Mustafa Kör

Belgium's current Poet Laureate Mustafa Kör was born in Anatolia, Turkey, and grew up as a miner's son in Belgian Limburg. In 1998 he suffered a paraplegia in a traffic accident; it turned his life upside down but also made him start writing. Kör's poetry dances persistently through a rigid world in which the poet, aware of all the forces that are everywhere, keeps his balance. His language is supple, enriched by a bi-cultural sensitivity and thus perhaps a harbinger of a new richness that dawns in the Dutch language area. Whoever dives into Kör's poetry soon feels part of the poet's reflections. As Poet Laureate he likes to hold up a mirror to people with his poetry. In Trouw he said: "Poetry does not have to be slick. Poetry is not optima forma, but exactly as life is: bumpy (...) When you read me twenty years from now, I hope you'll think, 'Oh yes, that's how we lived back then. It's lika a cave drawing for generations to come."