The PIP (Project for Innovative Poetry) Anthology of World Poetry of the 20th Century: Volume 6: Living Space: Poems of the Dutch Fiftiers

In 1979 Peter Glassgold edited for New Directions a collection of seven poets of the group of Dutch writers known through Europe as the Fiftiers, poets who, having grown up in the turbulent 1940s, came of age as poetic and visul experimenters in the 1950s. The collection was a revealing one, aznd has stood through the quarter century since, along with newer and larger selections of poetry of the Netherlands, as a testament to the exciting poetry produced by these figures, which included Remco Campert, Hugo Claus, Jan G. Elburg, Gerrit Kouwenaar, Lucebert, Sybren Polet, and Bert Schierbeek.

In the subsequent years, some of the Dutch Fiftiers died, while others continued to write and have added to their reputations. Some of these figures, indeed, have been nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature and have received numerous other awards.

For the current volume, number 6 of his ongoing PIP [Project for Innovative Poetry] Anthologies of World Poetry of the 20th Century, Green Integer publisher Douglas Messerli has taken that original anthology and, along with Glassgold, expanded it to include more poems, updated bibliographical material, and two further poets, Paul Rodenko and Simon Vinkenoog, of that original group. Messerli and Glassgold also have included the original Dutch poems in this new volume, which they hope will once again help to reveal the greatness of these important literary figures.