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11 Poets from Holland 2 11 Poets from Holland

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Information Travel costs support Dutch Foundation The Foundation’s advisors on poetry, literary The Foundation is able to support a publisher for Literature fiction, quality non-fiction, youth literature and wishing to invite an author for interviews or Nieuwe Prinsengracht 89 1018 VR Amsterdam graphic novels are present each year at promi- public appearances. Literary festivals are Tel. +31 20 520 73 00 nent book fairs, including Frankfurt, London, likewise eligible for support. Additionally, the Fax +31 20 520 73 99 Beijing and Bologna. Poets from Holland, Foundation organizes international literary The Netherlands Books from Holland, Quality Non-Fiction from events in co-operation with local publishers, [email protected] Holland, Children’s Books from Holland and festivals and book fairs. www.letterenfonds.nl Graphic Novelists from Holland recommend Advisor Poetry highlights from each category’s selection. International visitors programme The visitors programme and the annual Individual poets from the Netherlands are also Amsterdam Fellowship offer publishers and featured in separate brochure series: editors the opportunity to acquaint themselves Contemporary Dutch Poets, Zeitgenössische with the publishing business and the literary Niederländische Poesie, and Great Dutch infrastructure of the Netherlands. Poets of the 20th Century. If you would like to receive more information or brochures from this Translators’ House series, please contact Thomas Möhlmann. The Translators’ House offers translators of Thomas Möhlmann [email protected] Dutch literature the opportunity to live and work Over eighty interesting Dutch poets are featured in Amsterdam for a period of time. It is involved Travel costs support at the Dutch domain of Poetry International with numerous activities assisting and advanc- Web. Please visit www.poetryinternationalweb. ing translators’ skills. Each year the Literary net/pi/site/country/item/6 for heaps of informa- Translation Days are held for those translating tion and poems in English translation. into and from Dutch.

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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 [email protected] 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

in amongst a jumble I did not have to turn Photo: Nadine Ancher into anything. Sometimes on the surface we saw the bums of ducks, which gave some cloud cover.

And now and again from up above a desperate hand would grope for us, the hand that we called god. Ellen Deckwitz (b. 1982) currently lives in Utrecht and holds an MA in literary and cultural sciences. She performed at Dutch festivals like (Translation by Willem Groenewegen) Lowlands, the Nacht van de Poëzie and Poetry International, but also in Birmingham, Paris and Berlin. She was the Dutch Slam Poetry Champion in 2009, is a member of the rock-poetry formation Asphalt Fairies, and during the European Championship of Football in 2012, she was on national Dutch radio as a football expert. 4 11 Poets from Holland Ester Naomi Perquin ‘Lock your horse’

Perquin’s first collectionNapkins 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, [email protected] 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

As far as I’m concerned, the poem ‘At Full Moon’ DELAY should be chalked on walls, and the poem We are modern. It’s not the right century for love and ‘Architects’, which seems there are no women anywhere standing on towers to be partly pillorying looking out. The last knight unrestrained building died of syphillis. mania, should definitely be made compulsory reading We have lost the knack of fluttering banners, for all kinds of architectural the whispering between the stones, courses. Perquin, a new song and the names of flowers. asset to watch out for. — Sapsite Hastily we toss each other body parts in passing. Photo: Sander Vermeer All is well.

Bolt these doors when it grows dark. Stay with me. Ester Naomi Perquin (b. 1980) worked in the prison Lock your horse. service to help fund her studies at the school of creative writing in Amsterdam. Her début, Napkins at Half Mast (2007), was awarded the Liegend Konijn Prize, and (Translation by David Colmer) followed by a second collection, On Behalf of the Other (2009), which was awarded the J.C. Bloem Prize. For both collections jointly she also received the prestigious Van der Hoogt Prize. 2012 saw the appearance of her striking third collection Cell Inspections, which gained her the VSB Poetry Prize in 2013. 5 11 Poets from Holland 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- [email protected] 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 coffinemained r 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 [email protected] 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

She doesn’t allow us to TWO SUNS briefly go back home or get back to reality. We must When I fall asleep the sea is still below keep on walking through and the sun as always before me. the wonderland of her metaphors. I am standing next to a detail of dark water — De Groene and later on I’ll be by the boats, Amsterdammer

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.

He called me Flower. Or else Springtime, Sexy, Sweetest, Sweetie, Sweet and recently more often Prefernot, Notnow, Please. Before she published her first collection of poetry, Two Suns (2003), Maria Barnas (b. 1973) had already written two novels and (Translation by Donald Gardner) established herself as a visual artist. Two Suns was awarded the C. Buddingh’ Prize, one of Holland’s most important debut prizes, and followed by her highly appraised collections A City Rises (2007; J.C. Bloem Prize) and Yeahyeah the Big Bang (2013). 7 11 Poets from Holland 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 [email protected] 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 –

but the precision escapes me as does the trust. I look at you

and shudder. Talk to me, as I’ll keep quiet, suffer my stranglehold, suffer Mark Boog (b. 1970) was awarded the Buddingh’ Prize the awkwardness, suffer me, love. for new Dutch-language poetry for his debut collection As if Something Happens (2000). He has since been publishing at high speed, certainly for a poet who boasts (Translation by Willem Groenewegen) about his strong penchant for idleness: five novels and five new volumes of poetry, one of which, The Encyclopaedia of Big Words (2005) won the prestigious VSB Poetry Prize. His most recent collection is But Singing (2013). 8 11 Poets from Holland 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.’ [email protected] 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

My mother’s falling apart. She lives in a closet, Decadent-romantic, dark not quite a coffin, where she wets her chair therefore, or light-footed. and sits the same day out each day. A view Or an amazing combination of trees as well and in those trees are birds of that two. and none of them know who they’re from. — NRC Handelsblad

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 f +31 20 627 68 51 Netherlands’ preeminent living poets. and point to traces of the Talmud. Or they [email protected] 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 Wijnberg’s poems have been clarity and validity. Perhaps this evokes imagery: averse to trains of thought and 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 appeared in English (Anvil Press agree that Wijnberg writes brilliant, instantly but does not reveal itself easily. 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.

Nachoem M. Wijnberg (b. 1961) has been writing at (Translation by David Colmer) demonic speed for over twenty years now, publishing seventeen books of poetry and four novels. His collec- tions, from The Simulation of Creation (1989) to Another Joke (2013), have won practically every poetry prize that the Netherlands can boast, and made him one of the most important Dutch poets of the present day. He’s also a Professor at the University of Amsterdam, Faculty of Economics and Econometrics. 10 11 Poets from Holland 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 f +31 20 620 35 09 guage and the peculiar conceptual Mountain Glacier (2011), contains tributes [email protected] acrobatics were the striking features of and litanies to life and love. The capricious www.querido.nl her first two collectionsIt 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 published in anthologies in English, She once remarked in an interview: ‘I enhanced by creases: ‘Your age scrubs your 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 flag down a taxi unwilling to take you to the edge of the city where broad-leaved trees propagate.

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 collectionNo 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 [email protected] 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- [email protected] 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

One still has to count one’s summers, pass one’s sentence, snow one’s winter Kouwenaar has written, one still has to get the shopping done before ever since he found his dark asks the way, black candles for the cellar form twenty years ago, the same poem over and over, one still has to give the sons a pep talk, measure the daughters but this has rendered for their suits of armor, teach ice water to boil masterful works of art in every instance in which one still has to show the photographer the pool of blood fifty years of craftsman- get unused to one’s house, change one’s typewriter ribbon ship serve as, for want of a better word, wisdom. one still has to dig a pit for a butterfly — De Volkskrant trade the moment for one’s father’s watch – He is a highly skilful poet who undoubtedly (Translation by Lloyd Haft) considers every word coolly, but in this way manages to also blend in emotions that come into their own in this Gerrit Kouwenaar (b. 1923) was a member of the Dutch Fiftiers controlled, strict Movement, an important group of poets that sent Dutch poetry in a environment. completely new direction after World War II. Nowadays he’s consid- — Trouw ered ‘the grand old man of Dutch poetry’ and had collected nearly all literary prizes one can collect in the Netherlands. His oeuvre, apart You can’t use poems to from almost eight hundred pages of poetry, includes three novels and smash windows. an immense number of translations. Literary studies, monographs and — Gerrit Kouwenaar film documentaries have been devoted to his work. In 2008, his most recent collection was published: Falling Silence, Selected Poems. Photo: Roy Tee 13 11 Poets from Holland 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’. [email protected] 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’.

One wonders how long it will take the Nobel Prize committee to consider Rutger Kopland, clearly an exceptionally gifted poet, and a very proper focus for SELF-PORTRAIT AS A HORSE their liberations. — Poetry Nation Review When I was still a horse in a meadow The quality of his lyrics I must have lived in his body and elegies, alpha and have seen in his eyes what he saw omega of the poet’s trade, indicate a warm and that life would never begin nor intelligent man who would ever end, nor be repeated tackles the big subjects with economy and tact. I must have left his body and my memories — The Independent must have remained behind in him Photo: Roy Tee you are standing by the fence round a meadow on the other side a horse is standing

look it in the eyes – it will look in yours Rutger Kopland (1934-2012) published over fifteen volumes of poetry, three essay collections and a collection of (Translation by James Brockway) travel and translation notes. He has won numerous prizes for his poetry, including the prestigious VSB Poetry Prize and the P.C. Hooft Prize, one of the Dutch-speaking world’s most important literary awards. Kopland ranks high as one of the Netherlands’ best-loved poets, his collections sold over 200,000 copies so far. In 2013 a final edition of his Collected Poems was published. 14 11 Poets from Holland Recent Translations

Maria Barnas Remco Campert Arjen Duinker Hans Faverey Tamo gdje treba biti tiho Jagen, Leben, Erinnern [Lestnica skarpy] Chrysanthemums, Croatian translation by Romana German translation by Marianne Russian translation by Julia rowers Perecˇinec. Published by Brutal Holberg. Published by Arche in Telezjko. Published by Kolo in English translation by Francis R. in 2013. 2011. 2009. Jones and Lela Faverey. Published by Leon Works Press

in 2011.

Hans Faverey Tsjêbbe Hettinga Rutger Kopland Rutger Kopland Poèmes La Luz del Mar seguido Dank sei den Dingen [Selected Poems] French translation by Éric de Santa María del Mar German translation by Mirko Farsi translation by Nasim Bonné and Hendrik Rost. Khaksar. Published by Pazand Suchère and Erik Lindner. Spanish translation by Diego Puls. Published by Cecal - Paso Published by Hanser in 2008. in 2013. Published by Théâtre Ty- de Barca in 2012. pographique in 2012.

Toon Tellegen Toon Tellegen Menno Wigman Menno Wigman Brodišče Raptors L’Affliction des copy- Black as caviar Slovenian translation by Mateja English translation by Judith rettes English translation by Stephen Selisˇkar. Published by Wilkinson. Published by French translation by Pierre Frech. Published by Midwest Studentska zalozba in 2012. Carcanet in 2011. Popescu Gallissaires and Jan H. Mysjkin. Writing Center in 2012. Prize 2011. Published by Cheyne in 2010.

15 11 Poets from Holland

Recent Translations

Lucebert Ramsey Nasr Martinus Nijhoff Martinus Nijhoff Lucebert - The collected [Selected Poems] Awater Awater poems, volume 1 Georgian translation by Davit Slovak translation by Adam English translation by David English translation by Diane Gholijashvili. Published by Link Bzˇoch. Published by Európa in Colmer et al. Published by Anvil Butterman. Published by Green in 2010. 2012. Press Poetry in 2010. Integer in 2013.

Cees Nooteboom Cees Nooteboom Alfred Schaffer K. Schippers Licht überall Self-Portrait of an other Kom in, dit vries daar Tables déplacées. German translation by Ard English translation by David buite Reportages, recherches, Posthuma. Published by Colmer. Published by Seagull Afrikaans translation by Daniel vaudeville Suhrkamp in 2013. Books in 2011. Also in Spain by Hugo. Published by Protea French translation by Kim Calambur Editorial in 2013. Boekhuis in 2013. Andringa and Jean-Michel Spanish translation by Fernando Espitallier. Published by Le bleu García de la Banda. du ciel in 2012.

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. 1116 Poets from Holland 11 Poets from Holland

Ellen Deckwitz Nachoem M. Wijnberg ‘We need to talk’ ‘Why would I do that’

Ester Naomi Perquin Anne Vegter ‘Lock your horse’ ‘It takes intense bliss’

Mustafa Stitou Eva Gerlach ‘Mocking and pitying at once’ ‘For days and nights I searched’

Maria Barnas Gerrit Kouwenaar ‘The sun as always before me’ ‘Teach ice water to boil’

Mark Boog Rutger Kopland ‘You’re here and elsewhere’ ‘Look it in the eyes – it will look in yours’ Menno Wigman ‘They keep on singing’

Poets from Holland is distributed free of charge to international editors, publishers and festival organizers. Please contact us if you would like to be included on our mailing list.

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

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