In this issue we bring you visual, erotic and site-specific poetry with, among others, topical research on neural network poetry. This issue also features our youngest-ever author!

We open the issue with two articles by Ivan Yamshchikov and Alexey Tikhonov on neural network generated poetry. Neural network poetry often stumbles upon the quality of the source material – but not this time. Yamshchikov and Tikhonov´s multilingual author-stylized neural network poetry uses material from canonical poets and songwriters such as William Shakespeare, Joseph Brodsky and Kurt Cobain to create poetry that is at times impossible to differentiate from original author´s texts. In the second article Neuro-Poe and Generated Lewis Carroll, among others, are also examined in relation to phonetics.

Tuula Sipilä makes her debute in Nokturno with a series of visual poems titled Lintujen kieli (Language of the birds). Sipilä gives the sounds of five different birds a new visual and poetic form. Collages composed of special characters and light shapes even break through their frames at times.

In her poems Elina Sallinen has re-imagined the creative process of translating poetry from one language to another. Could the results of Google Translator be a starting point to a new poem, merging into the original one? Sallinen´s poems use Finnish and Swedish and draw from the tradition of concrete poetry.

This issue also includes some erotic poetry! Eroottinen kodinkonerunous is a duo formed by pseudonyms Ringrat and Nachtwolf. They write and perform together their poems on the delicate subject of eroticness of household appliances (hence the name in Finnish). In the eight poems gadgets from toaster to blender get their share of the sensual adoration of these two poets.

We are proud to present our youngest ever author, Henri Harsu! Henri is a 11 years old videomaker who has created a video poem together with her mother Sari Harsu. Ilves (Lynx) is Sari´s poem about the constellation and perhaps the animal as well. Located in the stellar constellation it wonders its essence and extents: ”I don´t extend very far from what I think I am”, it ponders.

In 2017 we introduced site-specific poetry from Tarja Hallberg and Nina Mutik. Their Runopaikka (Poetry site) concept is a method and procedure of making and documenting site-speficic poetry. The videos also work as stand-alone pieces of poetry, as Risteys and Pannu in this issue show. Crawling ants and fried (yes, fried!) letters bring a hint of summer of Hailuoto islet to this December.

Barnaby Smith and Michael Bloss from Australia and Berlin have created an interactive work called Instructional – A Baited Poem which utilizes an elaborate selling scheme of bait and switch. In the poem texts and images change when reader clicks, but what eventually happens? What is the reader offered and what does she or he end up ”buying”?

This issue closes with Niina Oisalo´s poetry video Runovideo valaan silmästä (Poetry video from/about the eye of the whale) Poems are based on Oisalo´s book Valaan silmä, pilvien hai (Kolera, 2017). The video appeases even the most hurried reader with its forest shots, clouds passing by and the music of Jari Oisalo together with Niina´s and Marta Cenedese´s poetry reading.

This year Nokturno has released poetry from altogether over 50 authors from almost ten countries. In spring we hosted sound artist Olli Aarni in our Digital Residence and in the Fall it was Tuija Välipakka´s turn to take over the virtual working space. Both works can be found here. Also, our previous issue was our first guest curator issue! It was edited by Marko Niemi, previous long time editor in chief of Nokturno.

We thank our readers and all poets and authors! It has been yet another great year in the fascinating world of digital, experimental and multidisciplined poetry. Deadline for the next issue is 31st of January. Those interested in working in Digital Residence might want to stay tuned, open call for next year´s residencies starts in January.

(Image: Sari and Henri Harsu´s poetry video Ilves)