Poet
Risto Oikarinen
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Risto Oikarinen
(Finland, 1978)
© Petteri Lappalainen
Biography
The Finnish poet Risto Oikarinen was born far from the big city in a region full of lakes, marshes and conifer forests. Slowly but surely, the inhabitants are leaving the area, mostly moving southwards, to Helsinki, where a feeling of homesickness for the nature of their youth eats away at them. That, too, is what happened to Oikarinen, but for him that memory is a positive force, a source of inspiration for his poetry: “The marsh has something sacred about it – it is unpolished, frightening, mysterious. You sense the presence of death. The wild swan also broods there.”
© Adriaan van der Hoeven (Translated by John Irons)
[Risto Oikarinen took part in the Poetry International Festival Rotterdam 2008.This text was written on that occasion.]
Poems
Poems of Risto Oikarinen
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Partners
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