Window Cleaner Sees Paintings
Arc Publications (Publisher)
Published on 8. February 2018
110 pages
978-1-910345-63-4 (ISBN)
Description
The master of pulsing, post-modern poetic rhythms, Menno Wigman's reputation is assured as one of the Netherlands' leading poets. And as perhaps his country's most exciting poet in terms of form: "a craftsman who knows what he wants" in the words of poet Alfred Schaffer. Wigman's second collection won him the Netherlands' coveted Jan Campert prize.
Menno Wigman's first full collection to be published in the UK in David Colmer's outstanding translation introduces English-language readers to a selection of the work of one of the Netherlands' leading poets. Some-times referred to as a 'dandy of disillusion', Wigman combines a classic aesthetic with rock-'n-roll subject matter to sing of sex and booze, vandalism, frustration, poetry and death. Yet despite his unflinching gaze at the grimmer sides of life, Wigman rarely writes grim poems. On the contrary, they are charged with a strong sense of social commitment and human sympathy for the marginalized and forgotten in contemporary society, and tempered with a wryness of tone and a punchy accessibility of style.
Wigman's voice in the English language is startling and unexpected, and as such, makes a deep and lasting impact. As Francis Jones says at the conclusion of his introduction to this book: "Wigman's poetry is a powerful brew in Dutch. Remixed in Colmer's English, it's heady stuff too."
Menno Wigman's first full collection to be published in the UK in David Colmer's outstanding translation introduces English-language readers to a selection of the work of one of the Netherlands' leading poets. Some-times referred to as a 'dandy of disillusion', Wigman combines a classic aesthetic with rock-'n-roll subject matter to sing of sex and booze, vandalism, frustration, poetry and death. Yet despite his unflinching gaze at the grimmer sides of life, Wigman rarely writes grim poems. On the contrary, they are charged with a strong sense of social commitment and human sympathy for the marginalized and forgotten in contemporary society, and tempered with a wryness of tone and a punchy accessibility of style.
Wigman's voice in the English language is startling and unexpected, and as such, makes a deep and lasting impact. As Francis Jones says at the conclusion of his introduction to this book: "Wigman's poetry is a powerful brew in Dutch. Remixed in Colmer's English, it's heady stuff too."
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Todmorden
United Kingdom
File size
2,38 MB
ISBN-13
978-1-910345-63-4 (9781910345634)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Menno Wigman
Window-Cleaner Sees Paintings
Book
10/2016
Arc Publications
€33.61
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Menno Wigman
Window-Cleaner Sees Paintings
Book
10/2016
Arc Publications
€36.08
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Persons
David Colmer is an Australian writer and translator who lives in Amsterdam. He is the author of a novel and a collection of short stories, both published in Dutch translation in the Netherlands, and the translator of more than twenty books: novels, children's literature, and poetry. He is a four-time winner of the David Reid Poetry Translation Prize and won the 2009 Biennial NSW Premier and PEN Translation Prize for his body of work. In 2010 his translation of Gerbrand Bakker's Boven is het stil (The Twin) won the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.
