The literature festival Poetry Moon will be held between the 20th and 30th of August 2020 as both live events and online livestreams. The events will be streamed so you can follow them remotely. Events are mostly held in Oodi and Tiivistämö in Helsinki.
This year, Poetry Moon also collaborates with the Helsinki Lit translated literature festival and Yle. The festival’s cooperation programme will be seen in Oodi on August 28th.
Poetry Moon’s repertoire includes a wide range of exhibitions, discussions, evening clubs and events all around the city. The festival’s electrical theme links to, among other things, collaborations across the arts and tensions between different art genres. The cross-artistic can be seen, for instance, in the dance performance Ontto harmaa tanssi, which is based on a poetry collection by Olli-Pekka Tennilä (at Mad House from August 19th to August 23rd) and the Nuori/Voima Club on August 28. The club’s programme has been curated by performance artists Emilia Kokko and Elina Minn.
The theme of electricity also extends to the diverse field of digital poetry. Throughout the event, Oodi will host a digital poetry exhibition that commemorates the poet Marko Niemi (1974-2019). The exhibition will introduce audiences to Niemi’s pioneering production of digital poetry. In addition, the curators of the exhibition, Virpi Vairinen and Mikael Brygger, will discuss digital poetry on Wednesday 26.8.
Poetry Moon spreads to the urban landscape through the Poetry on Tracks campaign, which has been realised in cooperation with HSL. This year, Susinukke Kosola has selected the electricity-themed poems for the digital screens of the metros and trams. An event will also be organised in Oodi on the 28th of August in cooperation with Yle.
On August 22nd, the poets Leena Sainio and Miira Luhtavaara will perform in three courtyards around Helsinki together with the Finnish Reciters’ Association. In addition, Helmi Kajaste, also known as Drama-Helmi, will take you to an essayistic and cinematic architectural walk through Vallila on the 27th of August.
The main event of Poetry Moon, Poetry Mixtape (29.8. in Tiivistämö) features the electropunk band Kutisevat neitsyet (Laura Lindstedt, Petra Lampinen and Satu Järvinen) making its debut reinterpreting Lindstedt’s dissertation. The evening also includes poets Tua Forström, Jyrki Kiiskinen, Rosanna Fellman and Jere Vartiainen.
Special attention will be paid to safety this year due to the corona virus situation. Safety at live events is taken care of by paying extra attention to clenliness in the venues, by limiting audiences and sparced-out seating. Events will be livestreamed without a live audience if the situation so requires. Information on the streams will be updated on this website.
The partners of Poetry Moon include Helsinki Lit, Helsinki Poetry Connection, Suomen Lausujain Liitto, Tuli&Savu, Keski-Suomen kirjailijat, Suomen PEN, AV-arkki, kulttuurikeskus Stoa, Poesia, Ursa Minor ja Kuurojen liitto. The organizer is the Literary Association Nuoren Voiman Liitto. Poetry Moon will be held for the sixth time in 2020. The entire programme of the festival can be found on this website (www.runokuu.fi/en/ohjelma).
For more information:
Program Director
Anna Borgman
Phone: 044 207 4651
Assistant producer, communications
Elina Sallinen
Phone: 044 307 4652