This article is based on this Dutch article of Martijn Benders
### Self-Correction
One more point of self-correction, as I do sometimes make mistakes: Jan Baeke has indeed never published a book with Van Oorschot, although the man who savaged my novel was from Van Oorschot. So, it’s a matter of -1 and then +1.
However, the fact that Baeke published with De Bezige Bij doesn’t make him any less part of the same tiny network. I heard from Mia You, who worked at Poetry International, that he regularly quoted from Wold Wold Wold, which was lying around the office. This is strange because I only sold that book personalized and as far as I know, to no one in those circles. Baeke, who is ridiculed as ‘Poetry in a Packet’ by Rob Zeeman in the foreword of WWW, was not very popular among his own colleagues.
And Kwakman also enjoyed a certain reputation among his own staff:
Baeke worked for a long time side by side with Menkveld and is the main reason I was never invited to Poetry International and perhaps also the main reason that Kwakman included a deceitful anecdote about me in his book.
The poem I wanted to read in court is this work:
Flesh of God
Uncertified, but by letting his hand
find what is not found in himself,
he creates flesh.
That’s what makes him God.
He has more of us. Understands
how we are compelled to tenderize,
and torment
to whet an appetite.
But we are amateurs of the flesh
and our stomachs are too small
to engulf all the flesh.
This sets him to thinking,
would set him, if he knew – he didn’t.
It’s all the same to him: consuming everything
and the flesh beforehand.
Nature would later become the word.
**
In other words, yes, we’ve caught another one. It wouldn’t be so bad if he could at least write decent poetry – I have nothing against Christians, as long as they are competent. I have many collected works of Christian poets on my shelf; Milosz is, as is well-known, one of my favorites.
So, a small correction, but really a minuscule one. The network is exactly what Mia You once called a ‘dickfest’.
Perhaps it’s due to my position as an outsider, but I hardly hear anything about that festival anymore.
(1) I had given Zeeman carte blanche to go all out in his foreword, and he partly used it as a tirade against Baeke because he apparently loathed him as a person. I had never heard of this man at the time. So what is in WWW is not my aversion.
So no, how does he end up on that Advisory Council? Brrr. Probably the worst person you could choose for it. And they surely know this themselves – such choices are meant as provocations, provocations from those in power.
The ruling power that provokes minorities, with the (PVDA) head of the security service as prime minister – about the same formula. It’s not my Netherlands, and it never will be.
Meanwhile, Left Laser, who bravely traveled to Lebanon, wasn’t allowed into the country: