Poet
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Eva Gerlach 1948-... country: the Netherlands language: Dutch |
made her debut in 1979 with a collection entitled Verder geen leed (‘No Further Distress’) which impressed by the precise and considered organization of the individual poems and of the whole collection, yet with a strong, dark, emotional current underlying this formal control. In many subsequent collections over the years, Eva Gerlach has developed into a poet of classical stature. The narrative tone of her early poems, born perhaps from the spirit of the age, gradually gave way to an astute, incisive plasticism, by which she seems to be trying to get a hold on life’s events. Gerlach’s poems, in their often dark way, are concerned with the themes that have concerned poets in all ages: transience, loss, the human condition. Avoiding any tendency towards dramatic display or literary effect , she writes about the mysterious, invisible forces that govern our lives, about the thought, as she expresses it in a recent poem, ‘that in presence lives a truth / greater than just that / of the address.’ Eva Gerlach’s poetry has more and more freed itself from the prevailing trends in post-war Dutch poetry. Irony , therapeutic impact or linguistic autonomy, the three mainstays of the poetry of her generation, never play a significant part in her work. She is first of all a modest, unsentimental, yet penetrating portrayer of human emotions and motives. Recently she has also begun writing for children. Last year she received Holland’s chief literary award, the P.C. Hooft Prize, for her poetry. Author: Rob Schouten Poets: |
