Column|The best part of Kajaani’s Poetry Week were the meetings at the rainy market and at the microphone.
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Kajaani’s Poetry Week is a five-day verbal art event that ended on Sunday.
The event also tries to reach a younger audience.
Stage performance connects people around personal topics.
At the moment, especially the climate crisis speaks to writers.
“Me too I’m part of these Runovikiko virgin tours”, says the woman who took the microphone.
The situation is from Kajaani from last week. Moni performs his own texts for the first time in front of the audience at the Kajaani Poetry Week open mic event.
It’s not my first time at a stage poetry event, but I will be at Kajaani’s Poetry Week.
I’m impressed: Earlier in the day, I was reading poetry stones, which have been engraved with verses by Suve poets for twenty years. Someone’s cell phone started ringing, and I heard a ringtone version of the Kainuu provincial song.
It was impossible to find one favorite among the poem stones, but one of them is this one Henriikka Tavin line:
I’ve tried to bloom,
but the situation is problematic.
I’ve traveled the poetry path, I’ve seen Aila from Meriluoto telling the play and talking a lot to strangers. We were upset with a lady when the poetry karaoke was canceled because of the rain. After all, he had come to the place “with his last strength”.
From The audience of the Kajaani Poetry Week organized in 1976 seems to be dominated by senior citizens, but the events show people of all ages. This year, a large part of the performances were sold out, and the number of visitors remained at last year’s level.
Artistic director of Poetry Week Kati Outinen says that the event is constantly trying to reach a younger audience as well. Open mics have been especially popular.
This year, the program of the five-day festival included, for example, Uusi Runo evenings, where contemporary poets performed their texts. As a new area conquest, Runoviikko implemented a festival day with the Kajaani Fest Live event.
Outinen states that even in classic poems there are still those that speak to people of all ages.
“For example Edith Södergran hits a teenager just as hard as it hit me as a teenager.”
Of course, tradition belongs in Kajaani: in the poetry duathlon, where poetry published by others was presented, nature topics and patriotism were heard. And something that fits even a child’s ears.
The beauty there is that the situation is alive – someone finds a suitable poem for a little person in their notebook.
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It’s equally exciting to let other texts take over.
The biggest however, it is the open mic organized by Joensuu’s Lavarunosiive that impresses – the one where first timers shine.
Especially at events where only own productions are presented, we are on the verge of something very personal. Writing both a diary and poems belongs to an area that we can’t easily imagine for other people.
When we stand on stage and read aloud for the first time things that have just become lyrics, we are open to each other in a unique way.
Fortunately, there are few who only come to read their own work and leave. My poem burns in my lap, but it’s just as exciting to let other texts take over. And encourage!
Poems deal with overcoming insecurities, stepping out of boxes, pointless sweatpants. There are observations of a hearse driving into the yard and being laid in the forties.
One theme in particular unites this moment in stage poetry in Kajaani as well as in bigger cities: concern about the climate crisis. The ears no longer only whispered and the lakes sparkled – the world is burning, and there are no guarantees of cold winters.
My overriding feeling when returning from Kajaani is: we need this, we need more word art events. Let’s let the stage poem live.
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