100 Dutch-language poems: A lovely look at Dutch poetry

Following the success of a similarly named book, 100 Danish Poems: From the Medieval Period to the Present, translators Paul Vincent and John Irons set out to compile the history of Dutch poetry in a parallel fashion. The result, 100 Dutch-language Poems: From the Medieval Period to the Present Day, brings together a lovely collection of poetry from the Netherlands and Belgium. They note in the introduction that ‘the idea of representatives in a work of this modest scope remains a mirage’, but the pair did strive to include as many important works of poetry as possible while limiting themselves to one poem per poet and attempting to balance the gender, location and time period of the writer. In the 1936 poem ‘In Memory Of Holland’, named the best poem of the century in 2000, poet Hendrik Marsman describes the Dutch landscape and the country’s struggle against the water. de Génestet describes the country as ‘A sodden fetid plot of vapes dank and damp,’ closing the work with the line: ‘You – not at my request – once wrested from the sea.’ The book is a great overview of Dutch-language poetry and the explanations of how the work was put together and the historical overview are very helpful in contextualising the collection.