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 Butterfly Nebula (2025).
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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UPDATE March, 2026
BUTTERFLY NEBULA IS NOMINATED FOR THE NORDIC COUNSIL LITERATURE PRIZE 2026!
Read the motivation here (or scroll down and read): Nordic Council Literature Prize - Mette Moestrup
In Denmark it has also been shortlisted for Politiken Literature Prize and The Literary Critic Award.
The Norwegian translation by Eira Søyseth has been published by Forlaget H/O/F - check it out here: Norwegian Butterfly Nebula
Since I last wrote news here, I’ve participated in the German festival POETICA - Festival for World Literature. The theme of this year was Soft Magic - Poetry & Worldmaking. I participated with a blood performance, poetry readings, performance with music and actors, as well as panel debates. Read more about the festival here and take a look at the photo and video documention: POETICA
I also participated in the Norwegian festival Bergen International Literature Festival - in an interview and a poetry reading. Read more about the festival here: Bergen International Literature Festival
Most of February, I was at a writer’s residency in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten’s scholarship apartment in Prenzlauer Berg, Berlin - working on my next book.
Coming up: poetry reading at The Italian Institure in Copenhagen (March 23rd), talk and poetry reading in Hjørring, Denmark (March 27th), reading and discussion at Syddansk Univeristy, Denmark (April 15th), talk at Zürich University (April 23th), panel debate in Haus für Poesie, Berlin (April 27th), teaching - the Author School Copenhagen (different dates in May), reading at Sydhavns Salonen, Copenhagen (June 12th), reading and teaching at Testrup Højskole, Aarhus, Denmark (June 18th-25th), Stavanger, Norway (September, 16-20th)
MOTIVATION - NORDIC COUNSIL LITERATURE PRIZE:
Mette Moestrup: Butterfly Nebula, poetry, Gyldendal, 2025. Nominated for the 2026 Nordic Council Literature Prize.
Butterfly Nebula (not translated into English) is a work of poetry that has justifiably garnered a huge amount of attention for its original combination of ecocriticism, critique of capitalism, and female angst about the state of the world. The author describes herself as an “ecstatic systems poet” and places herself, both aesthetically and intellectually, in a congenial continuation of Inger Christensen and her sonnet crown Sommerfugledalen (1991).
Butterfly Nebula is a sumptuous, broadly conceived poetic composition which, through the form of the butterfly, stretches from the interior of the body to outer space. The connection arises from the fact that, some 3,800 light-years away, there is a nebula that resembles the thyroid gland in appearance – the small, vital gland that deteriorates in cases of Hashimoto’s disease (named after the Japanese doctor who first described this autoimmune syndrome). Mette Moestrup makes this connection. On a personal and bodily level, the work therefore revolves around human metabolism. But since capitalism’s constant predatory exploitation of Earth’s resources threatens to devastate humanity’s metabolising of matter with its surroundings, the poet leads the reader into an all-encompassing care for life. Added to this is the poetic point that metabolism is almost the same word as metabole, a rhetorical figure in which the same words are repeated in reverse order. For Moestrup, it is only a short step from ecocriticism’s insistent focus on matter to poetry’s engagement with the materiality of language. Butterfly Nebula is constructed in seven interwoven strands. “Red Butterfly Ufo” is the declarative opening and closing poem. “Red, butterfly-shaped poem” is a kind of poetic happening with instructions for placing red objects in the shape of a butterfly. “Seven letters to Hashimoto” addresses the Japanese doctor who discovered and described the disease that for seven years deprived the poet of the ability to write. “Quiz on the butterfly gland” actually consists of a series of questions, which are answered at the end of the book. “The Habitat Hymn” celebrates the dune landscape the poet has moved through since childhood. “Songs of Insomnia, Copenhagen” circles, in elegiac incantation, around what it means to be alive when a close friend is dying. And finally, the poet articulates a series of prose-form “Blood Prophecies”. The seven textual strands can be followed separately, or the book can be read exactly as it presents itself, in constant shifts from one strand to another.
Either way, the reader encounters a wild and exceptional beauty, while gradually gaining a clearer understanding that everything which metabolises matter is alive, and that everything that is alive metabolises matter.
Moestrup was born in 1969, made her literary debut in 1999, and has published six poetry collections, one novel, and two children’s books. She has also contributed to several collective publishing projects. Something that all her literary works share is their experimental character and her energetic engagement with politics and poetry.
***
Butterfly Nebula is a large, sensuous and thought-provoking collection of poems about metabolism, visions and disease. In seven interwoven parts, Mette Moestrup writes red-glittering, ritual and hymn-like poems about the butterfly-shaped gland that controls metabolism. She has had an autoimmune metabolic disorder for seven years. From this physical experience, she sings about the metabolism that connects all species. And laments the broken metabolism between homo sapiens and earth. There are wild and virtuoso leaps from the small stones on the beach to the butterfly-shaped nebula that gives the book its name. There are transformational communities and healing seances. Insomnia songs, blood divinations. And a red UFO! In Mette Moestrup’s new collection of poetry, euphoria is mixed with evil laughter and deep sorrow. And tenderness is mixed with mystery. Guess riddles, follow clues, get lost – in Butterfly Nebula anything can happen.
BUTTERFLY NEBULA was published in May 2025 and has received overwhelmingly positive reviews. It has been called a “poetic and galactic masterpiece,” “a poetic masterpiece,” “an incomparable work,” a “poetic tour de force,” “a manic majestic ode” with “sublime” and “visionary” poetics, ‘joyful’ language, and “images of a unique magical power.” You can see more press quotes, stars, and hearts here on the website under Books.
I have already performed with Butterfly Nebula at Louisiana Literature, Oslo International Poetry Festival, Cafe Opera in Bergen, and numerous different venues in Denmark. And I am looking forward to more events and festivals in 2025 and 2026 in Denmark, Norway, Germany and Switzerland. Coming up is, among other things, the big poetry festival POETICA in Cologne in ‘26. More calendar updates will follow later.
Wonderful interview with beautiful photos here
AND here are som links to reviews (all in Danish)
She writes joyfully and playfully about her own illness - Five hearts in Politiken
Mette Moestrup delivers a wild and scientific tribute to metabolism - Information
She paints with blood and wants her readers to be naked and taste strawberries - Five stars in Jyllandsposten
The poet of the thyroid gland - Weekendavisen
Bravo, Mette Moestrup, bravo - Bogblogger (fri adgang)
When the thyroid gland becomes a critique of the world - POVinternational (free access)
Metabolic and red-glittering - Atlas (free access)
Blood turns almost black when it coagulates - Lyrikere.dk (free access)
Wild poetry collection connects illness, astronomy, and climate crisis - Sundhedkultur.dk (free access)
Moestrup's visionary poetics - Bernur (på svensk) (fri adgang)
AND I have posted some links to interviews, radio and TV here on the website under Interviews