•  
    Back
    The Flight of the Bar-tailed Godwit

    good time

    Among many things, Elmar Kuiper (1969) is a trained psychiatrical nurse, visual artist, playwright, film maker and a poet. Kuiper seems able to combine humour and sincerity, absurdism and sensitivity, in a completely unique and personal way. With his intense and sometimes slightly weird poems, and his deadpan performance, he was a revelation on many national and international stages. The poems provide ample evidence of originality, nerve and a strong associative flair. They deal with large themes: longing, love and death, power and impotence. In his writing everything is susceptible to doubt, nothing is rooted to the one spot.

    good time
     
    open-skinned was the land.
     
    I sat on his shoulders,
    held on to his hair.
     
    he was the horse snorting
    out air. I bounced
     
    along, couldn’t get him to stop.
    it had rained long and hard. so lightly
     
    he galloped across the dense clay.
    he lifted me up, set me down.
     
    we both agreed; didn’t want to
    wade through the pool where the godwit
     
    rested, its beak tucked between its
     
    feathers. he made himself smaller, sighed,
    pointed at a peewit wheeling in its flight,
     
    grazing the clouds, flying low
    over the edge of its territory.
     
    I wanted to say something,
    bit my lip.



    translation edited by Laura Watkinson

    Contents

    1

    Long Haul Body

    Emilie Collyer hosted this virtual writers’ room and wrote the first poem to start off the chain poem. She is…
    2

    What the Godwit sees

    Jacqueline Hodder is a writer and passionate birder living in Naarm/Melbourne. She has won or placed in numerous writing competitions…
    3

    Escape-travel | Ûnderútwei

    Tamara Feddema (she/her, 1976) was born and raised on the countryside of the Frisian woodlands and swamps. She has been…
    4

    prayer in flight

    Ruby Mary Gill is a South Africa-born, Australia-based poet and musician whose “lyrical wizardry” has earned her the reputation of…
    5

    bodhi svaha

    Sylke Kingma (1998) is a Frisian writer, born in Steenwijk and raised in the village of Ried. She studied Social…
    6

    Questions for Godwits

    Sam Morley has been published in various journals and has been shortlisted in the Montreal International Poetry Prize. He is…
    7

    Ukraine

    Myrte Marije Veenbaas (1986) is a poet and writer. She grew up in Amstelveen and currently lives alternately in Amsterdam…
    8

    the bar tailed godwit and others’ guide to migration

    Dr Mohammad Taha is a poet and researcher whose work moves through loss, remembrance, and the quiet resilience of survival.…
    9

    good time

    Among many things, Elmar Kuiper (1969) is a trained psychiatrical nurse, visual artist, playwright, film maker and a poet. Kuiper…