Heli Laaksonen

Heli Pauliina Laaksonen (born 28 September 1972, in Turku) is a Finnish poet.

She writes poetry in the dialect of south-western Finland, and performs her poetry on tours. She was said in 2011 to be "Finland's best-selling poet" and "at the moment the only Finnish poet who can survive on the proceeds of her poetry without financial assistance". It is said that the majority of her readers and listeners are "women who have reached retirement age".

Inspired by Estonian poets, Laaksonen became interested in using dialect in poems. After getting to know Jan Rahman, she translated poems written by Rahman in 1997 in the Võru dialect into the dialect of southwestern Finland. The experiment encouraged her to continue with dialect poems. Laaksonen also uses her home dialect typical of southwest Finland. Her work and performance often make use of humour as well as features of different dialects for commentary on Finnishness.

She also performs with , a dialect writer from Pori.

Awards In 2007 Laaksonen was elected Alumna of the Year at the University of Turku. In 2009 she received the Larin Paraske Award from the Kalevala Women's Association.

Selected publications She contributed a translation to the book Intiimejä avaruuksia : XXV skotlantilaista runoa 1978-2002 (Intimate Expanses: XXV Scottish Poems 1978-2002), a collection of Scottish poems translated into Finnish, published in 2006 by Finnish publisher Like , the original having been published in 2004 by Carcanet Press and the Scottish Poetry Library .

Among her books are:

Laaksonen has recorded audiobooks of some of her works, specifically achieving a gold record for the poetry collections Jänes pussis (2003, Frog) and Ratio Sulavoi (2007, Otava).