Eva Gerlach

Eva Gerlach (b. 1948) writes both poetry for adults and poetry for children. She published her first collection for adults, Verder geen leed (No Further Distress), in 1979. Her first volume of children’s poetry, Hee meneer Eland (Hey Mr. Moose), was published in 1989 and promptly awarded the ‘Zilveren Griffel’ (Silver Slate Pencil), an important children’s literature prize. Her entire oeuvre was awarded the highly prestigious P.C. Hooft-prijs in 2000. Her most recent collection, Situaties (Situations), appeared in 2006. At the start of her career as a poet - she made her debut in 1979 she carefully kept herself out of the public eye, refusing to give interviews or read from her work. All that has changed. Eva Gerlach (Margaret Dijkstra) lives in Amsterdam, is married and has two children.

The poetry of Eva Gerlach

(De Arbeiderspers, )

After submitting to several reviews from 1977, Gerlach published her first collection entitled Verder geen leed (No Further Distress) in 1979. It immediately impressed by the precise and considered organization of the individual poems and of the whole collection, yet with a strong, dark, emotional current underlying this formal control. Two years after its publication Verder geen leed was awarded the Lucy B. en C.W. van der Hoogt Prize, an important prize aiming to stimulate young writers and poets. In many subsequent collections over the years, Eva Gerlach developed into a poet of classical stature. The narrative tone of her early poems, born perhaps from the spirit of the age, gradually…

Eye to Eye to Eye to Eye

(Querido Kind, 2001, 55 pages)

Where do poems get their power to enchant? We’ve all asked ourselves that at one time or another. The poet Eva Gerlach knows the answer, because her poems have that power. First she enchanted all the grown-ups in the Netherlands with stunningly beautiful, subtle and original poems. Now she has written second volume of poetry for children, entitled Eye to Eye to Eye to Eye. Her book consists of six sections, some of which tell a story in poems, while others explore a particular theme. More so than even in her previous book of poetry for children, Hey Mister Moose, Gerlach shows here what language can do.

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Eva Gerlach

The poetry of Eva Gerlach

Eye to Eye to Eye to Eye

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