Hans Tentije
Hans Tentije
The oeuvre of Hans Tentije is Dutch poetry at its most impressive. The seed for this exceptional body of verse – in 2017 awarded the prestigious Constantijn Huygens Prize – was sown some forty-five years ago with his debut Alles is er (1975), a collection Tentije describes as a kind of “life impressions”. Much of what he would explore in his later work is already present in these first poems: a penchant for historical locales and for the fringes of society, a fascination for visual art, nature, and the landscapes of North Holland.
Time and its passage are insistent themes in Tentije’s poetry. In drawn-out, meandering sentences, where evocative descriptions languidly flow from one to the other, the poet questions memory, searching for that which has remained, and how; for what causes a memory to surface, and when:
Who can say whence and from which past
the sounds and smells come wafting by betimes
at night, as though they also had to be
saved outside of you.
His writing is a kind of tracking. It raises the question of what memories do to a person, even if memory reveals the indifference of a setting, no matter how precious the tracks that are left there: “naive native soil, where so many places / overlooked, cold-shouldered him”.
Often a photograph, a painting, or a drawing serves as a springboard for his poetry. Tentije’s meticulous composition, his eye for light and shadow, and for what can be seen and what cannot, betrays his indebtedness to visual art. ‘One last curve in the distance the shadowfolds / of the dune and the scattered sunlight around the brick church tower’.
Tentije’s sonorous, rhythmic, pleasantly slow-paced verse elongates a moment, removes it briefly from time. But while language can slow time down, it cannot stop it. And in this respect his more recent poetry is an acknowledgement of the inevitable: “but what are your rooms and their objects to do, soon / when you finally forsake them”.
Hans Tentije’s poetry inimitably creates the illusion that everything that has been, still is. That it is possible to catch a momentary glimpse of the mystery of existence.
‘A unique poetic oeuvre [...] exceptionally consistent and of invariably high caliber.’ – jury report, Constantijn Huygens Prize
Bibliography
De Innerlijke Bioscoop, De Harmonie, Amsterdam, 1990
Van Lente en Sterfte, De Harmonie, Amsterdam, 1994
Verloren Speelgoed, De Harmonie, Amsterdam, 2001
Wisselsporen, De Harmonie, Amsterdam, 2001
Deze Oogopslag, De Harmonie, Amsterdam, 2003
Wat het Licht Doet, De Harmonie, Amsterdam, 2003
Uit Zoveel Duisternis, De Harmonie, Amsterdam, 2006
Als Het Ware, De Harmonie, Amsterdam, 2010
Gissingen, Gebeurtenissen, De Harmonie, Amsterdam, 2013
Om en Nabij, De Harmonie, Amsterdam, 2016
Begane Grond, De Harmonie, Amsterdam, 2018
De innerlijke bioscoop, De Harmonie, Amsterdam, 2019 (revised edition)
For more information about the poet, see also Hans Tentije
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