Geart Tigchelaar was the RIXT Poet of the Month in Februari. You can find the translation of his poem ‘emergency kit’ below. His original Frisian poems are linked here.

emergency kit

	we lived in the same village for years
	never saw you in all those years

we were warned by the government
neighbour and the geopolitical situation

you believed it all
I shrugged my shoulders

like always

you were right again of course 
I only conceded afterwards

	we lived in the same house for years
	never saw you in all those years

it was after the blast

you walked towards me
in gas mask and bikini

as if I saw you for the first time

	it was the blast that wiped away everything

	it was the blast that united us


© Geart Tigchelaar
translation: Trevor Scarse

Carla van der Zwaag was the RIXT Poet of the Month in November. You can find the translation of her poem ‘Femicide’ below. Her original Frisian poems are linked here.

Femicide

This night,
ripped open by nightmares,
will end in a crimson sun birth.
This day will never become a day
like any other.
This day will bear tears
like a necklace
of tarnished pearls.
This day will encase the night
like soot
that cannot be scrubbed off.
Even the glitter of the sun
has the colour of jet.

Tomorrow
women will gather with
protest flag and piercing shouts.
Give us
back
the night.


© Carla van der Zwaag
translation: Trevor Scarse

Sigrid Kingma was the RIXT Poet of the Month in October. You can find the translation of her poem ‘Windfall’ below. Her original Frisian poems are linked here.

Windfall

I paint you in high gloss strokes
like a karate kid
wax on
wax off

You shouldn’t clean ‘em
or the hairs will shed
our dad says, put ‘em in
a bucket of water, paint and all

Place my creaking knee higher
up the stepladder
you crawl underneath my coat
my legs tremble
wobble wobble
I grab the drainpipe
with my free hand

I paint your fruits
not too thin
I say fruitlessly to the brush
little flies land in the thick
green goop a tableau mort

Thick globs dribble down
gusts draw paths of resistance
I’m no painter

Rotting grapes strewn across the back garden
scattered by wild limbs
I’m no viniculturist
but no matter

let’s leave the harvest for next year
when the moon wants to dance
and the brush is submerged again 
in its bucket of cloudy water.


© Sigrid Kingma
translation: Trevor Scarse

Lara Kool was the RIXT Poet of the Month in September. You can find the translation of her poem ‘Please’ below. Her original Frisian poems are linked here.

PLEASE
Just tied the knot together
building a nest with our feathers
felt your soul deep within me

Until cracks and 
blood…you ceased to be

PUNCH in the gut
KICK in the gut
feet a fists would fall

please tell me
you didn’t feel a thing
and just slept through it all


© Lara Kool
translation: Trevor Scarse and Lara Kool

Ina Schroders-Zeeders was the RIXT Poet of the Month in August. You can find the translation of her poem ‘the cathedral’ below. Her original Frisian poems are linked here.

the cathedral

to me the world looks like a cathedral
in scaffolding
built out of missed opportunities

the building
my fossil fuel
shakes due to underground wrath
of pillaged treasures

stones fall from the clock towers
one by one
assumptions and signs of good will

the proud flags of truths I remember
of democracy in power and a fair share
are frayed and broken
and the freedom they proclaimed
now just an illegal tent outside an asylum centre

the altar boys who were my innocence
are belting out false hymns
all of them plucked at one time
drunk from the communion wine
nope the kids aren’t alright

the doves of peace who crapped on stone saints
lie dead in the organ pipes
and when the old organist
wants to put my stubborn
conscience to work
pink clouds of blood and feathers rise towards the crumbling roof

leaks make the angels cry
here is under water
here rots away

grave after grave of ideals drowns beneath the stone floor
beneath the feet of the crippled sexton
who administers my soul
who doesn’t even shut the door anymore as he shuffles home
leaving me behind in the rain


© Ina Schroders-Zeeders
translation: Trevor Scarse

Janna van der Meer was the RIXT Poet of the Month in July. You can find the translation of her poem ‘breath’ below. Her original Frisian poems are linked here.

breath

from the wide sea
and across the field
the wind blows
through the slit
of our bedroom window

carefully I breathe
what will it touch?
I hold it in

downstairs the dog spins
the whites of its eyes
howling in its dream

outside the fox feasts
on the belly of a calf
its young want to as well

and next to me lies the man
in a heap
he smacks

my throat constricts
something wiggles
between the hairs on my skin
I shiver and then
let go

through the slit
across the field
towards the wide sea


© Janna van der Meer
translation: Trevor Scarse

Tryntsje van der Veer was the RIXT Poet of the Month in June. You can find the translation of her poem ‘L’univers du voyeur’ below. Her original Frisian poems are linked here.

L’univers du voyeur

never did I see you nor did I meet you
on vibrant paintings full of creatures in
creatures playing on Jacob’s ladders
bits and pieces wrapped in absurdities

never did I hear your name twirling
me along into your imagination cruel
cold and ugly but then sweetly coy
baffled I step backwards and wait

never did I read your words as a savant
the healer who makes me waver
lets me into his wondrous world of
streaky bodies in paint and crayon

never did I see your serpentine creatures 
sprouting out of the ground entwined
the mess of threads confusing me
yet slowly my thoughts untangle


© Tryntsje van der Veer
translation: Trevor Scarse