Norwegian Poetry Celebration
November 23rd
Open Ealing

A brilliant event where visiting contemporary Norwegian poets presented brand new performance collaborations with British-based counterparts, made for the night. This was a celebration of a new generation of Norwegian poets through the works of Silje Ree, Maren Nygård, Bjørn Vatne and Jon Ståle Ritland, as well as a unique showcase of collaboration and poetry performance.

Featuring Harry Man / Bjørn Vatne & Richard Marshall / Jon Ståle Ritland & JT Welsch / Maren Nygård & Susie Campbell / Silje Ree & Maria Celina Val / Tamar Yoseloff & Alison Gill / Chris Kerr & Virna Teixeira

The event also served as a launch for Utøya Thereafter : Poems in Memory of the 2011 Norway Attacks by Harry Man and Endre Ruset available here from Hercules Editions https://www.herculeseditions.com/ut%C3%B8ya-thereafter

EPF Digital 2020
3 Norwegian Poets
Video Interviews

EPF Digital 2020 presents two remarkable new long-form video-interviews with poets from Norway - Hilde Myklebust, discussing the darkness of nature from her remote farm and Bård Torgersen, chatting about transgression and ritual, amongst many other things. Plus a brand new video-poem commission by Norwegian writer Bjørn Vatne, a new musical collaboration with artificial intelligence.

Bård Torgersen is Associate Professor at Kristiania University College, where he teaches creative writing, experimental writing, sound poetry and narrative approaches to storytelling. He is a novelist, poet and musician. His latest publication is the novel Lengter knuser slår, Forlaget Oktober, Oslo (2019). He has published eight novels and eight volumes of poetry. Moreover, he has made various contributions to literary antologies and journals. He has also published five musical albums, in collaboration with others and alone, that explore the relations between literature and sound/music. He has performed extensively in Norway and Europe.

Bjørn Vatne (born 1976) debuted in 2015 with the novel This is How we Choose our Victims, which was selected as Book of the Year by Norwegian book bloggers. His second novel, The Deletion of Paul Abel, was published in 2018 to unanimous acclaim from the critics. In 2020 he released Death and resurrection. Vatne read sociology and media studies at the University of Bergen and spent two years studying Creative Writing at the University of Tromsø. He has also published texts in publications such as Granta and Vinduet literary magazine. Today he works at the Aggregat artist studio in Ålesund, alongside visual artists and musicians.

Hilde Myklebust (b. 1979) is from Syltedalen on Sunnmøre. She debuted with the collection of poems Berre dagar in 2005 and established herself among the foremost young poets in Norway with Søkk in 2008. In Søkk, stories from childhood, abrupt memory, blessings, superstition create an underlying stream of unrest towards nature. The frame around the poem is the story of a young woman who loses her child. In 2009, Myklebust published the picture book Jon og den lange julenatta. Myklebust attended the Academy of Writing in Hordaland and has studied literary and theater studies at the University of Bergen.

Supported by NORLA (Norwegian Literature Abroad) and The Embassy of Norway, UK.