“Every collection by Rozalie Hirs is once again a new compendium of stunning sound-art in every sense of the word.” (Dietske Geerlings, Tzum)
“This musicality is, of course, connected to her background as a composer, but it is equally shaped by her exuberant handling of language and the way she, as it were, plays the words themselves.” (Helena Van Praet, Poëziekant)
“The language flows and is full of shifts in sound. Hirs also dares to abandon conventional syntax. Sentences and clauses can often be connected in multiple ways, which naturally makes you read slowly and attentively.” (Alfred Schaffer, De Groene)
“More than an autobiography, this is a book of love poems—a collection in which love takes place. Just as in ecologica, Rozalie Hirs practices in dagtekening van liefdesvormen a kind of romanticism that never lays claim to what it sings of—not the other, and not the singing self. A romanticism that is free and frees, surrendering itself to ‘that dumb luck of becoming.’” (Joost Baars, Awater)
“Just like ecologica, the collection calls on us to love and to seek connection—with one another and with the world around us. As long as you’re here, there’s nothing better to do than ‘breathe within each other’s regard.’” (Dietske Geerlings, Tzum)
“That she approached life as a child already full of wonder and agility becomes clear from her recently published collection dagtekening van liefdesvormen. In it she links every year of her life to a poem, creating a mosaic of Rozalie Hirs: an autobiography built from her experiences of love.” (Jelle Van Riet, De Standaard)
“Yet this is not a book of love poems in the narrow sense: the concept of ‘love’ must be stretched to include a deep connectedness with the world.” (Helena Van Praet, Poëziekant)
“In dagtekening van liefdesvormen, it is not only the romantic or erotic love that can exist between adults that is sung, but also a child’s love for the world. Friendship, too, is a form of love.” (Alfred Schaffer, De Groene)
“At first almost unnoticed, but gradually, the deeper you get into the collection, you realize that a ‘you’ and a ‘we’ appear more and more. This culminates in the sublime fourth section, ‘I do my hair [theme and variations],’ which consists of dialogue poems meant to be read by ‘someone’ and ‘someone else.’ Literal harmony, then.” (Joost Baars, Awater)
“It makes dagtekening van liefdesvormen Hirs’s most human collection to date.” (Helena Van Praet, Poëziekant)
“There is an unceasing consonance of feeling, thinking, perceiving, reflecting, and undergoing.” (Dietske Geerlings, Tzum)
“The attention to thinking-feeling or feeling-thinking is a constant in Hirs’s exploratory work, and in dagtekening van liefdesvormen it becomes tellingly explicit.” (Alfred Schaffer, De Groene)
“Hirs makes use of an impressively multiform ‘gathered speech’—in which the speaker, as it were, scavenges memories—but this challenging language does not make the collection any less readable (or singable!), because Hirs is one of the most virtuosic contemporary Dutch-language poets.” (Helena Van Praet, Poëziekant)
“There is no boundary; her collection presents itself as an endless universe—of language, certainly, but even though letters seem bounded by the end of a word, words by the end of a line, lines by the end of a page, and pages by the end of the book, that boundary is an illusion. Just as when walking through an infinitely vast landscape, you can look in every direction and keep discovering something new. If you do find coherence, you’ve found it yourself as a reader.” (Dietske Geerlings, Tzum)
“The play with grammatical functions and the derailing sentences so typical of Hirs’s oeuvre still play an important role, but what stands out in this collection above all is the exuberant wordplay.” (Helena Van Praet, Poëziekant)
“Poet and composer Rozalie Hirs places ‘loveforms’ alongside the ‘dagtekening’. A beautiful contrast. Why would one want to record modes or kinds of loving? Probably so as not to lose them, so as to be able to fall back on them. Love as a foundation, in the broadest sense.” (Alfred Schaffer, De Groene)
“In this, Rozalie Hirs is—and remains—a countercultural force we must cherish.” (Joost Baars, Awater)
contents
-> read
-> delighted with love
-> the ordinary shape
-> as your presence
-> events
-> flyer
-> notes
poems
delighted with love
like some animals and plants nonetheless
I live on silently and monogamously delighted with love
a glowing speaking in the turn of the dissolute
uprooted is my name so credulous
not resistant to the fertile self
a tendency relieved and gaudy I clash
with a word in the present and all future
through my lungs as breathed
patiently alive singing on the run
with clouds drifting over as fleetingly
as unsuspecting the rose found
a kiss deposited on the mouth
(English translation: Michele Hutchison)
the ordinary shape
after hours of a sweltering summer’s day
we have something to eat and walk
along enigmatic stripes past the rock
fiery in step and in our feelings for one another
between hill and valley we see figures
which the moon creates at immense heights
testaments to science and knowledge
like reality upon unworked soil
an image glimmering through the sky
in balance with this dwindling world
and what we further believe we perceive
in the ordinary shape of stars and things
(English translation: Michele Hutchison)
as your presence
I want to tell you what you are made of
the unbegun ever-present in the breath
as true as when we pluck words from a lofty abode
for instance from luminous night clouds
invisible to those who sleep yet licked
by the sun yes that’s right a moment’s dazzling glow
in the fleeting connection between heavens
winged flames challenge our flesh
and our consciousness to feel pain and growth
as both alias and password
a complete absence learnt from without
to be repeated again and again as your presence
(English translation: Michele Hutchison)
events
*
27 January 2024 – 16:00 CET
dagtekening van liefdesvormen
interview by Henk Groenewegen, book launch, reading, Q&A, signing
Bookstore De Tribune
Kapoenstraat 8-10, 6211 KW Maastricht, Limburg
*
28 January 2024 – 16:00 CET
double book launch
een ronde bol een ronde bol (Studio Kers, 2023) – Peggy Verzett
dagtekening van liefdesvormen (Querido, 2024) – Rozalie Hirs
dialogue, reading, Q&A, signing
Donner bookshop
Coolsingel 129, 3012 AG Rotterdam, South Holland
*
30 January 2024 – 20:00 CET (doors open 19:30)
dagtekening van liefdesvormen
introduction by Querido’s poetry editor Thomas Möhlmann, book launch, reading, signing
additional performances by Anneke Brassinga, Eva Gerlach, Astrid Lampe
Athenaeum Bookstore
Spui 14, 1012 XA Amsterdam, Noord-Holland
*
2 February 2024 – 11:00 CET
dagtekening van liefdesvormen
interview by Ike Bekking, book presentation, reading, coffee and cake, Q&A, signing
Bilthoven Bookstore
Vinkenlaan 2, 3722 AJ Bilthoven, Utrecht
*
5 June 2024
Eus’ Boekenclub (episode 41)
NTR Television, NPO2, Hilversum, The Netherlands
*
21 juni 2024, 20:00 CET
Leidse Poëzienacht/ Van Rijn-festival
De Burcht, Van der Sterrepad 5, 2312 EK Leiden
*
18 August 2024, 15.30 CET
Poëtisch nazomeren, ABC Casa Portiera
Hof van Bollé, Peurssensstraat 64-66, 4527 BM Aardenburg
*
31 August 2024, 14:00 CET
Poëzie in de Oude Pastorie
Oude Pastorie, Kapelle-op-den-Bos (near Mechelen), Belgium
*
5 October 2024, 20:00 CET
41ste Nacht van de Poëzie
Grote Zaal, TivoliVredenburg, Utrecht
*
23 November 2024 – 19:00 CET
Boetopia on Tour
Openbare bibliotheek, Stadsplein 3, 3600 Genk, Belgium
*
22 May 2025 – 12:30 CET
Dichters op Donderdagen
Interview by Johan de Boose, reading, book signing
Auditorium, Bibliotheek Permeke, De Coninckplein 25-26, 2060 Antwerpen, Belgium
Rozalie Hirs (b. 1965) is one of the leading poets of her generation. She has previously published eight Dutch-language poetry collections, from Locus (1998) to ecologica (2023), and six anthologies in other languages, including her multilingual manifesto gestammelte werke (2017) by kookbooks, Berlin. Her poetry is frequently taught at Dutch-language universities and colleges. Her previous collection of ecologica (Vleugels Publishing House, 2023) was awarded the Jan Campert Prize 2023.
Poetry / Paperback / 15 x 21 cm / 80 pages / €22.99 / ISBN 978 90 214 8970 4 / NUR 306 / Cover and interior design Michaël Snitker / January 2024