Remco Campert Netherlands

Remco Campert, born in The Hague in 1929, is the son of the poet Jan Campert and actress Joekie Broedelet. Drawn by the ambition to become a poet, he left school at the age of 17. In 1950, at the age of 21, he was a co-founder of the literary journal Braak and a year later his debut volume Vogels vliegen toch ('Birds fly, don't they?') was published. Campert is associated with the group of post-war Dutch poets known as the 'Fifties Movement'. Coming to adulthood under the shadow of the Nazi occupation, these poets felt the need for a poetry that took nothing for granted in terms of form or content. They dismantled traditional notions of poetry in favour of experiment and a language closer to common speech. Of this group, Campert was the most accessible and his work has always appealed to a broad public.

Campert has lived by the pen, writing novellas as well as poetry, and producing mischievous columns for the Dutch daily, the Volkskrant. He has won many awards, including the most famous – the P C Hooft Prize – for his complete poetic oeuvre (1979), and is well-known in Holland for his readings of his poetry. He is resident in Amsterdam but has spent periods of his life in Paris and Antwerp. He is married to the art consultant, Deborah Wolf.

Now in his seventies, Campert continues to write both poetry and fiction, his most recent works being the novellas Een liefde in Parijs ('A Romance in Paris') (2004) and Het satijnen hart ('Heart of Satin') (2006).

Biography on Poetry International Web

(2007)