verse X change: Inside the Belarusian–Nordic Poetic Dialogue [video]

In spring 2026, we launched the Belarusian–Danish–Swedish poetry exchange, verse X change. Belarusian poets travelled to Denmark and Sweden, where they met with fellow writers and worked together during a series of creative workshops, translating each other’s poetry. As a result, contemporary Belarusian poetry will be published in Danish and Swedish, while Danish and Swedish poets will appear in Belarusian translation.

We asked some of the participants to share their impressions in a series of short interviews. Watch the video to discover how poets find a common language through translation, the challenges they encounter, and the new insights they gain through collaboration.

You can find the full playlist with all the interviews on our YouTube channel.

1 . Kseniya Stasiukevich

We are not alone in this world. And if poetry matters to us, then we should approach the poetry of others with both respect and enthusiasm.

2. Katinka Bukdahl Søby

I’ve been translating poems that are very like body specific. What’s been hard has been like sort of experiencing the bodily sensations of those poems.

3. Ilya Sinitsa

Maybe for the first time you realize the importance of distance, and of the author’s own distance from what they have written.

4. Jonas Gren

When you play with words in one language, it’s almost or it is impossible to translate the whole meaning of that wordplay.

5. Hanna Shakel

Of course, there are lines that require some thought. You need to spend some time walking around with them and find a version in Belarusian that has a similar emotional impact.

6. Ylva Gripfelt

You create your own world when you have the words in front of you, but then when you have the person in front of you, you also get more.

7. Julia Cimafiejeva

In fact, translating poetry is a very attentive way of reading—probably the most attentive kind of reading there can be.

8. Siarhiej Kalenda

You have this urge to explain every single word, to tell what it means, to explain all of it.

9. Cecilie Rönnow Egerup

If you do not have the author to consult, then you have to make some choices, and then you… then it is what it is. But when you have the author, you can discuss a lot of different ways of interpretations.

10. Joakim Vilandt

I’m more of a school where intentionality in text doesn’t really matter that much. But we are dealing also like, and I think particularly in translation, preserving the voice in some way of the text is just very important.

11. Christine Kærulv

It’s very inspiring and it’s a way of understanding the world, I think, to try to dive into another language that you’re not that familiar with and all the values and the nuances that you can find there.

11. Bereket Hailemariam

But in my poems it’s just one word, or two, three words on a page. They just mean more because there’s no context to it. So the translator has to do all that work of understanding the context, understanding all the different nuances of just this one single word because there’s nothing else.

This publication has been produced with the financial support from the Nordic Council of Ministers. The content of this publication is the sole responsibility of the coordinators of this project and does not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the Nordic Council of Ministers.