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11 Poets
letterenfonds
dutch foundation
for literature
from Holland
2 11 Poets from Holland
Ellen Deckwitz
‘We need to talk’
Ellen Deckwitz, while only having when everyday reality takes hold, dental Rights
published two collections of poetry, is floss, immigrants, a visit to the Dam in Nijgh & Van Ditmar
Singel 262
already an ubiquitous presence in Dutch Amsterdam, you can feel the subdued
NL – 1016 AC Amsterdam
poetry. She has been part of the slam danger. Deckwitz has the gift of being able t +31 20 551 12 62
poetry circuit since 2000 and won the to describe her experiences in a both t +31 20 620 35 09
national Poetry Slam championship in mesmerising and lucid way. While this is by rights@singel262.nl
2009. Nevertheless, it is with her printed no means feel-good poetry, you do notice www.nijghenvanditmar.nl
work that she reached the larger poetry she is looking for light and liberation:
audience. ‘The soil is sucking up the worms and I Ellen Deckwitz in Translation
suppose/ that we all want to be/ thought Deckwitz performed on many
foreign stages and her poems have
Her poems are both energetic and highly of as sweet.’
been translated and published in
imaginative, which certainly makes her Her second volume Hey Party (2012) English, German, French and
one of the most lively poets in the Dutch takes a very different tone; it is indeed Spanish.
language. more of a party. She approaches the
Strikingly, each of her two collections macabre with a joke: ‘O jeez, if only I were
manage to evoke completely different a skeleton. Or even/ skinnier. Then I could
moods. In her debut, The Stone Fears Me finally seep/ through the wall between us.’ Ellen Deckwitz is the best
(2011) – which won her the Netherlands’ Fearful or festive, Deckwitz’ poetry is thing to happen to Dutch
most important debut prize for poetry, the explicitly open-natured, without mystifi- poetry in recent years.
C. Buddingh’ Prize – feelings of dread cation or obscure avant-gardism, but it — Ingmar Heytze
dominate, which the poet attempts to allay does offer a cheerful and poignant élan.
with ‘the bullet of the ballpoint’. Especially Deckwitz is lord and
master of her language
from beginning to end.
Every image used adds
something.
* — Jury’s of the Buddingh’
Prize
He said we need to talk
and thought to grab my ankle Original and sparkling as a
but my foot slipped out of the mule. narrative, an idiom all her
own comprising vivid
I slid down to the bottom of my bag images. A compelling
where the fish swim. In a previous life fantasmagoria.
I was one of them, relatively happy — De Volkskrant
Perquin’s first collection Napkins at Half prison officer plays a large part. With an Rights
is a series of striking, tasteful images open mind, Perquin enters the lives of G.A. van Oorschot
Herengracht 613
presented in an accessible style. Perquin criminals, losers and lost souls and
NL – 1017 CE Amsterdam
revealed herself clearly as writing in the experiences how multi-faceted life is, even t +31 20 623 14 84
tradition of post-war poets of small-scale within the confines of a cell: full of dream, contact@vanoorschot.nl
happiness and small-scale sorrow, like love, regret, opportunism. www.vanoorschot.nl
Rutger Kopland and Judith Herzberg, but You could say that with her classical
also showed a more menacing side, for sense of form but fascination with evil, Ester Naomi Perquin in Translation
example in the short poem ‘At Full Moon’, Perquin is pursuing a contemporary Perquin performed on several
foreign stages and her poems have
in which a man is shaving and the associa- version of ‘Romantic agony’. In a climate
been translated and published in
tion with a werewolf pops up: ‘and then where many of her contemporaries turn English, French, German, Slovenian
with a razor/ shaves the wolf from sight.’ mainly to wild and unconstrained forms of and Spanish. In 2010, her poem
poetry, Perquin shows herself a more ‘State Secret’ was translated in all
In other poems too, she sometimes classical poet, but one who in a subtle way languages of the European Union.
suddenly throttles the original idea, or has raises the issue of the perverse character of
her images transcend what originally the world and society. No wonder she’s
prompted them and take on a slightly regarded as one of the most promising
surrealistic quality. You could characterize young female poets of the moment and has The tone, the clarity and
her work with the phrase ‘polite oddity’. already won a considerable amount of the eye for the ordinary in
That is certainly true of her last collection, literary prizes. an ‘ordinary’ form are very
Cell Inspections, in which her past as a effectively conveyed.
— Meander
Mustafa Stitou
‘Mocking and pitying at once’
When Mustafa Stitou made his debut In all of his collections, including the Rights
with My Forms in 1994, he was the first latest, Stitou often presents Eastern and De Bezige Bij
Van Miereveldstraat 1
Dutch poet of Moroccan origin to publish Western values and modes of thought as
NL – 1071 DW Amsterdam
a collection with a major publishing being in conflict, but he does so in an t +31 20 305 98 10
house. This might have helped a bit in unpredictable fashion. He creates a f +31 20 305 98 24
raising extra attention to his work, as did medley of the high and low and of differ- h.deinum@debezigebij.nl
the fact that he was only nineteen years ent cultures that gives rise to a vibrant www.debezigebij.nl
old when he published it, but the most tension, while also provoking urgent
important reason for the sensation that questions – for instance about identity, Mustafa Stitou in translation
My Forms caused, can merely be attrib- which is one of Stitou’s most important Stitou performed on many interna-
tional stages and his poems have
uted to the unusual tone of voice the poet subjects.
been published in anthologies and
displayed in it, combined with highly In general, Stitou distinguishes himself magazines in Argentina, France,
original images and points of view. by means of a phenomenal application of Germany, Hungary, Indonesia,
language in which emotion and intellect Lithuania, Macedonia, Slovenia,
Of his first three collections, Stitou says: enter into a rare bond. He tacks easily South-Africa, Rumania, Serbia,
Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the
‘My debut was uninhibited, but it con- between reality and imagination, irony
UK.
tained poems that were not really rounded and commitment, humour and serious-
off. In the second collection, the poems ness – with all their ambiguities, invariably
were more flawless and light-hearted, but I wrapped in dazzling forms. He is also an
overtaxed the experiment. I’ve eased back excellent reciter and performs at literary The conceivable and the
with this [third] collection: I’ve combined events and festivals throughout the inconceivable are
the candour of the first book with the country and abroad. equalized. ‘The underlying
precision of the second.’ is what shows itself,’ writes
Stitou. It is the rich
breeding ground of these
luxuriantly thriving
* poems.
— Knack
On my back I carried the coffin in which my father lay. Bent low by
its weight, I staggered forward step by step. My pace slowed, the Stitou is being called the
burden was too great. It was beyond me. Carefully I lowered myself most important poet of his
full-length to the ground, slid out from under the coffin, raised the lid generation.
without hesitating and whispered, Father, I can’t carry you. I’m sorry. — Noordhollands Dagblad
Could you maybe walk a little?
It took him a while to open his eyes. His face was unshaven, his Photo: Tessa Posthuma de Boer
hair tousled. He was wearing long johns and a white vest. Then he
sighed and shook his head, mocking and pitying at once, like always.
He sat up, climbed out of the coffin and moved on with calm steps.
I walked along behind him and I too said nothing.
The coffin remained where it was, in the middle of the path. Mustafa Stitou (b. 1974) published his first
We reached the grave, which was already dug. Without a word he collection, My Forms, in 1994 at the age
settled down: lying on his side, then turning over to lie on the other of nineteen. In 1998 My Poems followed
side. and two years later both collections were
His god wants him to face east, I thought, towards Mecca. Fortu- republished in one volume. His third
nately he didn’t ask me which way east was, because I didn’t know. collection, Pig-Pink Picture Postcards
He folded his hands together, slid them under his head as a pillow, (2003), was awarded both the prestigious
sighed deeply again and closed his eyes, and I, I fell to my knees and VSB Poetry Prize and the Jan Campert
began, with furious sweeps of my arms, to fill the grave. Prize. A silence of ten years followed, after
which Temple (2013) finally appeared,
causing an enthusiastic stir among Dutch
(Translation by David Colmer) readers and critics alike.
6 11 Poets from Holland
Maria Barnas
‘The sun as always before me’
When Two Suns was awarded the C. radio to the list, but writing poetry is at the Rights
Buddingh’ Prize, the jury considered it centre of her activities. As she once told a De Arbeiderspers
Franz Lisztplantsoen 200
‘contemplative, musical poetry, desperate reporter of the Dutch daily Trouw, she
NL – 3533 JG Utrecht
and humorous, powerful and brittle, with always needs to find a solution for some- t +31 30 247 04 68
a transparency that gets more complex thing in a poem first, before she can start f +31 30 241 00 18
on re-reading’. Although similar words thinking about it in any other form. Her laetitia.powell@apawb.nl
could be used to generally describe Maria distinctive characteristic is that she www.arbeiderspers.nl
Barnas’s subsequent collections, the displays control in all the disciplines she
Maria Barnas in translation
poet’s style has clearly evolved: Barnas engages in. She sets about things in a Poems by Maria Barnas have been
loosens her grip on syntax and widens self-assured, sophisticated way. Her work translated and published in
her focus. is also characterised by a subtle sense of anthologies and magazines in
humour. And it has a pleasant, poetic Argentina, Italy, Portugal, Slovenia,
South-Africa, Spain, Switzerland
Meanwhile, sharp observations seem to immediacy: when she describes the
and the UK. An extensive collection
overrule contemplation, and a light, Amstel river and ‘the front of the city’, she of her poems was published in
slightly frightening sense of violence suddenly briskly continues ‘but/ every- Croatia (Brutal).
enters her poems now and again. Her thing that I say exists.’ But despite their
craftsmanship, which critics praised in clarity, her poems can have a disorientat-
Twee zonnen, is still there, but it’s put to use ing effect. Associations occasionally lead
in a more nonchalant manner. the reader away from the described
Barnas still combines her various situation. The perspective in her poems Maria Barnas definitely
artistic trades, and added writing poetry regularly capsizes and changes. knows the tools and how
reviews, a libretto and plays for theatre and to use them.
— NRC Handelsblad
their white sails light as voices sighing with relief, In Barnas’s work, nothing
and sometimes ecstatic between the chattering gulls. is just what it seems.
— De Recensent
But in the ring I was given I am set slanted
next to a date. And I see him disappear in the distance, Photo: Marijke Aerden
with a sun. Sloppily repeated in the window.
Mark Boog
‘You’re here and elsewhere’
Mark Boog likes to reason and philoso- Boog in his poetry emphasizes the Rights
phize in his poems, without taking uselessness of all human actions, keeping Cossee
Kerkstraat 361
recourse to the great philosophers, in mind, moreover, that total destruction
NL - 1017 HW Amsterdam
however. He follows his own independ- may be just around the corner: ‘and for a t +31 20 528 99 11
ent line of thought, using a logic that may while the wrecker’s been awake,/ although f +31 20 528 99 12
seem anything but logical to others. on a heavy, iron chain in front of our molegraaf@cossee.com
window/ the wrecking ball hangs still, www.cossee.com
In his poems, most of which are situated gleaming in the late summer sun.’ Yet the
Mark Boog in translation
indoors, he characteristically uses abstrac- poet resists any kind of inertia: we ‘beat Boog’s poems have been published
tions in the same role as concrete objects. our night clothes, ourselves, like carpets’. in anthologies and magazines in
In the poem ‘Water, aspirin, you’, for It is the pointlessness which clothes Arabic, German Portuguese,
instance, the ‘you’ brings the ‘I’ an aspirin, everything ‘in a storm coat/ of tension’. Rumanian, Spanish and Turkish. A
full collection of his poems in
whereupon the ‘I’ says: ‘And bring me, The poet fights arbitrariness by plotting a
translation was published in
while you’re/ at it, an eternal darkness’. course, and by classifying everything and Lithuanian (Aidai).
Grand abstractions such as happiness, anyone (e.g. himself as ‘among the lucky’).
chance, doubt, silence, time, loneliness, Language plays an allaying role here, as
figure as commonplace objects in his Boog says in an interview: ‘it helps to say
poetry. In some poems this produces an things beautifully’.
amusing effect, reminiscent of the work of His work is an interplay of
Dutch poet Toon Tellegen; in others it intimacy and space, of
rather suggests a kinship with Gerrit domesticity and eternities.
Kouwenaar. — Gerrit Komrij
Boog is a master of
reversal and of ‘false
appearance’ in the good
LOVE sense of the term. He
conceals nothing in this
The sky lies flat on the ground, way, but actually makes
invisible and solid. everything more painfully
visible. And in such a
You are dressed in the colour of your hair, manner that you can often
in your eyes, your steps and your words. laugh about it.
You’re here and elsewhere. I give chase to you — Trouw
and shudder. You are too tall perhaps, Photo: Isa Boog
or too near. Your inapproachability
is unforgivable. If I could be a bird –
Menno Wigman
‘They keep on singing’
As a poet, and also as a translator, merit in this […]. With increasing subtlety Rights
Wigman is steeped in the tradition of and effectiveness, Wigman succeeds in Prometheus
Herengracht 540
nineteenth-century dark romanticism, translating personal and up-to-date
NL – 1017 CG Amsterdam
including that period’s mix of posture impressions into universal and timeless t +31 20 624 19 34
and authenticity. The existence he terms and images. A punk rocker on his f +31 20 622 54 61
describes has all the hallmarks of a lost way to becoming a classic.’ d.larsen@pbo.nl
generation in the style of the French The word ‘classic’ also comes to mind www.uitgeverijprometheus.nl
Poètes Maudits. when one tries to describe Wigman’s style
Menno Wigman in translation
and formal technique which show a
Wigman’s poems have been
He is, in fact, a modern-day practitioner of conscious and masterful use of (half) published in anthologies and
Weltschmerz and Spleen: love is consum- rhymes, metre and rhythm. Unlike most of magazines in Chinese, Czech,
mated but doomed to fail; paradise is his contemporaries, he remains loyal to English, French, German,
forever sought but never found, young classical verse forms, or creates poems that Macedonian, Portuguese, Rumanian
and Spanish. A full collection is in
people indulge in loose and licentious at least have the looks and sound of
preparation in the UK, after previous
living, but gloom persists. timeless pieces by long diseased ancestors. ones in France (Cheyne) and the US
After Wigman’s first collection In the But he manages to revitalize these forms, (Midwest Writing Center).
Summer All Cities Stink (1997), his next give them an unmistakably personal and
one, Black as Caviar (2001), though modern touch and thus write poems that
retaining some of his illusionless outlook, are both transparent and edgy. So far, each
sounded somewhat less bitter. As Dutch new collection confirms Wigman’s status
critic Rob Schouten put it: ‘The ugliness of as one of the most talented and popular When you notice that
the world and the failures of life continue poets among his generation. you’re constantly about
to set the mood, but there may be some to quote, you know you’re
in the right spot: you’re
reading poetry that sounds
great and really has
something to say at the
same time.
ROOM 421 — Het Parool
I’ve been her son for more than forty years Photo: Roeland Fossen
and visit her and don’t know who I see.
She read to me and tucked me in at night.
She stammers, falters, stalls. She’s falling apart.
Menno Wigman (b. 1966) published five poetry collec-
Animals never think about their mothers. tions, compiled several anthologies, and translated a large
I spoon some quivering mush into her mouth, number of European poets, including Baudelaire, Rilke and
and tell myself she still knows who I am. Laske-Schüler. In 2006, Wigman was the youngest poet to
write the ‘Gedichtendagbundel’: a small collection with a
Blackbirds, probably. They keep on singing. print run of 15,000 copies, published to celebrate the
The call of the earth. From curse to curse, it’s heard. Dutch and Flemish National Poetry Day. A collection of his
essays on poetry, Save Us from the Poets, was published
in 2010. His most recent collection of poems, My Name is
(Translation by David Colmer)
Legion (2012), was shortlisted for the VSB Poetry Prize
and won the Awater Poetry Prize in 2013.
9 11 Poets from Holland
Nachoem M. Wijnberg
‘Why would I do that’
Rights
One ought to be able to say of a poem: through a post-modern filter and maintain Atlas Contact
it begins well, but by line seven it that Wijnberg questions language, reason, Prinsengracht 911-915
becomes a false claim – according to and unambiguousness. NL – 1017 KD Amsterdam
Nachoem M. Wijnberg, one of the Yet others refer to the poets Jewish roots t +31 20 524 98 00
Netherlands’ preeminent living poets. and point to traces of the Talmud. Or they f +31 20 627 68 51
umatten@atlascontact.nl
He also once said that a child of twelve perceive references to the Holocaust in www.atlascontact.nl
could understand his poems. unsuspected corners of the oeuvre. Others
again wish to regard him purely as a Nachoem M. Wijnberg in
Correspondingly, in his phrasing, he seeks ‘classical’ poet who creates his own visual translation
clarity and validity. Perhaps this evokes imagery: averse to trains of thought and Wijnberg’s poems have been
translated and published in
ideas of simplicity and straightforward- artistic movements but full of respect for anthologies and magazines in
ness, but that is not the case: opinions are tradition. Chinese, Farsi, French, German,
seldom as diverse as those concerning this If it were not such a cliché, one might Hungarian, Macedonian, Rumanian
oeuvre. The vast majority of poetry lovers say: a Wijnberg poem captures the reader and Spanish. A Selected Poems
agree that Wijnberg writes brilliant, instantly but does not reveal itself easily. appeared in English (Anvil Press
Poetry) and is being prepared in
powerful poems, but what are they actually However, this cliché is not truly applicable: Italian (La Camera Verde).
about? Wijnberg’s poems expose themselves
Some readers refuse to believe that immediately, it is only during re-reading
Wijnberg’s poems contain a ‘deeper’ that they turn out to comprise unexpected
significance, and enjoy the directly appar- aspects. One question fragments into a
ent as much as possible. They praise the myriad of other questions, but the main You will not readily take
simplicity, tragedy and beauty of the issue in many cases appears to be a truly his work as belonging to
situations he sketches. They applaud his fundamental one: ‘What is worthwhile?’ anyone else in the
lack of metaphor. Others put his work Netherlands or anyone
else from his generation.
— Vrij Nederland
Wijnberg is such a
FOLLOWING MY HEART WITHOUT unique author that you
BREAKING THE RULES always recognize his
voice in extremely diverse
Sticking to the rules without sticking to the collections. And that is
rules by going where the rules no longer apply. the characteristic feature
I could stick to the rules there too by applying of a significant poet.
them to things that, from a great distance, — De Groene
resemble what the rules are about. Amsterdammer
But why would I do that, to avoid confusing
someone who is looking at me from a great Photo: Vincent Mentzel
distance?
Behind this morning the morning when the
rules are all I have is getting ready.
Anne Vegter
‘It takes intense bliss’
Rights
With her turbulent style and extraordi- perfectly expressed in a line such as: ‘A ray Querido
nary themes, Anne Vegter is one of the of sunshine festively penetrates the Singel 262
most prominent poets in present-day windows of the clinic.’ NL – 1016 AC Amsterdam
Dutch literature. Her inimitable lan- Particularly her last collection, Island t +31 20 551 12 62
guage and the peculiar conceptual Mountain Glacier (2011), contains tributes f +31 20 620 35 09
rights@singel262.nl
acrobatics were the striking features of and litanies to life and love. The capricious www.querido.nl
her first two collections It Sprang (1991) and rich joie de vivre that transcends the
and Shares and Obligations (2oo2). shadow side of domestic situations is Anne Vegter in translation
assigned a darker hue, like a face that is Vegter’s poems have only been
She once remarked in an interview: ‘I enhanced by creases: ‘Your age scrubs your published in anthologies in English,
French and Spanish so far. She has
often find normal means of expression family coat’. Her apparent spontaneity in been invited to perform on several
hopelessly exaggerated.’ In her case, her ‘showing and tripping’ – as her poems international stages, including the
lyrical ego may leap from a stairway while might sometimes be characterized – leans festivals of Rotterdam and Medellin.
observing, en passant, that a calendar is heavily on stringent selection: only the
hanging askew. Elsewhere, someone is appropriate moment and the right words
listening to Bach with a frown on the back are allowed to participate in the perfor- Tumultuous work, in
of his head. In her third collection, mance. which the chaos can
Spamfighter (2008), her work became Public appreciation of her work is scarcely be tamed and
more serious and sedate, despite the increasing over the years, which has much is possible that
ongoing turbulence in the language and provisionally culminated in her appoint- would not work in more
the abundance of fantasy. Her unique ment as Poet Laureate for the Nether- concentrated poetry.
mixture of a keyed-up overtone and a lands, the most public function that a poet Vegter’s later books make
melancholy and fragile undertone is in the Netherlands can fulfil. it evident that the poetic
principle of free and
idiosyncratic use of
language forms the basis
of everything she writes.
SHOWING AND TRIPPING — Trouw
It takes intense bliss in this dress to look at neighbours stashing Photo: Roger Cremers
their rubbish bag in a container around midnight with tenderness.
It takes intense bliss in this dress to make a sound that drowns out
animals to catch the attention of a dolled-up queen.
It takes intense bliss for this dress to be carried to a show drunk Anne Vegter (b. 1958) is a very versatile
and wide awake, blindly find the door through which to exit the stage. poet and writer. In 1989 she made her debut
with the children’s book The Lady and the
It takes intense bliss in this dress to pop one, go on a balloon ride Rhinoceros, which was promptly awarded
and look down on the mosaic of your country like a slow astronaut. the Woutertje Pieterse Prize. Her first poetry
collection, It Sprang (1992), showed that
It takes intense bliss in this glorious weather to be killed with care. a poet of stature had risen. Several more
Voices scream instead of dress say shroud. children’s books and poetry collections
followed, as well as a collection of erotic
stories and several plays, but in every
(Translation by Astrid Alben)
genre the fact that she is first and foremost
a poet glimmers through. In 2013 she was
appointed Poet Laureate for the Netherlands.
11 11 Poets from Holland
Eva Gerlach
‘For days and nights I searched’
After submitting to several reviews, literary effect, she writes about the myste- Rights
Gerlach published her first collection No rious, invisible forces that govern our lives, De Arbeiderspers
Franz Lisztplantsoen 200
Further Distress in 1979. It immediately about the thought ‘that in presence lives a
NL – 3533 JG Utrecht
impressed by the precise and considered truth/ greater than just that/ of the address.’ t +31 30 247 04 68
organization of the individual poems and Eva Gerlach’s poetry has more and more f +31 30 241 00 18
of the whole collection, yet with a strong, freed itself from the prevailing trends in laetitia.powell@apawb.nl
dark, emotional current underlying this post-war Dutch poetry. Irony, therapeutic www.arbeiderspers.nl
formal control. impact or linguistic autonomy, the three
Eva Gerlach in translation
mainstays of the poetry of her generation,
Gerlach’s poems have been
Two years after its publication the collec- never play a significant part in her work. published in anthologies and
tion was awarded the Van der Hoogt Prize, She is first of all a modest, unsentimental, magazines in Bulgarian, Czech,
an important prize aiming to stimulate yet penetrating portrayer of human Chinese, English, Farsi, Finnish,
young writers and poets. In many subse- emotions and motives. Over most recent French, Frisian, German, Hungarian,
Italian, Spanish and Swedish. A
quent collections over the years, Eva years a stronger experimental tendency
collection of her poems was
Gerlach developed into a poet of classical seems to surface in Gerlach’s poems and published in Portuguese (Quetzal).
stature. The narrative tone of her early more surrealistic elements are amplified.
poems gradually gave way to an astute, This might also be regarded a further
incisive plasticism, by which she seems to fine-tuning of a strong and distinct poet’s
be trying to get a hold on life’s events. tone of voice, which either whispering,
Gerlach’s poems, in their often dark stammering or speaking quite clearly
way, are concerned with the themes that always reminds us: ‘Whatever’s whole we
have concerned poets in all ages: transi- fail to see’ and ‘all that is split up sticks in us That’s what good poetry
ence, loss, the human condition. Avoiding for good’. does: touch upon
any tendency towards dramatic display or something essential in
reality, something you’d
immediately sense or
recognize, though you
never saw it like that
before.
SO — Trouw
A dog with iron eyes had clamped my hand Everything starts moving,
in his mouth. I did not want this becomes ambiguous, gets
to happen but feared I would tear a new meaning.
if I offered resistance. Dog, listen — Jury of the P.C. Hooft
I said, let me go and I’ll give you Prize 2000
whatever you want. But he just
wanted me to stay put, use my spare hand to Photo: Roeland Fossen
stroke him. So. For days and nights I searched
his eyes to find the stronger of us two.
(Translation by John Irons) Eva Gerlach (b. 1948) writes both poetry for adults and
poetry for children. She published her first collection for
adults, No Further Distress in 1979. Her first volume of
children’s poetry, Hey Mr. Moose, was published in 1989
and promptly awarded the ‘Zilveren Griffel’, an important
children’s literature prize. Her entire oeuvre was awarded
the highly prestigious P.C. Hooft-prijs in 2000. Her most
recent collections are The Poem Happens Now
(Selected Poems; 2009) and Knot (2011).
12 11 Poets from Holland
Gerrit Kouwenaar
‘Teach ice water to boil’
Typically, Kouwenaar’s poems present poetry, flesh becomes word. Furthermore, Rights
themselves as ‘language objects’: poetry Kouwenaar’s linguistic examinations of Querido
Singel 262
for Kouwenaar consists of words – not the passage of time and its causes are
NL – 1016 AC Amsterdam
thoughts, feelings or anything else. This unrivalled. In the language of his poems, t +31 20 551 12 62
does not detract from the fact that his that which is fleeting and transitory is f +31 20 620 35 09
poems often have an incredible emotion- captured, and thereby retained. Kouwe- rights@singel262.nl
al charge as is clearly evident from just naar once said, ‘Art only deals with a www.querido.nl
such a collection as Totally White Room couple of simple themes: life, death,
Gerrit Kouwenaar in translation
(2oo2), which is in part a requiem for his injustice, beauty. You want to create
Kouwenaar’s poems have been
deceased wife. something that will withstand time. published in anthologies and
Nothing is present forever. A good work of magazines in numerous languages.
Via Kouwenaar’s intense mastery of what art has been stolen from time, has outwit- Full collections have appeared in
could be called the entire ‘semantic field’ of ted merciless time.’ In Kouwenaar’s poetry, English (Actual Size), French
(Comp’Act), German (Limes Verlag,
language, his poems attempt to get as close things are the same ‘today as always’. And
Kleinheinrich), Polish (Witryn
as possible to ‘physical reality’ or – as he that is how it will remain. Artystów) and Swedish
himself often writes – the ‘flesh’. In his (Ellerströms).
ONE MUST
Rutger Kopland
‘Look it in the eyes – it will look
in yours’
Rutger Kopland published his first they take, Kopland’s poems are bound to Publishing details
collection, Among the Cattle, in 1966 at a treat the mysteries of life, death, love and G.A. van Oorschot
Herengracht 613
time when realism ruled supreme in chance. They are, in the poet’s own words,
NL – 1017 CE Amsterdam
Dutch poetry. It remained apparent in ‘variations on a theme’, analyzing and t +31 20 623 14 84
Kopland’s work, in which he invariably demonstrating the ‘mechanics of emotion’. contact@vanoorschot.nl
seeks to connect with day-to-day reality. It is undoubtedly the human aspect of www.vanoorschot.nl
his poems that has made Rutger Kopland
Rutger Kopland in translation
But the poet wants to do more than just one of the Netherlands’ most read poets for
Kopland’s poems have been
describe; his poems try, however modestly, almost half a century. He asked essential published in over twenty languages,
to offer some solace from the disappoint- questions without answering them including English (Enitharmon,
ments of life. From the very start they have definitely; in his poems man is first and Harvill, Waxwing), French
been imbued with the paradisiacal vision foremost a searching creature. And for that (Gallimard), German (Hanser) and
Italian (Edizioni del Leone). Noble
of Psalm 23 and the fact that we, with ‘all indefinite search he has coined his own
Prize Winner J.M. Coetzee trans-
those fine promises’ (the title of one of his inimitable lyrical style, groping, tentative, lated Kopland’s poetry for his
collections), are seeking happiness all our full of repetitions, minor shifts and anthology Landscape with Rowers:
lives. From the 1980s onwards, his poetry modulations. After all, ‘happiness/ must Poetry from the Netherlands
grew sparser, less ironical and anecdotal, exist somewhere at some time because/ we (Princeton University Press).
more philosophical. But whatever form remember it and it remembers us’.
Recent Translations
Recent Translations
Nachoem M. Wijnberg Various Dutch authors Various Dutch authors Various Dutch authors
Advance payment 50 poetas de Ámsterdam Strange tracks Poetes néerlandais
English translation by David Includes all 11 poets featured in Includes Ester Naomi Perquin de la modernité
Colmer. Published by Anvil this brochure. Spanish transla- and Menno Wigman. English Includes Eva Gerlach, Gerrit
Press Poetry in 2013. tions by Conchita Alegre Gil et translations by Paul Vincent et Kouwenaar and Nachoem M.
al. Published by Eloísa al. Published by Modern Poetry Wijnberg. French translations
Cartonera in 2013. in Translation in 2013. by Kim Andringa et al. Published
by Le Temps des Cerises in
2011.
11
16 Poets from Holland 11 Poets from Holland
Editors
Dick Broer, Thomas Möhlmann
Contributions
Mischa Andriessen, Bas Belleman,
Erik Menkveld, Thomas Möhlmann,
Rob Schouten
Translations
Astrid Alben, James Brockway,
David Colmer, Donald Gardner,
Willem Groenewegen, Lloyd Haft,
George Hall, John Irons,
Ko Kooman, Megen Molé