Updates Archive

May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005

January 29, 2008 7:49 PM Humbert (Finnish) and Emily (English) are titles full of literary references, as are the names of their respective authors, Johanna (Kujala) and Mikael (Brygger) - but lo, the books stand up on their own right. Also out from ntamo, contemporary Russian-Karelian poetry in Unettomuus, valittujen etuoikeus by Aleksandr Voronin, in Finnish translation by Arvi Perttu. Yökiipijä, by Esa Mäkijärvi was( favorably) reviewed by Kimmo Korhonen in Kiiltomato.net, as was Tule on minun nimeni by Jonimatti Joutsijärvi by Jouni Tossavainen in Keskisuomalainen. On Sunday, the newspaper Karjalainen (Joensuu, East of Finland) carried a largish feature on my project (see teaser here). Meanwhile, we've moved over to live in our country house on the West Coast and I need soon to find a new host for my site (hopefully also rewamping it in the process), before my good old server, in a cupboard at the back of my working room in town, gets suffocated under the effects of a major piping renovation job there...

January 17, 2008 9:35 PM !باعیات خیام به زبان فنلاندی ترجمه می‌شون (for an English translation, click here ;-)

January 16, 2008 5:58 PM Henriikka Tavi likes Riippuvat puutarhat by Lassi Hyvärinen.

January 14, 2008 6:26 PM New publicity to (you guessed it) ntamo: in Kiiltomato, Virpi Alanen writes about Tule on minun nimeni by Jonimatti Joutsijärvi (ntamo 2007); in today's Kaleva, Jaakko Parkkinen asks me about digital publishing and the fate of the author.

January 9, 2008 1:25 PM ntamo puts out three new books: Heikki Saure (Kuksi molemmat, Fuck'em Both!) changes your idea of Finnish folk-tales for good, Rita Dahl (Elämää Lagoksessa, Life in Lagos) cruises in the global village, whereas Jusu Annala (Paella) is just plain explodable. All in Finnish except Annala perhaps more in Finneganish.

January 1, 2008 8:47 PM From ntamo, last year and this: Risto Niemi-Pynttäri: Verkkoproosa; Karri Kokko: MMVII. Friday, January 4, 6.30 PM in Cafe Saara, Oulu: launch for Kaksitoista sinistä kuuta by Jukka Tervo.

December 22, 2007 5:00 PM Taking Berlin. Herr Nutz alias Lassi Hyvärinen, from Joensuu, Finland as well as from Berlin, Germany, and winner of this year's J. H. Erkko Poetry Competition, now has a book out. Aus ntamo, selbst(?)verständlich(?).

December 17, 2007 8:53 AM Interviewed on ntamo in Turun Ylioppilaslehti (by Silja Ylitalo) and in Turun Sanomat (by Juri Nummelin).

December 6, 2007 10:15 PM Earlier today, I made this Independence Day speech...

December 1, 2007 11:23 AM"(...) Immersion in a bed of intertexts and elemental cognates allows the emergence and working-through of delicate feelings long unexpressed (...)" in eros/ion, by Maria Damon & mIEKAL aND, just out from ntamo.

November 29, 2007 9:30 PM Newly out from ntamo: Tule on minun nimeni by Jonimatti Joutsijärvi, Avokyyhky, lattiaheroiini by Karri Kokko.

November 29, 2007 9:20 PM "Handy MacCoystysen rakkauslaulu", my new, Prufrock-inspired poem in Finnish.

November 7, 2007 7:47 PM Text of a Note on the discussion of the Jokela massacre I just published at my Facebook profile.

October 17, 2007 5:08 PM Update 2 (and I'm a bit confused about really being forced to type all this out): there are three new books out from ntamo: Tuomas Kilpi: Mestä, Jukka Tervo: Kaksitoista sinistä kuuta, Meri Vesanto: Hartaita lauluja (with others forthcoming soon); the Audiatur poetry festival in Bergen, Norway, end of September, was a tremendous success: check out the extensive audio recordings here, and to read and listen to my new "Norwegian poem", click here; one of my delightful new aquintances in Bergen was the marvellous French poet Jacques Roubaud (but this video is from an earlier festival, Verbale Pupiller, mid-September in Aarhus, Denmark); on Oct. 4, my wife Kirsi threw a splendid 50th anniversary party, complete with Kenny Goldsmith splendidly producing a Finnish poem for her, which you can hear him singing here; sadly, the great pioneer of Finnish avant-garde poetry, Väinö Kirstinä, died, and was buried yesterday afternoon - the memorial ceremony triggered this new "artistic" video of mine. & back to Facebook: this is a 20 minutes extract from my talk (in Finnish) about social media with students of the Finnish School of Arts and Design this Monday. Next Thursday, Sept. 25, I will have the honor to read in the opening ceremony of the Helsinki Book Fair, and together with Tarja Halonen, the President of the Republic, at that (starting 11 AM, stage "Aleksis Kivi").

October 17, 2007 4:15 PM Update - or confession - time: If I've been away from here for several weeks now, this is partly due to my new interest in (some of you guessed it) the Facebook. Some of you might even have been able to predict it: I believe it is the evolution of my thinking about the socal groundedness of poetry that draws me to - not Facebook as such, but the new realities of what has come to be known as social media. Let's face it: they are here to stay, and are already - and rapidly - changing everything we used to know about (the end of) writing, identity, authorship, ideology, in short: poetry and poetics. I will have reasons (and hopefully time) to come back to all this, for now, suffice it to paraphraze my friend Kenny: I used to be a writer, then I became a text processor. Then I realized I could leave the processing out - for most purposies, simple pasting was more efficent, and creative. Now pasting itself is quickly becoming obsolent: we are entering the time of reading-as-clicking-as-writing. As for poetry, it's not - as ever - exactly a question of "using" the (once again) new possibilities the new realities offer for its "advancement" (these are tremendous: but there is no such "thing" as poetry): the challenge is to explore the (new) poetry of those more than real realities (as opposed to the old, virtual ones). For me, it's going to equal, among other things, a restructuring of my entire web "presence", soon. Meanwhile, you may always "add me as friend" on Facebook at http://profile.to/leevilehto.

September 16, 2007 1:315 PM Several videos from Verbale Pupiller, in Aarhus, Denmark this weekend, at my YouTube channel (& even more at my Facebook account (hereby allowing you to become my "friend" there ;-)).

September 14, 2007 10:36 AM "It could TOTALLY be like one of those poems the kids have to write essays on, and pretend they know what it's all about." A Google Poem by wrenwatcher at deviantART.

September 13, 2007 6:53 PM I made a new - somewhat "funkish" - recording of my procedural sound poem "Sanasade" (from 2004; mp3, 10:32). Here, you'll now also find recordings of two earlier performances.

September 13, 2007 11:16 "Dagens system, hvor de aller fleste bøker erklæres 'døde' etter noen år, er uholdbar for litteraturarbeiderne, så lenge litteraturen ikke også har reelle, alternative kanaler." Sez Simen Hagerup, whose Fem årstider (Five Seasons) plans to develop into one of the later. Via Martin Glaz Serup, who also gives two passages from Simen's excellent essay "(NOEN VAGT FORMULETE PRINSIPPER OM) TEKSTEN SOM VARE I DEN DIGITALE DISTRIBUSJONENS TIDSALDER/RETTEN TIL Å LESE (FINNES DEN?)", first delivered at the "Alternativ publicering/Litterær innovation" seminar in Biskops Arnö in April and to be published in the next issue of OEI.

September 12, 2007 11:43 The program for the Audiatur poetry festival, Bergen, Norway, Sept. 27 to 30, begins to take shape. Also, my presentation of Cia Rinne is online, as are these kind words of Miia Toivio about me (in Paal Bjelke Andersen's Norwegian).

September 12, 2007 9:58 My 9/11, 2007 videos: In the Black Box Of Nothingness, and The Double Exposure: I, II, and III.

September 12, 2007 7:25 Jouni Tossavainen has made a slide show of Erkki Soininen's and my Ulysses performance in Kuopio on Sunday (thanks!). We are working to get the complete 50 minutes audio-video package online; meanwhile, here you'll find four samples of my reading (including my "singing" of "The ballad of joking Jesus", and a snippet of Molly's monologue - all in my Finnish, that is), plus an earlier recording from the "Sirens" chapter.

September 11, 2007 7:24 This poem by Angela Genusa, put up in Flash by "her artist friend Paul in France", is hypnotic!

September 10, 2007 11:20 AM This is not fiction! A Nordic poetry evening in restaurant Belly, Uudenmaankatu / Nylandsgatan 16-20, Helsinki / Helsingfors, 8 PM today, celebrates the double publication of Detta är inte fiktion (Söderströms) / Tämä ei ole fiktiota (Teos), an anthology of 18 contemporary Nordic poets edited by Oscar Rossi and Tiia Strandén. My introduction to the anthology's Finnish section in Finnish and in Swedish by Janco Karlsson.

September 8, 2007 9:48 AM American conceptual and sound artist Charlie Morrow sings "Lapin kesä" by Eino Leino in a karaoke bar in Kuopio, Sept. 7, 2007.

September 7, 2007 7:48 PM Ooops. I was being over-enthusiastic. The Audiatur catalogue (incl. its content) is not public yet. I've removed the link below accordingly. I think we can wait a couple of days/weeks...

September 7, 2007 2:24 PM It's an absolute honor to be involved in the upcoming, magnificent catalogue of the Audiatur poetry festival in Bergen, Norway, Sept. 27 to 30, 2007.

September 7, 2007 8:06 AM Arto Kivimäki's and my yesterday discussion on Saarikoski and translation ("SUomentajan vapauksia") in Kirjakerho, YLE1, podcasted here. "foreløbigt program for verbale pupiller" (Sept. 14-16, Århus, Denmark), here. Today to Kuopio.

September 7, 2007 8:02 AM "Some experimental filmmakers are tempted to see their footage as a changing field of colour, and not as an indication of objects moving about in space. This is quite hard to do, and can result in many wasted years of studied dis-observation. I used to be such a filmmaker, until I realised that a machine would be better suited to the task." - Meet the Filmmaking Robot by Douglas Bagnall, from Wellington, New Zealand - and while there, also check his Mimetic Television that "watches and imitates other video, usually broadcast TV, learning its patterns of motion, colour and composition in order to make new images that move in a similar way". The examples at the bottom of the page are beautiful and surely much more interesting than the actual soap opera they are "based" on. Ämyri, again, is a new, interesting approach to Google poetry (in Finnish), and "Sweater to Bestow on Polyglot" a new Google poem in my anthology by Sheila E. Murphy.

September 5, 2007 12:20 PM The Black Box Of Nothingness. Installation & concept Lauri Wuolio. Poetry by Harry Salmenniemi. Galleria Välivuosi, Oksasenkatu 11, Helsinki. Sept. 6 to 16, open daily noon to 6 PM. Live performances daily at 5 PM... more here.

September 4, 2007 5:16 PM The third Kuopio Sound Poetry Seminar will convene next Saturday, Sept. 8, in the Conference Room of the Kuopio City Library, featuring American sound and conceptual poet Charlie Morrow, Finnish sound artist Juha Valkeapää, and poet Jonimatti Joutsijärvi. In anticipation of that, here are some video samples of the lecture the Canadian poet Christian Bök gave in last year's seminar: reading form "Seahorses and Flying Fish" by Hugo Ball, reading from his book, Eunoia, and explaining his new project, The Xenotext Experiment (Part I, Part II). The videos are also available at my YouTube page.

August 31, 2007 1:11 AM Updating my calendar with today's discussion in Kultakuume, Finnish radio YLE1, on Saarikoski and translation, and with a trip to attend Verbale Pupiller in Århus, Denmark, in mid-September. Thursday, Sept. 6, I'll again be talking on Saarikoski in Finnish radio, with Seppo Puttonen, in Kirjakerho.

August 30, 2007 11:41 PM Apropos "Prufrock": following the advice of the late Arto Kytöhonka, "[f]or stealth as T. S. Eliot advised", here pls find Arto's Finnish version, from 1989. I am fascinated by how time, in eighteen years, has managed to work against some of the translator's seeming original ambitions in making it "timely": what could be more antiquated - in sync with the original's spirit, I think - than his 70's / 80's Finnish colloquialisms ("pienesti heikko", "joltisesti huvittava"). But - and! - I like couplets like "Minulla on valkoiset kesähousut ja minä kuljen rannalla / ja merenneitojen olen kuullut laulavan toisilleen trallalla." Another less-known Finnish "Prufrock" is Pekka Sauri's, still available online in this memorable setting. Thanks to Jouni Tossavainen for help in unearthing these. To read the original and listen to Ildiot himself on it, click here. (And while we are on the subject, let me also recommend Maili Öst's insightful review of Juha Silvo's new translation of the Four Quartets.)

August 30, 2007 10:01 AM "KHAQQ Calling Itasca" by Angela Genusa, a new Google Poem in the Anthology.

August 29, 2007 4:30 PM I have put up some (rather rough) audio from Kimmo Sarje's and my reading(s) last Friday in Myymälä2, as part of our collaborative audio-visual show there (Uudenmaankatu 23, open Wed-Sat 12-6 PM, Sun 12-5 PM, through Sept. 9). Check out Kimmo's readings from my Päivä (extract 1 (3:07, mp3), extract 2 (0:50)) and from Die Bestimming des Menschen by Johan Gottlieb Fichte (1800, 3:50), my reading of my translation of "The Triumph of Bullshit" by T. S. Eliot as "Hevonpaskan riemuvoitto" (1:35), and of a new, "Prufrock"-inspired poem of mine, "Handy MacCoystysen rakkauslaulu" (9:50) of which I can only say here that it will probably be published in the next issue of Tuli&Savu (and that it's connection to "Prufrock" may ultimately consist of my attempt to live up with the original Times Literary Supplement reviewer's evaluation of the original: "The fact that these things occurred to the mind of [the poet] is surely of the very smallest importance to any one - even to himself. They certainly have no relation to 'poetry'(...)") - After a very good quantitative turnout during the vernissage in Tuesday, our audience in the first Friday reading was more that of quality - as movingly testified by this image taken by the other half of the crowd (the other's corresponding image is to be found here. & here's my portrait of Kimmo after the long hours of the long day... & here, a longer sample of my soundtrack (1:04:56, 59,6 MB; for smaller, 3:32 min sample, click here). My Sound Work page updated accordingly.

August 29, 2007 10:56 AM "The Voice of America". Digging just a bit deeper in my "papers" brings up this - my review, in Helsingin Sanomat, May 1, 1993, of two then new anthologies of American poetry (my first and last assignment ever for that paper). I put it up almost as was, complete with the ridiculous "journalistic" subtitles. I realize I could still subscribe to almost everything I say - except that with the "awkward translations" of Poe I cannot have meant that one.

August 29, 2007 9:41 AM Congrats to John Ashbery of this upcoming celebration of his 80th birthday (which actually happened already in June). Well, when I recently went through my, hmm, papers, I came accross a poem written by Jyrki Pellinen on the occassion of John's visiting Helsinki in September 1994, now - together with Make Copie's translation - up here. And yes, Ashbery has a new book of poetry out, too.

August 27, 2007 10:10 AM More videos - 1) from Eiríkur and Nadja's beautiful and fabulously multicultural and -lingual wedding (I've never heard Finnish spoken with so many different accents at the same time!) last Saturday in Sibbo, Helsinki: the Wedding Schottische, along with a nightime shot of Jaana Saario and Gildas Houessou playing drums and singing outside the wedding house; 2) from my walk along Xichang'an Jie, Beijing, China, July 24, this year.

August 24, 2007 6:15 PM Yesterday evening, YLE 1, Finnish radio, aired recorded highlights of the Eino Leino Society 60th Anniversary Banquet where I had an honor to perform as a "70's poet": podcast here. Tonight (the "Night of Arts"), at 7 and 10 PM, Kimmo Sarje and I will read in Myymälä2, Uudenmaankatu 23.

August 24, 2007 11:02 AM Revealing Jed Rasula in priestlike tasks.

August 24, 2007 8:55 AM Revealing evidence of my first ever Keynote Address (in an academic setting).

August 23, 2007 3:00 PM My opening statement (in Finnish) from yesterday's (succesful) Poetics Conference. For a post festum recording of Otto Manninen's poem (from 1925) which I read as part of the statement, click here. Runokuu continuing, at 7 PM today I'll be in Talvipuutarha, Hammarskjöldintie 1, Helsinki, discussing a new translation of T. S. Eliot's Four Quartets by Juha Silvo, with him and the translator Antti Nylén.

August 22, 2007 7:50 AM Kimmo Sarje's ("Abstraction on Ad") and my ("Voiceovers") exchibition has opened at Myymälä2, Uudenmaankatu 23, Helsinki. Listen to a short sample of my soundtrack, and check my short statement on it. Kimmo and I will read in the gallery during the Arts' Night, Friday, Aug. 24, starting 7 and 10 PM. Today, the Helsinki Poetics Conference, starting 10 AM in the Music Hall of the Old Student House, Mannerheimintie 3, Helsinki.

August 20, 2007 4:08 PM These comments around the theme of provincialism by Johannes Göransson I seem to fully agree with (kind of a funny feeling).

August 20, 2007 2:51 PM Jonimatti writes about my "Seven People" piece. In Finnish, with insight.

August 20, 2007 6:36 AM Anita Konkka has put up a snippet of my Eino Leino Rap the other night at the Said Poet Society Banquet (I realize my speed is not at its best...) - followed by Aulikki Oksanen / Kaj Chydenius at their classic "Siirtotyöläinen".

August 20, 2007 6:03 AM "O Mandato Celestial" - preface (in Portuguese) for the upcoming anthology of contemporary Chinese poetry, ed. by Régis Bonvicino and Yao Feng, at Sibila Online. In the International / Innovation blog, Linh Dinh interestingly introduces the blogs around the important Italian magazine, GAMM.

August 17, 2007 10:57 AM On the theme of "marginality"...decided to put up this piece, with an extended discussion on some ideas behind my ntamo initiative.

August 17, 2007 9:30 AM Moving on to "Revealing Videos" as well - here please find four shots of the Finnins poet Jonimatti Joutsijärvi reading - chanting - last Saturday night, there. I used my mobile phone, rather auteur-like... The same videos also available at my YouTube account. Jonimatti, of course, will be part of the Kuopio Sound Poetry Seminar in early September.

August 16, 2007 11:11 PM Kristiina Rikman's decent review of Anteckningar från grannlandet by Janna Kantola, published Aug. 5 in Helsingin Sanomat (as the first review of a ntamo book ever), is now online in the paper's web archive. It is actually kind of puzzling (if not outright embarrassing) to see the mainstream media to show more interest in my new venture compared to that of the alternative, online world. Well, the actual effect of the latter in terms of "traffic" is manifold - and since even that doesn't seem to do much to generate sales (yet), I guess my face as a Marginalist is saved... for the time being...

August 16, 2007 9:07 PM Next Wednesday, August 22, will be the day of the third Helsinki Poetics Conference, on "Ir/resposibilities of Poetry", with keynote addresses by Martin Glaz Serup (Denmark), Pauliina Haasjoki and Panu Tuomi, and some sharp interventions to be expected in the afternoon discussion. More of that - in Finnish - at the Conference blog. The Conference is part of Runokuu and Helsinki Festival, and will once more convene in the Music Hall of Old Student House, Mannerheimintie 3, starting 10 AM.

August 15, 2007 1:07 PM It is my distinct pleasure to announce the publication, by ntamo, of Melika, a collection of poems - from 1987 to 2007 - by important, award-winning, contemporary Russian poet, Sergej Zavjalov, in a bilingual edition in the original Russian and Finnish of Jukka Mallinen. Press Conference next Tuesday, 1 PM, under the auspicies of the M. A. Castren Society, as announced, a.o., here. Say's Sergej in an essay published as part of the book: "The world has changed, nation states and their roles are changing - it's time for the very concept of NATION to change as well."

August 7, 2007 7:40 PM Kenneth Goldsmith & Johannes Göransson in Spasibar, Oslo, Norway, Friday, Aug. 10, 2007, 8 PM.

August 7, 2007 2:50 PM Updating my Calendar - with a reading in Jyväskylä this Saturday (Kirjailijatalo, Seminaarinkatu 26 B), and reading & commentary during the celebrations of the 60th birthday of the Eino Leino Society, Friday, Aug. 17, in Restaurant Kaisaniemi, Helsinki. In the latter, I'm supposed to stand for the Finnish 1970's - a decade I published no poetry at all (but I guess this is very much the point).

August 7, 2007 10:25 AM Revealing aspects of Wuhan, China: here & here. (But here, Charles reveals it all...)

August 1, 2007 7:07 AM The Xenotext Experiment (along with his work before) discussed in this interview with Christian Bök by Stephen Voyce, in Postmodern Culture, and archived as PDF under "Harriet", a blog from the Poetry Foundation.

July 31, 2007 10:35 PM Helping forests and architecture stay together. Miia Toivio's first book of poetry, Loistaen olet, out from Teos. Congrats!

July 31, 2007 6:40 PM My interview in Kritiker is now online at the magazine's site in Swedish translation. I'm glad to see it has triggered some commentary - see Hanna Nordenhök in HD (Helsingborg's Dagblad, Sweden), Timo Hämäläinen in Helsingin Sanomat (but you may have to pay for this), and poet Tommi Melender in his blog. The latter two concentrate on my answer to the question on contemporary Finnish prose writing; related or not, the two new books from ntamo are in prose format: Hornos, by Maaria Rainio, Kakadu, by Juhana Vähänen.

July 21, 2007 8:52 PM (Wuhan, China) "In the Un-American Tree; The L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E Poetries and Their Aftermath, with a Special Reference to Charles Bernstein Translated" - my keynote address at the opening session of International Conference on 20th Century American Poetry, hosted by Central China Normal University, Wuhan, China, July 21, 2007.

July 19, 2007 10:37 AM The Nordic magazine for literary criticism, Kritiker, in its current issue 5 (June 2007), publishes an interview with me by Annelie Axén, member of the editorial board. Full text of the interview (Introduction in Swedish, my answers in their "original" English) here. - Later today, I'll be off to Shangai, then Wuhan, China, for this.

July 11, 2007 10:10 AM Another thread... Jarmo Papinniemi launches a discussion about my proposition, in his feature story in Suomen Kuvalehti, to publish writing by "non-Finnish" in Finnish.

July 11, 2007 9:40 AM "They look like real books." In today's Helsingin Sanomat, Esa Mäkinen writes about ntamo. A shortened "net" version is available at HS.fi, the full text, with a link to the HS discussion page, here.

July 11, 2007 8:05 AM Heikki Saure's remarkable poetical achievement, "Kirjoituksia maasta" (a collection of photos of scraps of papers containing writing, and found laying on the ground during the years 1994-2004, in Lahti and elsewhere in Finland) has opened as an exchibition at Galleria Happihuone, Töölönlahden taidepuutarha, Helsinki. The work is also available online at noktruno.org, and I'm currently looking into possibilities of doing it as a book from ntamo.

July 7, 2007 8:50 AM "The award-winning poet-publisher becomes suspicious when the audience tops seven people." I'm the "Hän" (He/She) of this week's Suomen Kuvalehti (the Finnish "Time"), in a feature by Jarmo Papinniemi, the editor-in-chief of Parnasso, and with photos by Kaisa Rautaheimo. Finnish text here.

July 3, 2007 7:30 AM Finnish poet Ville-Juhani Sutinen's English poetry blog is at fragmentals, pomes & øther fuzz. Some of this fuzz also in the current issue of Jukka-Pekka Kervinen's "epidermis".

June 29, 2007 5:35 PM Cuba hoje! Sibila 12 is out - and the editors are living up with what they say in their leader title: "Good bye, paper! Electronic reviews are the way to go" - the whole issue is available in pdf (in Portuguese) here. & Régis Bonvicino has put Teemu Manninen's Finnish translation of his "Cokaine Kate" poem up at his site: "TARTTEE OLLA JOKU ROTI!".

June 28, 2007 7:35 PM Updating my calendar with upcoming events such as the "Bridge of Poetry" multilingual reading at Faces Etnofestival (July 28), "Abstraction on Ad - Voiceovers", an audiovisual project / exhibition by Kimmo Sarje and me (Aug.22 through Sept. 9, Myymälä2, Helsinki + two related readings during the Night of Arts, Aug. 24), discussions on translation during Runokuu (Aug. 24) and at the Helsinki Book Fair (Oct. 28), plus participation in a seminar on Art Education, in Orivesi, Nov. 16 to 18, together with, among others, Ide HIntze (Vienna). Before all that, Wuhan, China (July 21 tp 23) - and not to forget the Helsinki Poetics Conference, Aug 22.

June 28, 2007 8:40 AM Noting two great, recent interviews: with Charles Bernstein, by Aryanil Mukherjee, in "Kaurab Online", a Bengali poetry webzine (and to be continued, it seems, into even more interesting directions...); with Kenneth Goldsmith, by John Jourden, in "Archinect" (basically a site dedicated to architecture). I like Kenny's comparison of concrete poetry and other similar phenomena with esperanto! (but would probably want to develop that further into a "destruction of language(s) (including esperanto (read: English))" perspective...). Yes, and of course Kenny's Traffic is out from Make Now Press.

June 28, 2007 7:15 AM The young Finnish poet, Jonimatti Joutsijärvi (also part of this year's Kuopio Sound Poetry Seminar) has started blogging here. In this insightful post touching upon the structures of the poetic "public space" in Finland, he confesses "feeling somewhat tempted to offer work for ntamo to publish", yet says he "doesn't want to be part of any record-fabrication" - referring to my promise to do, during next Autumn, more poetry books in Finnish than all the other publishers taken together. Well, numbers are not important here - except that I've wanted to emphasize the possibility to radically increase the amount of volumes published, to do something to break down the - artificial - barrier between "real" ("published"; "official" is Jonimatti's term) and "all other" poets, many of whom, to me as to Jonimatti, are "a thousand time more essential in terms of poetics and reading experience than most of the 'official' ones". Then again, I haven't said anything about the number of ntamo's coming non-Finnish books yet...

July 21, 2007 8:52 PM (Wuhan, China) "In the Un-American Tree; The L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E Poetries and Their Aftermath, with a Special Reference to Charles Bernstein Translated" - my keynote address at the opening session of International Conference on 20th Century American Poetry, hosted by Central China Normal University, Wuhan, China, July 21, 2007.

July 19, 2007 10:37 AM The Nordic magazine for literary criticism, Kritiker, in its current issue 5 (June 2007), publishes an interview with me by Annelie Axén, member of the editorial board. Full text of the interview (Introduction in Swedish, my answers in their "original" English) here. - Later today, I'll be off to Shangai, then Wuhan, China, for this.

July 11, 2007 10:10 AM Another thread... Jarmo Papinniemi launches a discussion about my proposition, in his feature story in Suomen Kuvalehti, to publish writing by "non-Finnish" in Finnish.

July 11, 2007 9:40 AM "They look like real books." In today's Helsingin Sanomat, Esa Mäkinen writes about ntamo. A shortened "net" version is available at HS.fi, the full text, with a link to the HS discussion page, here.

July 11, 2007 8:05 AM Heikki Saure's remarkable poetical achievement, "Kirjoituksia maasta" (a collection of photos of scraps of papers containing writing, and found laying on the ground during the years 1994-2004, in Lahti and elsewhere in Finland) has opened as an exchibition at Galleria Happihuone, Töölönlahden taidepuutarha, Helsinki. The work is also available online at noktruno.org, and I'm currently looking into possibilities of doing it as a book from ntamo.

July 7, 2007 8:50 AM "The award-winning poet-publisher becomes suspicious when the audience tops seven people." I'm the "Hän" (He/She) of this week's Suomen Kuvalehti (the Finnish "Time"), in a feature by Jarmo Papinniemi, the editor-in-chief of Parnasso, and with photos by Kaisa Rautaheimo. Finnish text here.

July 3, 2007 7:30 AM Finnish poet Ville-Juhani Sutinen's English poetry blog is at fragmentals, pomes & øther fuzz. Some of this fuzz also in the current issue of Jukka-Pekka Kervinen's "epidermis".

June 29, 2007 5:35 PM Cuba hoje! Sibila 12 is out - and the editors are living up with what they say in their leader title: "Good bye, paper! Electronic reviews are the way to go" - the whole issue is available in pdf (in Portuguese) here. & Régis Bonvicino has put Teemu Manninen's Finnish translation of his "Cokaine Kate" poem up at his site: "TARTTEE OLLA JOKU ROTI!".

June 28, 2007 7:35 PM Updating my calendar with upcoming events such as the "Bridge of Poetry" multilingual reading at Faces Etnofestival (July 28), "Abstraction on Ad - Voiceovers", an audiovisual project / exhibition by Kimmo Sarje and me (Aug.22 through Sept. 9, Myymälä2, Helsinki + two related readings during the Night of Arts, Aug. 24), discussions on translation during Runokuu (Aug. 24) and at the Helsinki Book Fair (Oct. 28), plus participation in a seminar on Art Education, in Orivesi, Nov. 16 to 18, together with, among others, Ide HIntze (Vienna). Before all that, Wuhan, China (July 21 tp 23) - and not to forget the Helsinki Poetics Conference, Aug 22.

June 28, 2007 8:40 AM Noting two great, recent interviews: with Charles Bernstein, by Aryanil Mukherjee, in "Kaurab Online", a Bengali poetry webzine (and to be continued, it seems, into even more interesting directions...); with Kenneth Goldsmith, by John Jourden, in "Archinect" (basically a site dedicated to architecture). I like Kenny's comparison of concrete poetry and other similar phenomena with esperanto! (but would probably want to develop that further into a "destruction of language(s) (including esperanto (read: English))" perspective...). Yes, and of course Kenny's Traffic is out from Make Now Press.

June 28, 2007 7:15 AM The young Finnish poet, Jonimatti Joutsijärvi (also part of this year's Kuopio Sound Poetry Seminar) has started blogging here. In this insightful post touching upon the structures of the poetic "public space" in Finland, he confesses "feeling somewhat tempted to offer work for ntamo to publish", yet says he "doesn't want to be part of any record-fabrication" - referring to my promise to do, during next Autumn, more poetry books in Finnish than all the other publishers taken together. Well, numbers are not important here - except that I've wanted to emphasize the possibility to radically increase the amount of volumes published, to do something to break down the - artificial - barrier between "real" ("published"; "official" is Jonimatti's term) and "all other" poets, many of whom, to me as to Jonimatti, are "a thousand time more essential in terms of poetics and reading experience than most of the 'official' ones". Then again, I haven't said anything about the number of ntamo's coming non-Finnish books yet...

June 26, 2007 10:57 AM I wish I could be there, later today, that is 9:30 PM local time in Los Angeles (Beta-Level, Chinatown), for the Late Night Snack, curated by Harold Abromowitz and Mathew Timmons, to celebrate the publishing of Syria Is in the World (Palm Press), by Ara Shirinyan, who also runs the important Make Now press. I'll let Stan Apps explain the why: "Ara Shirinyan's Syria Is in the World collects five related sequences of conceptual works, including Republic of Georgia poems, Russia/Soviet poems, Poems from Here to There, Flag poems, and the eponymous Republic of Syria poems. These works extend the tradition of post-original or 'sampled' poetry to consider questions of geopolitics and international intelligibility, questions of who is talking to who and who can hear what. (...) Shirinyan communicates with, at, next to, or around us in an attempt to simulate mastery of the Babel of world politics and world ideologies. This is a poetry aware of the fact that we can never encompass the world's conceptual and ideological diversity, and yet must not be satisfied with a narrow local view."

June 21, 2007 9:32 AM Adding/updating some blogs at my roll:ana abrunhos@, Mikael Brygger: noman'sspace, Fait accompli (Nick Piombino), Fil AFP (Agence de Franche Poésie), Helgi Hrafn Guðmundsson, Pasi Heikura (Aristoteleen kantapää), Teemu Helle, Howl, humanverb, Jussi Hyvärinen, Timo Hännikäinen, Markus Jääskeläinen, Karri Kokko: Lyhyttavara, Kenneth Krabat, Satu Lepistö, Andrew Lundwall: Seconds, Esa Mäkijärvi, Martin Johs. Møller, Eiríkur Örn Norðdahl: English for the new illiterati, Peter Pereira, PhilCou: JUNTE, punaistamaitoa, rahinaa, Runokukko (PoetrySlam Finland), Sapristi, sAyingsomething, sensory offence, J. P Sipilä: Mongertaja, Tomi Sonster, surskorpa, Susanna Taivalsalmi, Tiivi: Äkämiehen vartaloverho, Jouni Tossavainen, Arto Virtanen, vårskog, Mike Young.

June 20, 2007 9:08 AM My "Afterword" to Kuuskajaskari, in English, here.

June 19, 2007 11:58 PM New from ntamo: Kuuskajaskari by Jyrki Pellinen, a seminal work of Finnish Modernist poetry, original Finnish publication 1964, now together with an English translation, Afterword, and Notes by me; Anteckningar från grannlandet by Janna Kantola, essays in Swedish on translation of and by Gunnar Ekelöf, James Joyce, Henri Michaux, and Pentti Saarikoski.

June 17, 2007 5:16 PM On experimentation - and splitting up the Sanoma Corporation. This week's Kansan Uutiset Viikkolehti, of the Left Party (former CP of Finland) carries an interview with me, by Veera Nuutinen. In the same issue, there's another two page story about Antonio Gramsci (he's been dead for 70 years now). Well, it's almost 30 years now since I used to be the one to publish essays on him in the same paper.

June 11, 2007 7:52 PM The second part of nypoesi.net's double translation issue, "1/07 OVERSETTELSE 2", is out, with poems by Øyvind Berg / William Blake, Craig Dworkin, Johannes Göransson / Aase Berg, Mette Moestrup, Marko Niemi / John Swedenmark, Angela Rawlings / Hjorvar Peturssons / Hugh Thomas, Stjaaroline kriBergbe;rg, Cia Rinne, Sharks, Joar Tiberg, and Heriberto Yepéz, and Charles Bernstein / Jörgen Gassilewski / me (Charles' "Johnny Cake Hollow" in translations to English, Finnish and Swedish, and again Finnish to Swedish (two takes)), and Lars Mikael Raattamaa and me I("Pajkerno" / "Byos"). Essayists of the issue are by Johannes Göransson, Charles Bernstein, Espen Grønlie, Heriberto Yepéz, Fredrik Hertzberg, Martin Högström, Murat Nemet-Nejat, and myself by my MLA 2006 piece, "In the Beginnig Was Translation" / "I begynnelsen var oversettelse".

June 7, 2007 5:00 PM Jouni Tossavainen (whose Kuva ja Sana | Word & Image blog I should have noted here much earlier) asks good questions pertaining to the status of Finnish mainstream prose writing. I will soon rise similar concerns elsewhere. Permanent link to Jouni's entry (also published in today's Savon Sanomat).

June 7, 2007 6:25 AM James Joi Sen! Tseims Söi Sen! Together with a well-known Finnish conceptual and other artist, Erkki Soininen, I'll do a one hour happening-performance offering cannibalistic takes - in sound and video - on Ulysses by James Joyce, Sunday, September 9, starting around 2 to 2.30 PM in Kirjakahvila, Korttelimuseo, Museokahvila, Kuopio, Finland (it's the second part of an afternoon program, from 1 to 3.30). That'll be part of the Kirjakantti literary festival, also featuring this year's Finnish PoetrySlam Finals, and of course the Kuopio Sound Poetry Seminar, Saturday, Sept. 8, 1 to 4 PM, in the Conference Room of Kuopio City Library, with Juha Valkeapää, Charlie Morrow, Jonimatti Joutsijärvi, and me. PDF of the Kirjakantti brochure here.

June 6, 2007 6:43 PM There's something barbaric in Danmark (as well).

June 6, 2007 1:34 PM Revealing & updatating... (& feeling grateful).

June 5, 2007 11:26 AM New out from ntamo: Toiset ambivalentit äänet by Tuula Hökkä (ed.), multi-lingual essays in female poetics in Northern Europe, Word In Progress, Expanded Edition, poems by Aki Salmela in more or less Standard/Barbaric English. Coming soon: Kuuskajaskari, a seminal work by the Finnish poet Jyrki Pellinen from 1964, together with my English translation, Afterword, and Notes.

June 5, 2007 8:14 AM SEISMOGRAPHIC STORMCLOUD PROPHYLACTIC BLUES a new Google Poem by Andrew Lundwall.

June 4, 2007 7:44 AM Bloomsday drawing nearer, I put another sample from my work in progress online: Chapter 7: Aeolus. The draft is from January 2006. Also see my Ulysses page.

June 4, 2007 7:44 AM "in ulm und um ulm und um herum / die katze tritt die treppe krumm". Hannu Helin's new godbuy (Pulvis & Umbra 2007), further notes of a journey into (the depths of) translingualism...For a roadmap, consult "Work In Progress".