Belgium

(Leuven, 1974) was Poetry International's guest back in 1988 when she was one of the nominees for the then brand-new C. Buddingh' Award for New Dutch Poetry. She read from her debut Hanne Ton which had met with great interest in Flanders. Two more collections have been published since. She may well for ever be marked by the fact that she made her debut when she was only fourteen years of age, although she belittles the event herself. She has decided to consider it a joke, something to toy with.

`You have grown' is the first line in her latest collection of poems so far: Waar je naar zit te kijken (What you're gazing at, 1995). The sarcasm and pessimism, which were characteristic for the adolescent who wrote Hanne Ton, have been toned down and wryness has been replaced by lightheartedness. Love has made its entry in these poems.

After her leaving cert Jo Govaerts studied Slavonic literature. She traveled to Eastern Europe and lived in Warsaw for some time, making the Polish poet Zbigniew Herbert the subject of her thesis. Her study opened her eyes to a new world; she got confronted by a different language's and literature's possibilities as well as by the mother language's restrictions and unexpected richness. On her first visit to Poland she found out what it means when even simple communication is impossible. `If you want to say anything personal, you're left tongue-tied with your knowledge of Dutch, English, French, Latin. Only then do you discover how helpless you are.'

The ability to talk and to be understood is of prime importance to Jo Govaerts. But linguistic barriers can be found nearer home as well: `If the other person is not receptive, you get tongue-tied and can't find words any more.'

Jo Govaerts lives and works in London at present.