Last issue of Nokturno in 2022 emphasizes the lightless joy of Nordic November. Life’s finiteness, suffocating relationship, getting stuck in the past and poetic expression using bodies of dead insects as its material all lead readers toward the heart of a late autumn darkness. On the other hand, glimmers of light hide beneath, for instance, a literally head-turning visual poetry, an interactive work that invites the reader to tread one’s own path made of words, or a performative poetry that reads aloud an asemic tree.

A four-part poetry film series Toxic Love Cycle, by Maryam Ghouth, approaches a suffocating relationship from the point of view of psychological projection.

Sanna Telkki-Kova’s video poem Moribunda sum deals with death and the finiteness of life in terms of different mythological stratums.

Menneisyysgenerattori (“Generator of the Past”) by Laura Tressel uses old weather forecasts, horoscopes and notebook entries as its material. The work deals with questions and mechanisms of getting stuck in the past.

Jan Hellgren’s 12 x Visual Poetry uses old, distressed materials as means of poetic expression. The selection of sketches draws from Hellgren’s tumblr-blog titled iida.

Jake Zawlacki’s handwritten visual poem Man O’ War’s Drift quite literally turns the head of its reader.

Maija Saksman’s performative video poem PoeTRY! focuses on a reading of an asemic poem, a 43-meter long Mänty (“A Pinetree”) ny Heidi Halonen.

Year 2022 in Nokturno ends with an interactive work by Lea Kalenius. Satunnaisuuden sumussa (“In the fog randomness”) draws its inspiration from Jean-Paul Sartre’s novel Nausea (1938), and asks the reader to tread one’s own path made of words by choosing the order in which the poem unravels itself.

Next Nokturno will see the (hopefully stronger) light of day in late January, 2023.

Miikka Laihinen