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Finland’s best-known organiser of live poetry events, Helsinki Poetry Connection, is bringing one of the UK’s most impressive spoken word artists to the festival. Award-winning poet and author Joelle Taylor has written four poetry collections and one novel, and is known for her powerful and opinionated texts. What does opinionated poetry sound like today, and how can we promote freedom through poetry?
Taylor’s collection C+NTO & Othered Poems won the T.S. Eliot Prize in 2021 and the Polari Book Prize in 2022. Both The Spectator and The Guardian named her novel The Night Alphabet (2024) Book of the Year.
In addition to Taylor, the poetry club will feature readings by two performers selected through an open call. Would you like to be one of them? If you have a poem or piece of writing on the theme of freedom that you’d like to perform, this is your chance to shine!
HPC encourages poets from all backgrounds to apply to perform at this spectacular evening. The maximum duration of each performance is 5 minutes. Please submit a brief introduction about yourself and your performance, along with a sample of your work, by April 21 to hpc.openmic@gmail.com. The text may be in any language.
The programme will be hosted in Finnish and English. You can follow the programme at the festival’s Speaker’s Stage at Bio Rex or via livestream on the festival’s website.
Joelle Taylor
Joelle Taylor is a writer and one of the UK’s most influential spoken-word poets. She is known for her powerful and opinionated writing. Taylor is a member of the Royal Society of Literature and the 2022 Saboteur Spoken Word Artist of the Year. She received the DIVA Award for Outstanding Contribution and was named to The Guardian’s Pride Power list.
The woman pushes open the door & enters her own body. – From Joelle Taylor’s collection C+nto & Othered Poems
