An Evening of Estonian Poetry at the Poetry Cafe: Wednesday 18th April

Jürgen Rooste & an Evening of Estonian Poetry

18th April
8pm
Poetry Café, Covent Garden, 22 Betterton Street, London WC2H 9BX

Intriguing, sensitive, powerful ― an evening of Estonian poetry!
‘… I would go with him to the nearest ― no, the most exclusive pub and treat him to excellent wine…’ (fellow poet Karl Martin Sinijärv about Jürgen Rooste)

Jürgen Rooste belongs to the so-called ‘social wave’ of young Estonian poets. He has published five poetry books, and his works have also appeared in several anthologies. His first book, ‘Sonnets’ (Huma, 1999), won the Betti Alver Debut Award, and his latest book /CD, ‘Ilusaks inimeseks’ (Verb, 2006), was awarded the Annual Prize of the Estonian Cultural Endowment. His short story 'A Porno Movie and a Bottle of Vodka' (Vikerkaar, 2006) won the Tuglas Award (the annual national prize for the best short story).

For the last five years Rooste has been literary editor of the leading cultural publication in Estonia, the Sirp weekly. And now he is taking up his new position as Head of the Estonian Institute in Helsinki, Finland. Rooste has also worked as a teacher, and has compiled and edited dictionaries and textbooks. He is a regular writer of reviews and columns in the press and has also hosted programmes on literature for Estonian Radio.

Rooste has two children. He recently said:
I don’t know what to do with my life from now on. I have established a certain principle of honesty for myself to follow, and I consider my life a human experiment: a participatory observation. Most of my poetry has been born as a diary or a notebook of this long-term experiment, whereby the lab assistant, registering everything, is constantly slipping into stylistic and formal games, to avoid boredom. Because life and all it brings is in some way inevitable. Divine too, of course. And foolish, first and foremost. I’ve always thought, the day I do not once laugh at myself, will be the day that I die.

Neal Young is quoted as saying: Rust never sleeps! (Rust = rooste in Estonian)
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