A Great Minor Poet. The Poems of J.C. Bloem (+Five poems by J.C. Bloem, in the original Dutch, with English translations)
(A.L. Sötemann) The Low Countries - 2002, № 10, pp. 196-203
The work of the Dutch poet J.C. Bloem (1887-1966) has been reprinted many times. Bloem was a superior craftsman who wrote many poems about human life that are intensely personal but at the same time universal. His poems, never ‘popular' or facile, are still frequently quoted and some have even attained proverbial status. Sötemann describes him as ‘a great poet', but qualifies this with the adjective ‘minor'. The ‘range' of his poetry was so clearly limited: exclusively lyrical - and even that in a restricted sense. Bloem himself was very aware of this.
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