Elly de Waard

There are frequent references to Sappho and other poets of the classic era, to whom she feels more akin than to most of her contemporaries. She has consistently rejected the hermetic experimentalism of the Vijftigers group and took a leading role in the group of women poets who manifested themselves as De Nieuwe Wilden (The New Savages) in the late 1980s.

More recently De Waard's fervent emotionalism has reverted to a quieter mode of poetry. In her trilogy Eenzang (three collections of poems written in two-line stanzas) she frees herself from the dead weight of the outside world: 'and in my head there is / a waiting for a new / hospitableness'. In her latest collection Anderling (1998) she has once more abandoned strict form and allowed herself room to expand in breathing, free-moving verse. Nature plays a major role in these recent poems, but also the pain of a fading love and the inability to be to the other what one would like to be: 'I felt it was my task / to rid her / of all harm, to cleanse her / of all inconvenience'. Elly de Waard writes poetry which directly links the self with the world, emotions with language. Because: 'the feeling which belongs to / some occurrence / cannot do without / an image or a word.'. [Elly de Waard took part in the Poetry International Festival Rotterdam 1999. This text was written on that occasion.]

Selected Bibliography

Poetry
Afstand, De Harmonie, Amsterdam, 1978
Luwte, De Harmonie, Amsterdam, 1979
Furie, De Harmonie, Amsterdam, 1981
Strofen, De Harmonie, AMsterdam, 1984
Een Wildernis van Verbindingen, De Harmonie, Amsterdam, 1986
Eenzang, De Harmonie, Amsterdam, 1992
Als ik de wind zie vlagen, Eikeldoorpers, Apeldoorn, 1994
Als ik niet aan je denk of raak, De Harmonie, Amsterdam, 2002
Proeven van Moord, De Harmonie, Amsterdam, 2005
In het Halogeen, De Harmonie, Amsterdam, 2009
De Aarde, de Aarde, De Harmonie, Amsterdam, 2013
In Die Tijd Die, De Harmonie, Amsterdam, 2016