The poetry of Anne Vegter

Her inimitable language and the peculiar conceptual acrobatics were the striking features of her first two collections It Sprang (1991) and Shares and Obligations (2002).

She once remarked in an interview: ‘I often find normal means of expression hopelessly exaggerated.’ In her case, her lyrical ego may leap from a stairway while observing, en passant, that a calendar is hanging askew. Elsewhere, someone is listening to Bach with a frown on the back of his head.

In her third collection, Spamfighter (2008), her work became more serious and sedate, despite the ongoing turbulence in the language and the abundance of fantasy. Her unique mixture of a keyed-up overtone and a melancholy and fragile undertone is perfectly expressed in a line such as: ‘A ray of sunshine festively penetrates the windows of the clinic.’ Particularly her collection Island Mountain Glacier (2011) contains tributes and litanies to life and love. The capricious and rich joie de vivre that transcends the shadow side of domestic situations is assigned a darker hue, like a face that is enhanced by creases: ‘Your age scrubs your family coat’. Her apparent spontaneity in ‘showing and tripping’ – as her poems might sometimes be characterized – leans heavily on stringent selection: only the appropriate moment and the right words are allowed to participate in the performance.

Public appreciation of her work is increasing over the years, which has provisionally culminated in her appointment as Poet Laureate for the Netherlands, the most public function that a poet in the Netherlands can fulfil.