Dien L. de Boer has lived in rural Exmorra since 2005, after living in Amsterdam for years. The wide and open Frisian countryside of meadows and water is reflected in her debut poetry collection Niet het moment maar het nagonzen (‘Not the moment but the afterbuzz’), Palmslag 2014.
In 2008 she set up the poetry festival Dichter op de Deel (‘Poet in the barn’) to provide a podium for up-and-coming and Frisian talents, and to get established poets perform their art underneath the roof beams of her traditional farmhouse.
A large diversity of voices has been heard at the Deel, such as the poets Tsjêbbe Hettinga and Menno Wigman who have since passed away. To celebrate the festival’s fifth anniversary, she set up a translation project which has been part of Dichter op de Deel ever since: a poem by a Dutch poet gets translated into Frisian and performed. ‘Groeien’ (Growing), written by Dien and published in English below, was translated into Frisian by Tsead Bruinja for that first occasion.
Growing
in one move
at the end of the day
blond and black locks
and the hairdresser’s chitchat
together with my curls
disappeared down
the salon drain
that night I
travelled overseas
and when in the morning
I told my son the dream
he said do write it down
so I can dream it too
just like a boat
taken over by another
man with a dream
deer have their antlers
and from the soil
the thickets grow – language
out of the earth’s head
flowing back in
© Dien L. de Boer Translation by the author