Hear me on the fire towers

March 24, 2015 Ter Balkt debuted as a poet whose work was rooted in the rural farmer’s reality of Eastern Netherlands, as the title Boerengedichten (Farmer Poems) makes clear. This landscape that he so poetically unfolded appears as a constant in his now extensive oeuvre – just as history, the history of the Low Countries in particular. Upon these two poles Ter Balkt built a dazzling and compelling language construction where rock n’ roll, rustic tools, food and crops, historical figures, machinery – not to mention smoke from the pyres of the revolution, tobacco and industries – are brought together in an overhwelming network.

Last year, Ter Balkt published nearly 1,800 pages of his collected poems under the title Hee ho hoor mij simultaan op de brandtorens (Hey ho hear me simultaneously on the fire towers). Although now we must go on without the present sound of Ter Balkt’’s beautiful bass voice, his work will continue to be heard, in the heads of readers who do not eschew the fire towers, as a robust and imperishable monument in Dutch poetry. Read more about Ter Balkt and a selection of his poetry, alongside video and audio recordings, on his Poetry International page.