Poetry on the Road Maastricht

(Bergen, 1944) made her debut with Voor wie ik liefheb wil ik heten (Those I love may know me by name) which enjoyed an unlikely number of reprints - about twenty in all. The collection provoked many reviews at the time and it can be said that its often autobiographical and open poems introduced poetry to a new audience. This debut takes its place in the history of past-war Dutch poetry.

Neeltje Maria Min took a long time in writing a follow-up. But her Een vrouw bezoeken (Visiting a woman, 1985) was ample proof that she was still her true self and that she maintained her position in Dutch poetry as a matter of fact. Its poems paid much attention to the unpredictable, endearing as well as tragic aspects of the relationship between parents and children.

Her latest collection, Kindsbeen (Childhood, 1995), contains great poetry. According to Arie den Berg in the daily NRC Handelsblad: `In forty poems Min expresses the happiness, tension and disillusions in the lives of the child, parents and grandparents. She does so in usually strict metric verses but doesn't hesitate to put her reader on the wrong footing, if neccessary. The language is simple but its phrasing is forceful. It's all put down in the most obvious way. Such irretrievable directness is emphasized by repeated omission of the article. Such a dangerous poets' trick might cause the reader to loose its grip because of its abstraction. But Neel Min knows what she's doing.' Her poems are frank and direct; in comparison to her debut their tone is more blunt and her observations have become even more precise and detailed. Her stubbornness has remained.