kirsi Kunnas binds a bizarre bundle of rhymed and free verses around the Finnish word noita (a witch) and its multiple uses as a noun, a pronoun and a case ending. Sirke Happonen discusses nonsense elements of this witty and whimsical poem by describing its translation process from Finnish into English – a piece of work she has done with the help of her nonsensical colleagues. (As a small epilogue, Happonen presents a „movable reading” of another poem by Kunnas called “Kattila ja perunat”, „The Pan and the Potatoes”.)
Heikkilä-Halttunen, Päivi. 2000. Kuokkavieraasta oman talon haltijaksi. Suomalaisen lastenkirjallisuuden institutionalisoituminen ja kanonisoituminen 1940–1950-luvuilla. Helsinki: SKS. („An Interloper in Charge of the House. The Institutionalisation and Canonisation of Finnish Children’s Literature in the 1940s and 1950s”, PhD dissertation, University of Tampere, Finland)
Heyman, Michael. 2015. „Introduction”. In: Bookbird: A Journal of International Children’s Literature. Vol. 53, No. 3. pp. 4-8.
Katajamäki, Sakari. 2005. „Nenää täällä tarvitaan enemmän kuin järkeä. Kirsi Kunnaksen nenäkästä nonsensea.” Onnimanni 4/2005. Reprinted in Satusaappaat ja runopilli. Onnimannin artikkeleita 1978–2008. 2011. Tampere: Finnish Institute for Children’s Literature. pp. 122-133.
Katajamäki, Sakari. 2016. Kukunor – uni ja nonsensekirjallisuuden traditio Lauri Viidan runoelmassa. Helsinki: Ntamo. („Kukunor. Dream and the tradition of nonsense literature in Lauri Viita’s long poem”, PhD dissertation, University of Helsinki, Finland)
Kirstinä, Leena. 2014. Kirsi Kunnas – sateessa ja tuulessa. (Biography of Kirsi Kunnas)
Kunnas, Kirsi. 1956. Tiitiäisen satupuu. Helsinki: WSOY. Illustrated by Maija Karma. (A collection of poems, not translated as a whole. Some individual poems have been given out in anthologies by e.g. FILI – Finnish Literature Exchange in Books from Finland 1979:2 s. 44-47: „The Tittytumpkin’s Fairy Tree”)
Kunnas, Kirsi. 1991. „The Pan and the Potatoes”. Translation of the poem „Kattila ja perunat” by Herbert Lomas. (Quoted in http://www.babelmatrix.org/works/fi/Kunnas%2C_Kirsi-1924/Kattila_ja_perunat/en/31584-The_pan_and_the_potatoes?tr_id=1444.
Kunnas, Kirsi. 2001. Lecture held at Colourful Covers – Children’s Literature at the Crossroads of Arts, Culture, and Education, International Symposium, 23rd March 2001, University of Helsinki, Finland.
Sewell, Elizabeth. 1952. The Field of Nonsense. London: Chatto and Windus.
Shortsleeve, Kevin. 2015. „Nonsense, Magic, Religion, and Superstition.” In: Bookbird: A Journal of International Children’s Literature. Vol. 53, No. 3. pp. 28-36.
Tigges, Wim. 1988. Anatomy of Literary Nonsense. Amsterdam: Rodopi.
