I am currently researching the meanings of compassion related to overconsumption and the demands to renounce devastating consumer habits in forest-themed Finnish poetry that has been or will be published in the 2020s. I pay attention to the ability of poetry to connect emotion and knowledge in a way that touches the reader.

Finnish consumption of natural resources exceeds the global sustainability limits many times over, and the consequences of this also affect not only nature but also the poorest people outside Finland. Industrial exploitation of forests in Finland is closely linked to an increase in the standard of living and, as a result, the development of harmful consumption habits. In my research, I study how expressions of compassion in poetry act as catalysts for self-reflection for the reader. I pay particular attention to how the demand of renunciation is dealt with in poetry from the point of view of otherness and justice.

As a context of my readings of the contemporary poetry I read folk poetry, i.e. the Old Poems of the Finnish People (SKVR archive) and the lectures made about them in studies. My entry point to folk poetry is cultural research. I am interested in the rituals, beliefs and practical meanings associated with the forest in the performances of the tradition, all of which reveal something about the relationship between the human and forest before the Anthropocene era.

Part of the purpose of my project is to actively follow the field of 2020s, forest-themed poetry and it´s response to the climate crisis.