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2010
Once upon a time he had difficulty with the term ‘artist’. Now he is the Poet Laureate. He feels overworked after every poem, but he saves his voice for what he finds genuinely important. A portrait o...
2009
Hanny Michaelis published her first collection, Klein Voorspel (Little Prelude) in 1949. What followed was not a voluminous oeuvre, but a small, sensitive, indispensable body of poetry, accumulated sl...
Rutger Kopland published his first collection, Onder het vee (Among the Cattle), in 1966 at a time when realism ruled supreme in Dutch poetry. It is still apparent in Kopland’s work, in which he invar...
Nachoem M. Wijnberg (Amsterdam, 1961) has been writing poetry and novels at demonic speed for twenty years now and seems able, in some mysterious way, to combine this with a professional career as an ...
Gerrit Kouwenaar (Amsterdam, 1923) is considered to be one of the most important Dutch writers since the Second World War. His oeuvre, apart from almost eight hundred pages of poetry, includes three n...
Since 1988, the year of his debut collection Rode oever, Arjen Duinker (Delft, 1956) has written poetry that displays unbridled energy and vitality, and a passionate sense of wonder at the profusion o...
Just as in a diary or weblog, you can easily lose yourself for an hour or so in the verses of Maria van Daalen, sunk in all her various moods.
2008
This interview was published in the Dutch weekly De Groene Amsterdammer in March 2008, after Baeke’s collection Groter dan de feiten (Larger than the Facts, 2007) was nominated for the VSB Poetry Priz...
In the Chinese Whispers project a Dutch poem is translated from one language to another during the course of the festival week and finally back into Dutch on the final day, with often surprising and s...
2007
“Menno Wigman is a remarkable figure”, says poet and journalist, Joris van Casteren. “There is something obscure about him, with his penchant for the seamy side of life, while on the other hand he is ...
It’s Monday 26th February 2007 and I’m speaking to the young poet Tsead Bruinja who has published seven poetry collections since his debut in 2000. His latest, Bang voor de bal (Afraid of the Ball) ca...
Each year, during the Poetry International Festival in Rotterdam, the consequences of translation are demonstrated in the Chinese Whispers project. A Dutch poem is translated from one language to anot...
It is Tuesday, February 27th and I am speaking to the young poet, Alfred Schaffer, who has published five poetry collections since his official debut His Rise In The Suburb, in 2000. His most recent, ...
2006
Poetry International Web hosted a world premiere in June: poets from the 2006 Poetry International Festival were broadcast live on the site and their readings are now available to watch as as video cl...
This June issue takes a sneak peek at the 37th Poetry International Festival (www.poetry.nl), taking place in Rotterdam from June 17th until the 23rd. While preparations for the festival are still in ...
Translation is inevitably a process of metamorphosis, an audacious leap from one poem to another, across the boundaries of two different languages and cultures, in a sense an impossibility. However f...
Until 1997 Toon Tellegen (1941, Den Briel) combined writing with running a GP practice; thereafter, however, he devoted himself entirely to writing. Although he is best known for his brilliant animal ...
In his conversational poetry, Mustafa Stitou mixes the commonplace with the sublime. “In the hope that it will effervesce in the reader’s head.”
A new year has started and a new issue is here. In 2006, just as in the previous two years, we’ll supply you with at least four doses of vivid and vitalising Dutch poetry, new translations, interestin...
2005
Esther Jansma is pleased with the words ‘Under the earth’, which Rutger Kopland used as the title of an essay about her poetry. ‘Not only because there is a fair amount of past in my poems, or because...
After the multitude of poets we presented to you in our previous issue (Tsead Bruinja, Judith Herzberg, Anne Vegter, Frank Koenegracht, Gerrit Komrij, Erik Menkveld and Peer Wittenbols), we now bring ...
UPDATE – A sad though undeniable fact: the 36th edition of the Poetry International Festival in Rotterdam has come to an end. After a beautiful week filled to the brim with magnificent poetry and tran...
Anne Vegter has trained herself in many genres. She made her début as a writer of children’s books, of which she wrote two. She then published a volume of poetry, a collection of pornographic stories...
Judith Herzberg made her début in 1963 with Zeepost, a collection which won wide acclaim and was to be followed by five more, all equally well received. Apart from poetry, Herzberg has written for th...
Tsead Bruinja (1974) studied English at the University of Groningen. Bruinja is a bilingual poet: he made his debut in 2000 with the Frisian collection De wizers yn it read (The meters in the red), si...
This June issue offers a sneak peek at the 36th edition of the {a href="http://www.poetry.nl" title="Poetry International Festival"}, taking place in Rotterdam from June 18 until June 24. While pr...
Erik Lindner creates poems like a cameraman, says Paul Demets in this review of Lindner’s collection Tafel. “A slow camera movement is performed in many poems and things are framed just out of focus....
In the undertow of this new March issue dreams and films drift along. The relationship between those two and a poem itself can be a tricky one. Of course a daydream or a movie can be a perfect source ...
2004
With this December issue we present the poetry of three modern day Frisian poets. They write their poems in the second official language of the Netherlands, which was once spoken along the North Sea c...
The ‘epic’ poetry of Tsjêbbe Hettinga is characterized by a remarkable attentiveness to light and colour. "My sensory perceptions are easily interchangeable. I have a picture and a colour with everyt...
Last June, at the Poetry International festival in Rotterdam, no less than nine Dutch poets were present and performing: Mark Boog, Lloyd Haft, Rutger Kopland, Ramsey Nasr, Tonnus Oosterhoff, Willem J...
Welcome to the Dutch homepage, which introduces a considerable part of the ‘rainforest-like richness of Dutch poetry’, as the modern Dutch poet Tonnus Oosterhoff describes the state of contemporary po...
Over thirty contemporary Dutch poets, mainly from the Netherlands, but also from Flanders (the Dutch speaking part of Belgium) and Surinam, are present at this stage, and we’ll continually work on mak...
Translator James Brockway on the ever-growing international acclaim for Rutger Kopland's poetry, and its universal appeal: “A Kopland poem is instantly recognizable as a Kopland poem. It is internati...
2003
Arjen Duinker is the new Dutch 'Poet of the Quarter'. He has eight collections of poetry to his name, and an array of prizes, including the prestigious Jan Campert Prize in 2001 for The History o...
One evening, about ten years ago, I was standing at the bar during the Poetry International Festival in Rotterdam with the Dutch poet Bert Schierbeek. We were discussing one of his pieces, which I don...
2002
For a long time, Gerrit Kouwenaar (78) was branded ‘a cold, calculating constructor’. His hermetic poems have been dissected by scientists. And Kouwenaar is still convinced that a poem is first and fo...