This volume of poetry intrigues from the off using simple means. 58 years are embossed, in a grid, on the cover. The white foil with which these year numbers are embossed overlaps the black of the title, and the name of the author and publisher. No logic can be discerned in the way the dates are ordered – nor, for that matter, in the two gaps in the grid. Locations are printed on the endpapers and a little further along, in the table of contents, the titles of the poems appear.
dagtekening van liefdesvormen is an autobiography in the form of poems which, in spite of its non-chronological order, takes time as its guide. Where you would expect to see a page number, at the bottom right of each page, a year is printed – with the poem’s title to its left. This is a radical decision, and one that is somewhat disorienting as the reader is denied the usual means of navigating through the book. In the ideal scenario, this makes for a freer interaction with the poems. The effect is to give the poems all the space they need, both on the page and in the reader’s head.
Red binding thread makes for a surprising detail within this effective simplicity. The slightly transparent paper provides an impression of the previous and following poems; thanks to precise typesetting this never disturbs the poem on the open page, but invites us to read on.