Joost Decorte

Many poems in Stalker evince an almost obsessive urge to get at the essence of a landscape, a situation, a relationship. The sentences with which Decorte builds his poems are powerful, dense, and contemplative at the same time. They often refer to the physical, to body and landscape, and often body and landscape also refer to each other. Decorte’s poetry is very aware of the role of language, of the construction of meaning and the way language makes our reality possible. With his visual and sometimes also aphoristic lines, the poet shows how language enables us to approach everything around us and even attempt to control it. Stalker is a kind of hunt, pilgrimage, and – to paraphrase a line from Stalker – speech in uncertain terms. Gripping throughout, Decorte’s work has great lyrical power