PRIMAVERA
it picks up pace
ire more frequently on our lips
horse-bearing ice, fairy-white
fire struck from the blades
it has become a solemn prayer:
old man winter is back
marking a blue H above Oslo
freezing winds screech from the east
and then it’s spring
and an egg cracks
light comes skipping out
but from where?
an ailing human spirit
heavy footprint
on first fingertips of leaf
primavera hell of a job
the hottest summer in bud
Frisian poem and Dutch translation: Syds Wiersma
Being a film archivist in his daily life, for Syds Wiersma (1963) poetry is a way to process creatively the images which pass before his eyes every day. After Wiersma’s first poetry collection Alles wat ik net betinke woe (1992), and a time-out of almost 25 years, he published four volumes of poetry in the last years: Raffelwjok (2016), the bilingual collection Twintig liefdes een Saudade/Tweintich leafdes in Saudade(2017), Lân sûnder Ljurk (2019; ‘Land without Lark’) and Skaadhûn (2022).
English translation: Michele Hutchison
Michele Hutchison (1972) is a literary translator from Dutch and French into English. She has translated more than forty books from Dutch and one from French. She received the Vondel Translation Prize 2019 and in 2020 The Discomfort of Evening, her translation of Marieke Lucas Rijneveld’s novel, was awarded the International Booker Prize. Michele is also familiar with Frisian literature, as one of the translators for Swallows and Floating Horses. An Anthology of Frisian Literature.
Image: Janine van Zeeland
Janine van Zeeland (1956) ) started painting in her studio snuggled in the fields of north-east Friesland after a career as a lecturer in visual arts and art history. Field and farm animals are an inexhaustible source of inspiration for her. Either on their own or interacting with each other, in unexpected poses or combinations and always in the tranquillity and vastness of the polder landscape. Working with the poet Eppie Dam, she created the book Een dier is ook maar een mens (An animal is only human too) in 2021, in which Dam wrote poems for 42 of Janine’s works. She paints mainly with oil on canvas.