Buddingh’ Talent

After 35 award ceremonies for the C. Buddingh’ prize at Poetry International Festival, it’s time for a change! The debut prize, that we have been awarding since 1988 to up and coming poetic talent in The Netherlands and Flanders, will of course still feature prominently at our festival, but with a twist: the nominees of the Buddingh’ will not participate in an award ceremony, but in an interdisciplinary showcase that each year will have a new shape & style. Musician Cedric Vermue will work with the nominees to create new work together, and director Yahmani Blackman will bring it all together in a unique 45-minute program: Buddingh’ Talent!  

Yahmani Blackman (Director) 
Yahmani Blackman was born on 2 October 1989 in Amsterdam. As a young girl, she starred in several stories that took place in her head. In the world around her, she mostly remained that quiet girl in the corner of the room. At the age of nine, she joined a theatre class and found a children's book called Crazy Lives Longer. With that, the fence was drawn.  

Yahmani rolled from one theatre production into another. Youth Theatre School Zuidoost and De Engelenbak, among others, passed the revue. Later, she started performing more and more self-written pieces and presented at various festivals (Afrovibes, BlackMagicWoman, Bijlmer Boekt, GoGoGo Festival). In 2018, she graduated from Amsterdam's Hogeschool voor de kunsten, where she learnt her untamed storytelling abilities rub against the frameworks of Western theatre studies.  

Today, Yahmani Blackman is a theatre maker, dramaturge, presenter and teacher. Creating one's own norm (Crazy Lives Longer) and standing in the power of individual storytelling to create universal connection is what she breathes. Through her humour, unabashed curiosity and honesty, she lures young and old into worlds that live inside and outside our heads that sometimes make us all quiet.  

Sytse Jansma (Nominee) 
Sytse Jansma (1980) lives in Harlingen and is a poet and visual artist. He has published two collections of poetry in Frisian, and his work appears in literary magazines such as De Revisor, de Moanne and Ensafh. His work is characterised as exotic, image-rich and experimental. With his poetry, he often seeks crossovers with other art forms: music, theatre and visual art. In January 2024, Atlas Contact published his first collection of poetry in Dutch: Rozige maanvissen (Rosy Moonfish). 

Dewi de Nijs Bik (Nominee) 
Dewi de Nijs Bik previously published in Poëziekrant and DW B, among others. She was selected for deBuren's Paris residency and for the mini-tour Fresh from the Knife. Since 2012, she has been providing in-depth interviews for Indian monthly Moesson. 

Merel van Slobbe (Nominee) 
Merel van Slobbe (1992) is a writer and poet. She studied philosophy at Radboud University Nijmegen. In 2018, she won second prize at De Gedichtenwedstrijd (The Poetry Competition) and in 2019 she published Aan de rand van een lichaam, a chapbook published by Wintertuin. The moon shines brighter in the metaverse is her debut collection. 

Bob Vanden Broeck (Nominee) 
bob vanden broeck writes and tinkers. He loves birds and he teaches Art and Cultural History at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp. His poetry has already appeared in/on nY, DIG, De Revisor and Het Liegend Konijn, among others. He is currently working on Je zit op een stoel, a novel set in an office surrounded by fog and darkness. 

Cedric Vermue (musician) 
Cedric Vermue is a pianist and composer of contemporary classical music. In 2017, he graduated from the Utrecht Conservatory of Music at Musician 3.0. Within his graduation project Ember, he collaborated with the Belinfante String Quartet and visual artists Joran van Soest and Marieke de Zwart. In 2019, he released his debut album Left Upon Us, an ambient piano album promoted by a solo piano tour with 15 concerts. The album was successfully received online with multiple reviews and over 3 million streams. 2023 saw the release of Perpetua, a neo-classical conceptual album in which Cedric collaborated with 15 different musicians, including horn, woodwinds, church organ, synthesiser, a female choir and a collaboration with singer Marc Vilajuana.