Hi all! I haven't been that active on petc in a long while and I started
writing a reply to Andrew about gig opportunities that expanded to a
general update of my goings-on, so here y'are.
I'm the acting executive director in a stage poetry association called the
Helsinki Poetry Connection. We have two monthly poetry clubs, the biggest
and beautifulest of which is the Helsinki Poetry Jam, an event where we've
had poets come to perform from Estonia, Sweden, the States and other
countries since 2010. We're going to be putting together some of our Fall
lineups during the summer. We don't have a lot of cash ourselves, only
having registered our outfit as a non-profit association this past January,
but we've had four years of great successes nonetheless. Our blog is almost
entirely in Finnish, although I make an effort to translate most of our
press releases and things: http://hkipoetryconnection.blogspot.com/ .
Barring monetary snags it would be great to fly some of you poetryetc.ers
over here!
There's also a cultural organization called Nuoren Voiman Liitto
(translatable perhaps as something like the "union of youthful vigor":
http://www.nuorenvoimanliitto.fi/) that has been in action promoting and
empowering literature, culture, criticism and art in Finland since the
early 20th century. I'm currently employed there as a civilian serviceman
(i.e. non-grunt) and project assistant. NVL gets tens of thousands of euros
in grants, publishes two magazines and organizes the only literature
festival in the capital region, called Runokuu (i.e. poetry month or Poetry
Moon, here's the website from last year: http://uusi.runokuu.fi/?page_id=204).
We're currently in the process of choosing and contacting our intended
international guest performers (including Sam Pink (USA) and Carmen Keates
(AUS)) for a club called the Night of the Living Poets; last year the
featured poets were Naomi Shihab Nye (USA), Joyelle McSweeney (USA),
Johannes Göransson (SWE), Jaan Malin (EST) and Claus Ankersen (DEN), with
Finnish poets Vilja-Tuulia Huotarinen, Heli Slunga, Esa Hirvonen and Leevi
Lehto. So anyone who made it all the way over here would be in good company.
I can give you NVL's executive director's contact information if anybody
would be interested in exploring the possibility of shuttling over for some
crazy poetry action. She'd want cvs and sample texts and such.
Wow, I've been meaning to write an update on my poetry comings and goings,
never seemed to get around to it till now (I'm at work right now, ha).
Personally, I'm still writing and performing in Finnish and English, spoken
word in the latter, causing mayhem on the stage in various forms;
considering/contemplating a bilingual poetry collection and a spoken word
album. Apart from that it's all performance workshops, hosting, managing,
spitballing, PRing, translating, &c. Busy busy.
Anyway yay!
KS
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