Willem van Toorn

The title of his latest collection, Tegen de tijd (Against Time, 1997), characterizes all his poetry, in more ways than one. Firstly, it puts in a nutshell what has been the theme of his poetry from the start: the attempt to secure by means of the poem that which is dear but subject to destruction, death and decay. This may be a loved one, or a landscape, a memory. Persistently the poet tries to preserve in language and thereby in the reader’s mind something of the too fleeting, the too transient:

So you may never pass from sight
inside the poem I hold you tight –

In its straightforwardness and ‘commonness’ the title Against Time exemplifies Van Toorn’s poetic style, his use of unemphatic words, his lack of show and artifice. He frequently uses rhyme, half-rhyme, assonance and alliteration to structure his poems, but always unobtrusively and naturally. On the surface, this style appears as restrained and serene, but deeper down one becomes aware of an undertow of anger and outrage at so much irreparable loss. Van Toorn never indulges in easy melancholy. His protest is quiet, but persistent. Like all protests against the inevitable, it goes against the poet’s better judgement, but it may be more effective than any amount of noisy bluster. [Willem van Toorn took part in the Poetry International Festival Rotterdam 2000. This text was written on that occasion.]

Bibliography

Poetry
Herhaalde wandeling. Gedichten 1960-1975, Querido, Amsterdam, 1977
Een kraai bij Siena, Querido, Amsterdam, 1979
Het landleven, Querido, Amsterdam, 1981
Gulliver & andere gedichten, Querido, Amsterdam, 1985
De aardse republiek, Querido, Amsterdam, 1988
Eiland, Querido, Amsterdam, 1991
Dooltuin, Querido, Amsterdam, 1995
Tegen de tijd, Querido, Amsterdam, 1997
De Hofreis, Querido, Amsterdam, 2012
Bezweringen, Querido, Amsterdam, 2013
De Jongenskamer, Querido, Amsterdam, 2018
De dagen, Querido, Amsterdam, 2020

Prose
Heer Doos, Querido, Amsterdam, 1997
De Rivier, Querido, Amsterdam, 1999
Haarlem Station, Gottmer, Bloemendaal, 2000
Stoom, Querido, Amsterdam, 2005
De Geur van Gedroogde Appels, Querido, Amsterdam, 2010