Though the Netherlands has been the site of vigorous literary activity
since at least the Beweging van Vijftig (Movement of the Fifties)
poets, the status of Dutch as a "minor" language spoken by only
twenty-two million people has kept its rich poetry more or less a
secret. This volume--featuring J. M. Coetzee's finely wrought English
translations side-by-side with the originals--brings the work of six of
the most important modern and contemporary Dutch poets to light.
Ranging in style from the rhetorical to the intensely lyrical, the work
here includes examples of myth-influenced modernist verse, nature
poetry, experimental poetry, poems conscious of themselves within a
pan-European avant-garde, and Cees Nooteboom's uncompromising
reflections on the powers and limitations of art. In addition to
Nooteboom, the poets represented are Gerrit Achterberg, Hugo Claus,
Sybren Polet, Hans Faverey, and Rutger Kopland--a who's who of
contemporary Dutch poetry.
In Youth, Coetzee's main character claims that "of all nations the
Dutch are the dullest, the most antipoetic." With these marvelous
translations, the author proves his protagonist wrong.