Welcome to Nokturno!

Nokturno.fi (previously known as nokturno.org) is a Finnish website presenting digital, experimental and cross-disciplinary literature, especially poetry, since 2005. We welcome contributions from all countries.

Nokturno.fi hosts a wide range of different forms of contemporary literature. The website includes kinetic poetry, interactive poems, code and hypertextual poems, generative poetry, games and animations. There is also visual, video and sound poetry available – and textual poetry that draws inspiration from the textual environment of internet. We also publish and present electronic literature more broadly from digital fiction to textual games.

New issue is published every three months. The site also runs a virtual residency program called Digital Residence, providing workspace for poets to explore the various possibilities of the digital and the internet in their own work. The residence is organized once a year with open call. Once a year we also invite a guest curator to build one of our issues based on her/his expertise on a given field of digital literature.

Since its launch Nokturno has been an important medium for new forms of contemporary poetry, especially in Finland. The website was founded by Finnish poetry association Nihil Interit ry., Nuori Voima magazine and publishing house Savukeidas in 2005 as nokturno.org. The first editor in chief was Teemu Ikonen and from 2007 onwards Marko Niemi who ran nokturno.org until 2014.

After a few silent years Nihil Interit decided to relaunch the website. The site returned with a new visual look by Lauri Hei and web design by Teemu Tuovinen in August 2016. The coordinator of the relaunch and current editor in chief is Virpi Vairinen. Miikka Laihinen was the fourth editor in chief of Nokturno during 1/2022-5/2023. The site is currently funded by Kone Foundation and is granted subsidy from the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture.

Nokturno archives contain poetry in more than 12 languages and from over 30 countries and over five decades – and with every new new issue more digital literature and experimental poetry comes part of our archives.

Most works at Nokturno are created in the digital environment with methods and techniques it provides. Some poems use internet and digital means only as a pathway to find their way to the reader, and some use more traditional means to address questions related to the internet and the digital. The digital world and the internet can function as an environment and provide context for poetry in different ways. At nokturno.fi you can explore the variety of functions, technologies and meanings digital world carries in contemporary literature.

Web design: Teemu Tuovinen
Assistants: Lauri Hei, Juha Rautio, Elina Sallinen
Website by: Luova toimisto La&La

Submissions and further questions:
Guidelines for submissions you’ll find here.