Place. Poetry. Periphery.

The periphery is the new centre for art and culture today. A place where  poetry can explore the potential for what can happen, through working in collaboration and being in situ.  What forms of poetry emerge in encounters with a landscape characterised by nature, forestry and farming? This question is highly relevant today, where the majority  of Nordic literature portrays life in urban areas, and questions undoubtedly are raised about representation and visibility.

Hylte municipality is a picturesque part of Halland. The idyll, wild nature is evident here. The forests and land are accessible by foot to everyone that lives in the area. Many areas are protected nature reserves. The residency Place. Poetry. Periphery took Halland’s landscape, alongside contemporary poetry’s potential to question the concepts of place, the countryside and nature as its point of departure. Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish-Swedish and Danish speaking poets met during the residency to listen to the silence and landscapes of sounds that hide amongst moss, rocks and bark.

The poets were selected for the residency by Kultur i Halland (Culture in Halland) and Hylte municipality, together with Marie Silkeberg  with guidance from Göteborgs Litteraturhuset (Gothenburg Literature House). Filmmaker Jonas Börjesson, who is from Halmstad, followed the poets’ activities in Hylte, which resulted in a poetic film based on the themes of the residency. Poems produced on the residency by the poets were published in the Swedish journal Provins.