The poets in this selection are a snapshot of the work set in motion by their translators. Unlike with the chronological deposition of our own literature, foreign poetries tend to be disclosed to us piecemeal, and selections often come to us in a temporal anomaly, whereby new generation poets such as Radna Fabias and Miek Zwamborn appear alongside established contemporary classics like K. Michel. Translators are usually key in this regard, and it is often their championing of a poet that leads to publication. But while poets such as Menno Wigman, Leonard Nolens, Toon Tellegen and Esther Jansma are already published in the UK, some of the major figures of Dutch poetry, such as Eva Gerlach and Gerrit Kouwenaar, have yet to be discovered.

The poets in this selection are writing within a recognisable European tradition, but possess a sensibility, insight and worldview that is subtly unfamiliar to us, whether they depict the Dutch urban experience, the relationship with the natural world, in Zwamborn’s case her view of the Hebrides, or the colonial experience, with Fabias portraying the Dutch Antilles. What does unite these poets, though, is that, with the exception of Hester Knibbe (Eyewear), they are all yet to have collections published in the UK.

Erik Lindner and Radna Fabias will be published in North America this autumn, by Vehicule Press and Deep Vellum respectively.

Edited by P.C. Evans
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