Sasja Janssen

• Leaf-diseased,
  

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 the wind forced me to the right, my better side,
that was where it was, there where the hogweed sucked me
into the deep sea, I knew everything
what we, animals, things are made of
the blue of the sky that becomes demented in darkness
why dust is not dust
where everything comes from and disappears to
why the day is killing me, me as the first person
who knows everything without volume without depth just
the way everything is so that I can do this.
 
I waited in the green light.
No one questioned my knowledge, I trembled when I realized.
 
translated by Michele Hutchison
From: Wie wij schuilen, Querido 2010

SASJA JANSSEN (1968) is a poet and novelist based in Amsterdam. Her work was nominated for several prices. Her poems feature the body in many shapes, from tool to target, from weapon to wound. Her collection Virgula was awarded with the Awater Poetry Prize 2021, a prize given by literary critics, an also won the prestigious Johan Polak Poetry Prize 2024. For her work she received the Adriaan Roland Holst-Penning 2024, an oeuvre prize. Her collections are translated into English and Spanish. Janssen has performed nationally and internationally, including at festivals in Nicaragua, Medellín, Mexico, Buenos Aires and London. She is a teacher creative writing.

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