Lucebert

Lucebert (ps Lubertus Jacobus Swaanswijk, 1924-1994) is one of the most important reformers of Dutch poetry in the twentieth century. He was a key figure in the Fiftiers Movement, an experimental group of poets that changed the face of Dutch literature after World War II. Shortly after the war he began experimenting with abstract drawing and painting as well as with a new poetic mode. He maintained that his language and his country were ‘ripe for a mild repetition of the dadaistic and expressionistic experiment’ of the early twentieth-century avant-garde in Europe.

Collected Poems

(De Bezige Bij, 1974, 813 pages)

The Fiftiers were connected to the European CoBrA Movement and the Experimental Group in Holland, a group of painters and writers, established in 1948 who, as the painter Constant put it in his manifesto, were ‘against the degenerate aesthetic concepts that had hindered the development of creativity in the past.’ For the first time, a definitive break was being made with the established art and literature of the past.

Author

Lucebert

Collected Poems

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