I am currently researching the relationship between forest and death in contemporary and folk poetry. The forest is often vividly present in folk poetry performances. The forest is asked, for example, for game luck or safety, the owners of the forest are appeased, or personal sorrows and worries are unloaded on the forest. In lyrical folk poetry, the connection to the forest is also associated with the proximity of death, both human and other species.

Forest has traditionally been the great muse of Finnish poetry, which has at different times served as an interpreter of poets' aesthetic and political aspects. Therefore, it is no wonder that the forest is also present in numerous poetic works in the new millennium. The forest represented in poetry changes with the world, but the proximity of death, implicit or concrete, still seems to be associated with forest images in many contemporary poems. However, the meanings of death in connection with the forest have changed in many ways from the representations of folk poetry. An overlapping reading of folk and contemporary poetry forms a fruitful starting point for the interpretation of the meanings of forest images in contemporary poetry.