A note on: my article on Home, in Dutch, published in Terras

very happy to have some of my journalism published in Dutch for the first time, featuring the latest issue of the respected Terras magazine. The magazine was founded by erik lindner and the article emerged from a commission for European Lliterature Night Amsterdam, thanks to the British council.

The full Dutch can be read here http://tijdschriftterras.nl/thuis-2/ and it was translated by Anne Tjerk Popkema

"Het zijn onze vormende jaren op deze aarde die bepalen hoe we ‘thuis’ opvatten. Of het nu de plek is waar onze wieg toevallig stond, de plaats waar we opgroeiden of waar onze ouders vandaan komen: de omgeving van onze jeugdjaren vormt ons thuis. Althans, dat zeggen ze."

... and from the essay in English, an excerpt"I have always been distrustful of those who speak of home, actively, keenly, when they are young. Those who stay in the same town in which they were born. Home then becomes a word equivalent to repression, a soft claw coming up out of a bungalow, wrapping itself across my mouth.

London is my home, because I have no home. London is the world. As angry and lovely and populous as our world. As the population of our planet has doubled so London has become the biggest it has ever been, just recently catching the population of the pre-war era. I am one of these millions, delighted, against where I was raised, to be amongst the people of the world. I am home, briefly, with those I love, in a city which is not celebrated enough for being truly global, where I have never seen people in conflict because they are from different homes. Because everyone is from a different home here, almost no home is home when in London. So it is all of ours. Does this paradox qualify? Perhaps not, it cannot be a paradox if I say it is my home."

A note on: reading in Amsterdam this May 10th at Brakke Grond

Well pleased to be repping the UK for Eunic's European Literature Night in Amsterdam on Wednesday May 10th. https://www.brakkegrond.nl/en/agenda/eunic Kind of the British Council to have me over too.

"What does 'home' mean in today’s multilingual world? When you try to explain to another person what that word means in your language, you step into a labyrinth whose passageways don’t necessarily lead anywhere. A dozen writers and poets from across Europe discuss their idea of 'home' during the Night of European Literature, as well as how to convert that idea into another language. And which language, then, is best suited to expressing themselves?"

Published: Three poems into Dutch on Sample Kannon

Thanks to the brilliant Tsead Bruinja, three of my newer poems, coming from my new book The Guide to Being Bear Aware, have been translated into Dutch and published in the Sample Kannon journal. http://samplekanon.com/?p=3771

De Toekomst

De toekomst
als een eend met rubbertanden.
Een vakje dat uw reactie zal bevatten
op een gebeurtenis die u in de war heeft gebracht,
wat tot als gevolg heeft dat u gaat denken dat reactie een oplossing is.

A note on: Poetry International at Stortemelk, Vlieland: Holland - August 2016

My first reading in Holland, and an utterly unique place to give it – the island of Vlieland, a poetry reading on the Stortemelk holiday camp. All thanks to Tsead Bruinja and Bas Kwakman, and Poetry International, for letting this beautifully idiosyncratic mini-festival tradition – poetry readings for those on holiday on the camp, in the dying days of the summer season, nearing its tenth year of happening – be my debut in Holland. More than that, I had a really wonderful experience meeting some remarkably hospitable, intelligent and generous people.

Another grand result of Tsead and Bas’ invitation was the chance to have Tsead translate a dozen or so of my poems. We spent some hours working on this, one of the most comprehensive and rewarding translation processes I’ve been through, and Dutch is the 20th language my poetry has been translated into. So Tsead and I had chatted plenty before I arrived in Amsterdam to begin the journey north, to the sea. I had a night in the city, amidst rainstorms, in an Airbnb not conducive to rest, before I met Tsead early and we began catching busses across country. Friends from the first, the sensibilities Dutch and British people share, the dry, barbed humour most of all, we chatted for hours until we caught the ferry from Haarlingen to Vlieland. The island has a tiny population, it is a well known holiday destination but genuinely removed from the mainland, a culture unto itself. And as part of the reading’s tradition, the poets contributing get to stay in tents as part of the sprawling Stortemelk complex. I was led to my tent, the first time for a poetry event, and got to reunite with Bas, who I’d spent time with in China, Germany, Scotland, and meet the wonderful Saskia Stehouwer, Ries de Vuyst and the others in what became a temporary, extended family/friendship group to which I was immediately included. Just beyond the tents, over one large, lengthy dune, was the expansive white beaches and the north sea. I had a chance to ramble, and be cooked for, before hitting my tent, exhausted.

visit stevenjfowler.com/vlieland to read the complete travelogue