Virgula. Cet article n’est pas disponible.Virgula

'Sultry, raw and relentless. This intoxicating poetry seizes you with its beautiful, rich images and refuses to let go.' – Awater Poetry Prize jury

'This book is stunning. Totally wild.' – Jack Underwood

In Virgula, Sasja Janssen’s award-winning collection, the comma becomes much more than a punctuation mark; it stops the stillness and allows thoughts and language to move forward. Virgula is invoked as a muse and a companion; she is called on in every poem, as if she were a goddess, friend or lover, someone who offers space when the emptiness becomes too heavy.

Virgula received the Awater Poetry Prize and was nominated for the Ida Gerhardt Poetry Prize and the Herman de Coninck Prize and De Grote Poëzieprijs (Grand Poetry Prize) for best poetry collection 2021.

Sasja Janssen (b. 1968) is a poet and a teacher of creative writing based in Amsterdam. Her first publications were two novels but since her father's death she has mainly written poetry. Her poetry has been very well received, her most recent collection Virgula (2021) was nominated for five Dutch prizes and awarded the prestigious Awater Poetry Prize. Putting On My Species (2014) has been translated into English (Shearsman, 2020). English and Spanish translations of Virgula will appear this year. Janssen has performed nationally and internationally, including at festivals in Nicaragua, Medellín, Mexico and Buenos Aires. The poet and critic Piet Gerbrandy wrote of her work, 'The poet tries desperately to grasp something of the insane world we find ourselves in and in which we have to simply make do, with totally inadequate means.' The poet herself says that the philosophical question "How should we live?" forms the central theme of her work.