Editor Natasha Gunn finds out more about events organised by Wordsinhere, an international collective of writers based in the Netherlands. (Update: Versal 6 launched: On 8 May 2008 - see bottom of article)

"I don't read poetry anymore, I've given it up," said a French friend once; painter-craftsman-come-second-hand-rag-trade-merchant and alcoholic, who, only days before had managed to kick the demon drink. He uttered these words when I offered to share a poem with him, a verse by a Portuguese poet I had only just discovered and who remains my favourite poet of all time: Fernando Pessoa.

I had thought the poem would soothe my cynical friend – give him that odd lift of spirits, a whiff of poignancy, some space between his hard reality. But he was resolute, and, out of respect, I didn't try to persuade him. After all, poetry is a personal thing, something not everyone voluntarily reaches for often, or even ever.

I hadn't read any poetry for a while before I went along on 10 May to the Sugar Factory in Amsterdam for the launch of wordsinhere's fifth volume of their international literary journal Versal.

The initial fumblings with the microphone, weird repetitions and memory lapses, reassured me that I was at a poetry reading and could drop my mask. Or perhaps I am being romantic, and this 'performance art' was simply brought on by the bad stage lighting one poet complained about as she reached for her second pair of glasses. Not to worry, the audience was relaxed. The girl sitting behind me, a Canadian called Randy, giggled at moments but then her hushed face showed her listening hard when the words caught her.

Art in Versal 5: Hemelvaart, by Annemoon Van Steen

She told me that she was enjoying herself, and so far liked the 'sexy' poem 'Daikichi Sushi' by Amanda Lichtenberg, read out by Versal Editor Megan Garr the best. I particularly remember 'Head', on the unfashionable subject of old age by Helen Burke read by Editor Kate Foley and 'funky' prose 'I will take you over' by Alissa Nutting, which Fiction Editor Kai Lashley chose to read. 

Editor Megan Garr says that they received around 25,000 submissions for Versal 5, each of around five poems.  The editors could select only 30 of these submissions, evidently not without some blood and tears as they fought to make sure that personal favourites were included in the final list. Stiff competition for the writers submitting their work perhaps, but then only more exhilarating to be one of the selected few.

Versal 5: each white cover will become uniquely smudged

When I returned from the event with my copy of Versal 5, bound in white with an intricate drawing of a wasp on it – Editor Cralan Kelder explained that the Dutch artist, Kees Verbeek, lives in Eindhoven and tasks himself with drawing a new insect every day, usually one which flies in through his ever-open window (I wondered if in Holland his supply of new types of insect to draw would run out sooner than if he were located in south America – but evidently not so far),  I read more and have picked out this poem for you to read:

Four Fears

1.
I dreamed you were an elephant.
Someone had taken your tusks, tucked
them under a sweatshirt. You begged
for me to get out of bed and look for them.

2.
I thought I saw my mother's ghost
When I woke up to drink water. You sensed
I starved for your arms and held me.
You told me my mother was not yet dead.

3.
The night before we got married you
Dreamed I had abandoned you the day
of our child’s birth. I dipped my hands
in your helplessness and promised.

4.
Our newborn slides deeper into sleep
as you sigh that something’s been spent in you.
I know what it is, and I silence the urge to tell you
that I have evidence of where to find you waking.

By Octavio Quintanilla

The wordsinhere collective describes itself online as "writers from around the world collaborating our voices to build and initiate avenues of literary exchange between cultures, nationalities, languages, genres, and forms."

So let me leave you with a poem by Pessoa, a multilingual writer, he spoke and wrote in English, French [doing translations for the company he worked for] and Portuguese. He is considered to be most at home in his mother-tongue Portuguese. He disliked subjectivism – the indulgent personal lyric – and found a way of freeing himself through writing as the embodiment of three imaginary poets, Alberto Caeiro, Ricardo Reis, Alvaro de Campos, as well as 'Pessoa as himself'. In this poem, Pessoa writes as Pessoa.

This

They say that I pretend or lie
All I write. No such thing.
It simply is that I
Feel by imagining.
I don't use the heart-string.

All that I dream or lose,
That falls short or dies on me,
Is like a terrace which looks
On another thing beyond.
It’s that thing leads me on.

And so I write in the middle
Of things not next one's feet,
Free from my own muddle,
Concerned for what is not.
Feel? Let the reader feel!

 (1930 -33) (Translated by Jonathan Griffin)

More about wordsinhere events

Wordsinhere run critique groups in both fiction and poetry. For more detailed information on the events run by this an international collective of writers visit www.wordsinhere.com.

Reading circles

Reading Circle Eindhoven
Website: www.tcw.nl/rce

Theatre clubs

AATG (English-speaking drama group in Den Haag)
Website:  www.aatg.nl

IDEA (International Drama group of English speaking Associates in Dordrecht and Drechsteden)

In Players (Amsterdam)
www.inplayers.org
Amsterdam's oldest English-speaking theatre company.

For more information on the above groups visit:
Groups and clubs in the Netherlands (part 3)

 

Update 2008:

Versal 6 launched

On 8 May 2008 at the Sugar Factory, Amsterdam, Wordsinhere launched the sixth issue of Versal Six It Up... The launch included performances by contributors: Wiljan van den Akker and Rozalie Hirs (NL), Julian Stannard and Jane Monk (UK), Emmanuel Moses (FR), Sandra Jensen (SA) and Michael Karman (USA). 

16 may 2007 (updated May 2008)

Natasha Gunn
Editor
Expatica Netherlands

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