Sipke de Schiffart was RIXT Poet of the Month for November 2022. You can read his original Frisian poems from that month here. The translation of one of them – ‘Apostate’ – is published below.
apostate once the national coach was a pious, loyal church attendee, until his first wife passed away he turned away from his belief, did not set foot in a church anymore strange, when you think about it all the misery in the world, the famine and starvation of millions of small children in Africa, the enormous slaughter in his own country’s bioindustry, Auschwitz and you name it none of that was a reason for him to leave the church, but when his own wife passed, he was so incensed, that he wanted nothing to do with God anymore fortunately for Dutch football he does know a lot about the game © Sipke de Schiffart translation: Trevor Scarse