Report an issue
Tell us what's wrong and we'll take a look.
Thanks – we got it. We'll review and follow up if needed.
She has been called "the Dutch Elizabeth Bishop." These are poems that readers cherish for their intensity, intimacy, and cinematic effects.
SIMULTANEITY
Six in the evening, in the kitchen
The little dog with pricked-up ears,
the potatoes boiling on the stove,
the wooden tick of the clock - the sky
far and gray-blue and the jewelweeds,
tall as people. The pasture
with uneven tussocks and their shadows,
like drawings in a cave. And the knifelike light
that burns through the leaves, a glittering mystery.
And I - another creature, watching it.
It blends together and it doesn't change.
Oh Lord. I feel that something ought
to be made clear to me. That I've been granted time,
and yet, however overwhelmed I am,
something is missing that would help me say: this order,
however slipshod it may be: I see it, I'm awakened.
Forgive my deafness and my lack of seeing,
and hold me in your greatness - I am small,
but have, as well, too many tentacles
that grope in the different-being Being.
M. Vasalis (1909-1998) was the pen name of Margaretha Drooglever-Fortuyn-Leenmans, a Dutch psychiatrist who specialized in children. Her poems come out of her life, her experience of the natural world, her professional practice, and her family relations. They arise from the pressure of occasion and necessity rather from an ambition to originality or greatness--their relative modesty is one of their secret strengths. Vasalis remains one of the most widely read and admired poets of her language and country.
M Vasalis
M. Vasalis (1909-1998) was the pen name of Margaretha Drooglever-Fortuyn-Leenmans, a Dutch psychiatrist who specialized in children. Vasalis remains one of the most widely read and admired poets of her language and country, called "the Dutch Elizabeth Bishop."
Fred Lessing
Translated by
Fred Lessing, Holocaust survivor, psychotherapist, and retired professor of Philosophy, retained his native Dutch language after immigrating to America at age 12. He had no knowledge of Vasalis until his brothers asked him about "De idioot in het bad." Fred felt it was inspired by the same muse as much of David Young's poetry. That launched their project to make Vasalis' work available to English speaking lovers of poetry.
David Young
Translated by
East Yorkshire-born David Young began his East German-set crime series on a creative writing MA at London's City University when Stasi Child - his debut - won the course prize. The novel went on to win the 2016 CWA Historical Dagger, and both it and the 2017 follow-up, Stasi Wolf, were longlisted for the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year. His novels have been sold in eleven territories round the world. Before becoming a full-time author, David was a senior journalist with the BBC's international radio and TV newsrooms for more than 25 years. He writes in his Twickenham garden shed and in a caravan on the Isle of Wight. The Stasi Game, his sixth novel, is available to pre-order now. You can follow him on Twitter @djy_writer
Why Readwise Books?
Readwise Books is an ebook & audiobook platform that automatically logs how much you and your friends read, making it fun and easy to read more. Learn more →