METTE MOESTRUP (MeMo) is a poet and writer. Her practice includes
translation, performance, multimedia art, collaborative works and essay writing.
She has published five poetry collections, most recently To the Most Beautiful
(English translation, 2024). Her critically acclaimed works have been translated
into several languages and she has received a number of awards, including
Montana’s Literature Prize, the Aarestrup Medal, the Beatrice Prize
and the Danish Arts Foundation's Lifetime Honorary Grant. She is also
a member of the Danish Academy. She lives in Copenhagen.
Contact → mettemoestrup@mail.dk
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BIO / CV / Press Photos
Photographer: Ivan Boll
BIO
Mette Moestrup (1969) is an award-winning, critically acclaimed Danish poet and author. She made her debut in 1998 and has published five poetry collections, most recently To the Most Beautiful (2019/ 2024). As well as one novel, two children's books and two collective works. Her body of work has received numerous awards, grants and honours, including Montana’s Literature Prize, the Aarestrup Medal, the Beatrice Prize and the Danish Arts Foundation's Lifetime Honorary Award. Her poetry has been translated into Norwegian, Swedish, English and German. She is a translator herself, most recently having co-translated and adapted Sappho’s fragments in Sappho (2021), and her practice also includes performance, multimedia, essay writing and mentoring. Over the years, she has taught at several of Scandinavia's renowned creative writing schools and established herself as a key voice in the Scandinavian literary debate. Last but not least, she has performed at numerous poetry festivals and is known for her distinctive reading style. In 2022, she became a member of the Danish Academy. Mette Moestrup (MeMo) grew up in northern Jutland and lives in Copenhagen.
Send an email → mettemoestrup@mail.dk to inquire about poetry readings, lectures, panel discussions, workshops, mentoring or similar.
Some red threads in Mette Moestrup's work: body, fruit, insects, plants and planets, water, geometric shapes, political engagement, capitalism critique, systemic poetry, myth critique, intersectional feminism, queerness, decolonial aesthetics, ecopoetics, metabolic poetics, magic machines, communities, utopian thought.
CV
WRITING
Poetry & fiction:
Tattoos, poetry, Gyldendal, 1998
Golden Delicious, poetry, Gyldendal, 2002
kingsize, poetry, Gyldendal, 2006
Levelled to the ground, novel, Gyldendal, 2009
Die, lie, die, poetry, Gyldendal, 2012
Frit flet [Free weaving, collective book, co-written with Naja Marie Aidt and Line Knutzon, Gyldendal, 2014
Omina, poetry, co-written with Naja Marie Aidt, Gyldendal, 2016
To the Most Beautiful, poems, Gyldendal, 2019
Children’s books:
Ten green fingers, children’s book, Gyldendal, 2007
What does Ulla the snowy owl baby say?, children’s book, Gyldendal, 2009
Non-fiction:
Rilke & rhythm, literary criticism and essay, Herman & Frudit, 2023
(previously published by Litteraturhistorisk Forlag, 1999)
Moestrup's works are translated into Swedish, Norwegian, English, German and Chinese.
Awards, grants & honours:
The Danish Arts Foundation award for Golden Delicious, 2002
The Danish Arts Foundation's three-year working grant, 2005
Montana’s Literature Prize for kingsize, 2007
(Levelled to the ground was nominated for Weekendavisen’s Literature Prize and the Critics' Prize, 2009)
Grant from Literarisches Tandem/Stiftung Brandenburger Tor, 2013
The Danish Arts Foundation's award for Frit flet, 2014
Politiken's newly-established award, the Frit flet award, for Frit flet, 2015
The Aarestrup Medal, 2018
The Beatrice Prize (The Danish Academy), 2018
The Danish Arts Foundation's Lifetime Honorary Grant, 2019
Member of the Danish Academy, 2022
As well as a large number of work and travel grants and stays at the Danish Institute in Rome, most recently in 2019, and in San Cataldo, most recently in 2021
TRANSLATIONS
From Norwegian: Cecilie Løveid Spildt, poems, Bebop, 2004
From Swedish: Johannes Anyuru En storm kom fra paradiset, novel, Gyldendal, 2013
From English: Sylvia Plath Glasklokken, co-translated with Olga Ravn, Gyldendal, 2016
From English: Eileen Myles Ikke mig, OVO Press, 2017
From English: Aaiún Nin På min huds sorthed, co-translated with Aaiún Nin and Farhiya Khalid, Gads Forlag, 2021
From Ancient Greek: Sapfo, co-translated and adapted with classical philologist Mette Christiansen, Gyldendal, 2021
POETRY READINGS
Over the past 25 years, Mette Moestrup has performed at numerous poetry festivals and reading events across Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Greenland, Iceland, Lithuania, Estonia, France, Germany, Germany and Austria. She has a regular on the program at Louisiana Literature in Denmark, The Norwegian Festival of Literature and The Stockholm International Poetry Festival in Sweden, and has regularly collaborated with the Center for Literature in Munich, Germany, where she most recently performed at Droste Festival 2024 – Nenn Mir Hexe / Call me Witch!
Selected readings and talks in Germany and Austria:
Droste Festival 2024 – Nenn Mir Hexe, Center for Literature, München 2024
Ditiramb, Tamistad artist talk and reading, Vienna, 2023
Sich selber sehen möchte das Welt. Aus dem Nachlass von Inger Christensen, Haus für Poesie, 2022
Stiftung Lyrik Kabinett, Münich 2021
Denkfabrik 2021 – Phantom Homeland, CfL, 2021
The White White West, CfL, 2021
Poetry on the Road, Bremen / Versepolis Festival of Hope, 2020
Big Witch Energy / Crossroads of Intersectional Feminism, KOOKread, Berlin, 2019
Lyrik aus Dänemark, Haus für Poesie, Berlin, 2018
Frankfurt Buchmesse “Teil der Bewegung” poetry reading, 2017
BE.BOP. Black Europe Body Politics. Volksbühne, Berlin, 2016
Festival of Future Nows, Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin, 2014
LICHTUNGEN / Literaturhaus Graz, 2011
TEACHING & EDITING
Teacher and supervisor at Forfatterskolen in Copenhagen, Litterär Gestaltning in Gothenburg, Skrivekunstakademiet in Bergen and Forfatterstudiet in Bø, Norway (some of the best Scandinavian Academies of Creative Writing)
Editor of Den Blå Port for a number of years. Editor of several issues of Legenda.
Essays, articles and afterwords published on Forugh Farrokhzad, Ingeborg Bachmann and Sappho, among others.
EDUCATION
Music/language student, Hjørring Gymnasium, 1988
MPhil from the Department of Comparative Litterature, Aarhus University, 1997
Visiting Scholar at Columbia University in New York,1996
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