literature

Joost Oomen Celebrates Surrealism at European Poetry Festival Transpoesie

Every year during the week of the European Day of Multilingualism, poets from all over Europe come to Brussels for the Transpoesie festival. They perform and their poems are displayed in public spaces, in their original language, as well as in Dutch, French, and English. This year’s poetry festival focuses on surrealism, of which Brussels is the birthplace.

Poets from all corners of Europe try to define a new world by drawing on the fantastic, the impossible, and the magical. The Flemish-Dutch house deBuren selected the perfect Dutch writer, former writer-in-residence Joost Oomen, for this theme. He can be seen on three locations on 28 September, including with these poems, translated by David Colmer.

Cork

I am a little cork
I am a little cork
you have to save me

I have a brow of treacle
I have a brow of salt
I mustn’t move ‘cause if I did
my face would drop its brow

I am a little cork
I am a little cork
you have to save me

Cu Then Coo

for Joep Hendrikx and Katelijne Beukema

You can say yes to lots of things
if you’d like a sandwich?
if someone’s front light is on?
if it’s almost half seven?
is it time we left?
raincoat?
yes

and the word yes changes from red to green to blue
becoming transparent in time
like a cuckoo that always
says cu first and only then coo
never the reverse

of course you sometimes see
a yes at the start
but then it’s
yes! and they grabbed their bikes and rode towards the horizon
yes! and they threw themselves on the food and boozed towards the horizon
yes! and in jeans and horse sleighs they left
until all the snow was melted
until they too were melted

but one day someone said yes in the middle
and someone else did too

it was a brand-new concept
instead of the adventure ending or starting
it became the same but in a different light
like a potted plant that suddenly decides
to grow like crazy
like Neapolitan ice cream, like approximately in algebra
indicated with the simultaneous radiance
of moon and sun on two waves

the cuckoo said cu and then coo
he knew just how to do it

afterwards they still wanted a sandwich one after the other
they still asked one after the other if their front light was on
what time is it? yes

there has never yet been an adventure that grew so big
never yet has someone got so close to the horizon
that they really did fall off the edge of the world
but just to be on the safe side, will you please
hold on to each other as tight as you can?

and the horizon melted
and the horse sleigh and approximately left together
on freshly fallen snow

and the cuckoo said cu and then coo
he knew just how to do it.

Then

first you’ve never
seen each other

then you’ve seen each other
but don’t know it yet
for instance at a big party where you
later find out you were both there
like heavy snow
in which no one flake
can see the other
but finally end up together
in the same fluffy duvet

then you see each other
for the first time

then you kiss for the first time
then suddenly it’s April
then you love each other
then you share a nectarine

then you get to know more and more
how the other likes to ride through town
and you start going that way too
then one day you get wet
so wet you can pour the water out of your shoes
onto your dark blue doormat

and you both go upstairs barefoot
you lie down in bed two cold stiff rain bodies
pressed against each other

then one day you have a fight in that same bed
then other days no fights in that same bed
you see touch-me-not and squeeze it
then you’re happy and gently nip her on the back of the neck

then she says she can’t sleep anymore
until you’ve said “see you tomorrow”.

Transpoesie takes place from Thursday, 26 September to Saturday, 28 September at various locations in Brussels. There are lunchtime debates, thought-provoking performances, and poetry “écriture automatique” writing sessions in the public space

On Saturday, 28 September, you can meet Joost Oomen and many other surrealist European poets: at noon at the legendary Goudblommeke in Papier (bring your own lunch), between 15:00 and 17:00 at the Sint-Hubertusgalerij, and at 19:00 during the closing evening at the Liszt Institute.

The full program can be found at transpoesie.eu.

• deBuren
• Joost Oomen
• Transpoesie