‘Nothing helps'. The Poems of Hans Faverey
(Cyrille Offermans) The Low Countries - 1994, № 2, pp. 63-69
The spring of 1993, almost three years after his death, saw the publication of the ‘Collected Poems' of Hans Faverey (1933-1990): just over five hundred poems in one sober volume on india paper, in an almost classical format. Although the book contained no surprises, no posthumous work or enlightening variants, Dutch literary critics immediately responded wïth page-length reviews, as they had done on the appearance, two days before his death, of his eighth and last volume, 'The Lacking' (Het ontbrokene, 1990). As then, too, the critics wholeheartedly agreed that Faverey's poetry is among the most important in all twentieth-century Dutch literature. Such copious and unanimous praise for a poet may be remarkable enough in itself, but it becomes even more so when we consider that for a long time — and with almost equal unanimity — Faverey's poetry had been regarded as totally inaccessible, bizarre and unpoetic. (with six translated poems)
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