Sami Liuhto

I found visual poetry and asemic writing in fall 2012, when the Finnish poetry magazine Tuli & Savu published their yearbook Tekstitaide (Textual Art). It was a relief to find out that “meaning” and “message” weren’t the only purposes of writing. — Sami Liuhto

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February 15, 2016

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About this feature

Nico Vassilakis returns to Jacket2 with a new feature on the current state of visual poetry in Finland. “There’s a stir going on, a textual free-for-all, a visible shift in how language is being handled in response to the machines in our lives,” he notes. “In Finland, visual poetry, in some way, sprang up almost fully formed. There are few antecedents that point to its appearance, yet here it is. The fully mature mingle with the nascent and in so doing form a new constellation of visual poetries.”

The ten poets included here — Cia Rinne, J. P. Sipilä, Jukka-Pekka Kervinen, Mari Laaksonen, Mikko Kuorinki, Reijo Valta, Sami Liuhto, Satu Kaikkonen, Tero Hannula, and Tiina Lehikoinen — reflect the potential of a close-knit Finnish scene, yet find diverse solutions to their own aesthetic dilemmas, producing “strong, flexible, and stunning work” in the process. In Vassilakis’ estimation, they’ve created “a visual poetry platform from which future poets can embark on a Finnish vispo experience.”

Preface

Nico Vassilakis

Featuring contributions from: Cia Rinne, J. P. Sipilä, Jukka-Pekka Kervinen, Mari Laaksonen, Mikko Kuorinki, Reijo Valta, Sami Liuhto, Satu Kaikkonen, Tero Hannula, and Tiina Lehikoinen.

Edited by Nico Vassilakis

Sami Liuhto