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Half in the Sea by Joke van Leeuwen
Editorial: 26 January 2012: Dutch and Flemish Poetry Day
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January 19, 2012
The title of the collection, which is taken from the opening line of ‘Snorkelling’, reflects the themes of limbo throughout its sharply observed, surrealist-tinged poems, many of which feature protagonists between locations – not quite here, not quite there. A rower wants to cross a river to get to “the other side/ which won’t then need that title anymore”; travellers wait stranded at an airport; someone shuffles slowly forward in a queue to buy a one-way ticket out of where they are, observing small details such as “the label poking up out of/ [a] T-shirt, EU40 US10 CA10” and thinking “about globalisation”. Even a deceased man seeks displacement, wanting his ash to “blow somewhere on speeding cars” – “don’t scatter me here on the prescribed/ lawn, on last year’s ashes”, he pleas. Motion and dislocation go hand-in-hand, but despite the uncertainty we may feel as we transition from one part of our lives to the next, perhaps all we can do is keep going. As the narrator says in ‘Preparation for the Exam’, “Practise moving forward every day:/ left leg up, a single hop/ right leg.”
The print version of the book is for sale from today for 2.50 euros at bookshops throughout the Netherlands and Flanders. For more information (in Dutch) about the book, and about the Dutch and Flemish Poetry Day, see www.gedichtendag.com. Half in the Sea
GROUNDED
CONTROL
PREPARATION FOR THE THE EXAM
LONELY FUNERAL
FIRE AND WATER
OVERVIEW
OTHER SIDE
IN THE QUEUE
SNORKELLING
AFTERWORD
Photo © Michiel Hendrickx
Poetry Day in the Netherlands and Flanders takes place annually on the final Thursday of January, with events and readings organised throughout the Low Countries. This year, Joke van Leeuwen, a renowned Dutch poet, artist and children’s author, was asked to write the Poetry Day chapbook.
We are excited to publish the full text of this collection, Half in de zee (Half in the Sea), along with translations into English by David Colmer and beautiful audio recordings of the poet reading her poems in Dutch.The title of the collection, which is taken from the opening line of ‘Snorkelling’, reflects the themes of limbo throughout its sharply observed, surrealist-tinged poems, many of which feature protagonists between locations – not quite here, not quite there. A rower wants to cross a river to get to “the other side/ which won’t then need that title anymore”; travellers wait stranded at an airport; someone shuffles slowly forward in a queue to buy a one-way ticket out of where they are, observing small details such as “the label poking up out of/ [a] T-shirt, EU40 US10 CA10” and thinking “about globalisation”. Even a deceased man seeks displacement, wanting his ash to “blow somewhere on speeding cars” – “don’t scatter me here on the prescribed/ lawn, on last year’s ashes”, he pleas. Motion and dislocation go hand-in-hand, but despite the uncertainty we may feel as we transition from one part of our lives to the next, perhaps all we can do is keep going. As the narrator says in ‘Preparation for the Exam’, “Practise moving forward every day:/ left leg up, a single hop/ right leg.”
The print version of the book is for sale from today for 2.50 euros at bookshops throughout the Netherlands and Flanders. For more information (in Dutch) about the book, and about the Dutch and Flemish Poetry Day, see www.gedichtendag.com. Half in the Sea
GROUNDED
CONTROL
PREPARATION FOR THE THE EXAM
LONELY FUNERAL
FIRE AND WATER
OVERVIEW
OTHER SIDE
IN THE QUEUE
SNORKELLING
AFTERWORD
Photo © Michiel Hendrickx
© Sarah Ream
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