Mette Moestrup is one of Scandinavia’s most acclaimed contemporary poets. Her work spans poetry, prose, performance and translation. Her latest book, Butterfly Nebula (2025), explores metabolism, illness and visions and has been nominated for the 2026 Nordic Council Prize. Her work has been translated into several languages and earned numerous honours, including Montana’s Literature Prize, the Aarestrup Medal, the Beatrice Prize and the Danish Arts Foundation’s Lifetime Honorary Grant. A member of the Danish Academy, she has performed at international literature festivals, most recently Poetica in Cologne. She lives in Copenhagen.
Contact → mettemoestrup@mail.dk
Instagram
Facebook
Other writing
Photo from the instructional poem “Colorful Triangular Poems” / “Farverige trekantsdigte” by Mette Moestrup
Selected recent poems in journals and similar:
‘Colourful Triangular Poems’ in 1000 Scores (English)
Poems from To the Most Beautiful in Angel City Review (English)
Poems from To the Most Beautiful in Spoon River Poetry Review (English)
Poems from To the Most Beautiful in The Texas Review (English)
Poems from To the Most Beautiful in Mercury Firs (English)
Poem in LCB diplomatique (Danish, German and English)
‘Night Vision. Warlord. Children’ in Bokvennens Litterære Avis (Danish)
‘visions, rhythms’ in Sorg og Samfund (Danish)
‘Tears’ in Forfatternes Klimaaksjon (Norwegian and English)
‘the system tremblesr’ in Forfatternes Klimaaksjon (Danish)
Poems in the anthology Licht überm Land. Dänische Lyrik vom Mittelalter bis heute (German)
Poems in Periodico de Poesia (Spanish)
‘Planet Song’ in Center for Literature (English)
‘Cash’ and other poems in Lyrikline (German)
Selected essays and afterwords:
‘What Do You Know About Me? About Hulda Lütken’ in The Top of Denmark (Gutkind, 2023) (Danish)
‘Haunted (m)ursten / Haunted Brickwork’. Essay for catalogue Bricks (ARKEN Museum of Contemporary Art, 2023) (Danish / English)
‘Dear Sappho’. Afterword for Sappho (Gyldendal, 2021) (Danish)
Afterword or the Danish translation of Ingeborg Bachmann's Malina (Grif, 2021) (Danish)
‘Malina, Murder. Death in Ingeborg Bachmann's Writing’ in A Forest on Many Stems. Essays on the Poets Novel (Nightboat Books, 2021) (English)
‘The politics of what we do not feel’. Afterword for Tone Hødnebø’s Turning the World In on the World: Poems in Collection (Kolon Forlag, 2019) (Danish)
‘Art in a Cold Climate. Mette Moestrup on Pia Arke's Camera Obscura’ Radio essay on BBC Radio, 2015 (English)
‘My Entire Existence Is a Dark Verse’. Afterword for Forugh Farrokhzad’s Only the Voice Remains: Poetry and Biography (Gyldendal, 2013) (Danish)