Geart Tigchelaar

Photo: Pieter Postma

I was born and raised in Damwâld, but I’m currently living in Harlingen. In addition to my poetry I am an author and a translator. In 2017 I received the Tamminga prize for my poetry debut leech hert yn nij jek and the Obe Postma prize for the translation of Bomans’ novel Erik of it lyts ynsekteboek in 2016. At the moment I am working on my second novel, which I would like to follow up with a new poetry collection. Furthermore, I am an editor of the Frisian literary magazine Ensafh, go on many bike tours and am the drummer of the doom metal band Doomwâld.

I regard our collective as a fearless and communal platform for poetry about current issues.

Submitted poems
Old school
Who will save our souls
Wait and see
Oan the wey tae
Better than fiction
Statistician
The block r

Who will save our souls

if not us
will you

you say no one
has to do it

you’re right to question
where we should draw the line

between sympathy
and not-my-problem

but what if I told you
we’re all condemned
to the Earth and that
we all belong
to the same species not
to different races each
with their own unique
inequalities

no man we all live here
every damn one of us
on the same fucking planet
didn’t your mama tell you
that in times of apathy
platitudes stick
like the war zones’s
small sole prints

the boundary between sympathy
and not-my-problem
always drawn and redrawn
is at least better
than stringing the border
with lights and barbed wire

Translation: Rachel Plummer