Jozef Deleu

Jozef Deleu Poems

Jozef Deleu Biography

Jozef Deleu was born on 20 April 1937 in Roeselare. Deleu is an important figure in the cultural life of Flanders. He set himself the task of distributing Dutch-language culture, and particularly the art and literature of the Dutch-speaking community, and in 1957 launched Ons Erfdeel, a magazine that functions as a hyphen that connects Flanders and The Netherlands. He is a man of dialogue, but knew how to guard his independance so when the situation needed it, he could be a public intellectual that manifested itself as a writer of essays, open letters and polemical texts that attacked everything that went wrong in cultural and artistic life in Flanders and The Netherlands. In 2002 Deleu left Ons Erfdeel as a managing editor, but he soon founded a new poetry magazine Het Liegend Konijn (The Lying Rabbit). This journal does not publish critical essays or reviews, but offers a platform for prepublications and work-in progress of known and lesser known Dutch-language poets. Jozef Deleu is also famous as the composer of Groot Gezinsverzenboek, a regularly revised and expanded anthology of more than 600 poems on the important stages of life. The book is an everseller.)

The Best Poem Of Jozef Deleu

leaving

you mustn't say goodbye
you must walk out of the house
without looking back

you carry it warm and waking
live there even when you're absent
you mustn't say goodbye

on leaves yellowed by time
words still dream on
more powerful than deeds

in May the trees are in blossom
even the oldest orchard
is ablaze

you mustn't say goodbye
you must leave the house
and not look back

Translated by Tanis Guest

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