Description
Book SynopsisVirgula is an award-winning collection by acclaimed Dutch poet Sasja Janssen, and her second collection to be published in English. Taking as its title the latin word for ’comma’, the poems in Virgula reveal the stories hidden in the spaces in-between: the unending and the unresolved; memories that refuse to be contained. In Janssen’s poetry, the comma becomes much more than a punctuation mark, and is invoked as a muse and companion; she calls on her in every poem, as if she were a goddess, a friend or lover, someone who offers space when the emptiness becomes too heavy. In Janssen’s poetry, painful stories often unfold, events that never came to pass, but which leave traces and scars. Virgula strikes a balance between mystery and razor-sharp intent, through constant shifts and contrasts in perspective. The comma stops the stillness, and allows thoughts and language to move forward. Virgula was awarded the Awater Poetry Prize and was nominated for the Ida Gerhardt Poetry Prize and the Herman de Coninck Prize and De Grote Poëzieprijs (Grand Poetry Prize) for best poetry collection of the year.
Table of ContentsVIRGULA the night I was impregnated talk to me there where he has a student sing we go deeper there is eternity in height you leave me here with that dingy room I love birch trees I IMPLORE YOU because the jackdaws are ignoring me now I’m less able to handle the little things as I drive a spade because the chestnut tree in front of the prison now I’m climbing out of the ditch and I have risen from my first murder because each day begins now the little things are big and I see them fly off again VIRGULA the morning is a wound the metal under the mattress I still need to teach the horse to swim when the hours fall through the ceiling my new husband has a dead wife a drop falls into my glass of milk there’s no wind
