2018

POETRY MARATHON 2018

Poetry Marathon Festival was held in Lahti from 14th to 17th June 2018. The most important themes of the festival were Risto Ahti Poetry Seminaire, Estonia 100 and Bridge to Japan.

Supporting exhibitions, Blue/By the Water/Prayer at Hollola and Almost readable – 20 typographic interpretations of readability at Fellmannia Library were open from 14th to 21st June. Satellite event, bilingual Poetry Recital: Water has a memory was held at Heinola on June 20.

More than 1400 visitors attended 14 different events during the festival week. Poetry & art marathon was succesful also because of lovely summer weather.

See festival photos & feelings here. Many thanks to all participants, artists and collaborators! See you next year!

CULTURE EXCHANGE PROJECT BETWEEN JAPAN AND FINLAND

Lahti Poetry Marathon has created a pilot project called ” Bridge to Japan” in order to start and develop regular culture exchange between the city of Lahti and Japan.

Within the project, the Lahti Poetry Marathon is planning to organize a series of culture events, ”Japan weeks”, to be held in 2018 and 2019 in Lahti city. The culture events include e.g. art exhibition in Sibeliushall and open air concert by the Lake Vesijärvi. One of the purposes of the project is to find out financial instruments for organizing the culture events during the years 2018 and 2019. With the help of Lahti Region Ltd, the project aims also to productize the culture events for the international marketing. The Päijät-Häme regional council has supported the project with development project grant in November 2017.

The Lahti Poetry Marathon has nominated M.A. Sanna Virta to coordinate the project. Virta is also a Secretary General of the Lahti Poetry Marathon.