Gerrit Kouwenaar (1923–2014) was one of the most eminent and influential figures in recent Dutch poetry. His many collections, published from the 1940s till the 2000s, gained him the top literary prizes in the Low Countries. By his eighties, and still writing, he was widely acclaimed as the Netherlands’ greatest living poet.
This selection, about time, introduces English-language readers to Gerrit Kouwenaar’s poetry. It gives an overview of his poetic career, with an emphasis on the masterly work he wrote in later life. The versions by prizewinning translator Francis R. Jones aim to recreate Kouwenaar’s unique style and voice.
Kouwenaar’s early poems are experimental and playful. Some also allude to his harsh wartime experience, which taught him ‘that words are empty husks unless they’re filled with your own life and body, your own mortality’. Kouwenaar’s poetry throughout his long career, in fact, combines the experimental and the personal, while playing with the feel, shape and sound of language.
As time went on, other themes also emerged. House, garden, and the countryside of southern France, his second home. Searching for lost time and fixing it with words. And finally, living with age and the loss of his wife Paula. Through it all shines Kouwenaar’s poetic and personal mission, to
speak
to the bread which is not yet deaf, make
language real behind its signs, spell
the flesh, still the time, live a little longer
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