Speaking in Tongues

Speaking in Tongues should come as a welcome surprise to English-language readers, as it not only opens new doors, but also presents exciting technical challenges. H. C. ten Berge is a master of many genres, but poetry informs all of his writing. In this generous new selection of poems and poem-sequences translated into English - his first publication in book form in North America - we follow the exciting trajectory of the poet from his initial collection, Poolsneeuw (Polar Snow) in 1964, to his most recent, In tongen spreken, which came out in 2020. His poetry is nourished and influenced not only by the contemporary world, but also by the European Middle Ages and earlier civilizations. A major voice in The Netherlands, Ten Berge has won many prizes and distinctions, including the prestigious P. C. Hooft Award (2006), the jury celebrating that he 'has opened Dutch poetry to worlds that until then had gone unnoticed.'