How It All Started
In 1978, I was on holiday with my family in Matrei in Osttirol,
Austria. During the rainy days I talked with my brother about the
things that mattered to us, especially girls. He told me he had
invented a "dream character" for himself and thus
controlled his dreams (or so he thought).
He had also invented a character for me, and so Peter Imst was
born. In my own imagination this character became a universal
hero: a mountaineer, a succesfull formula one driver and a
musician.
Within a year I wrote some 1500 pages about this man and the
people he met and became friends with. This work included some
poems in english that I had wrote before and some that had to be
written for Sphynx, the band he was in. This was my first poetry.
Though it's horribly bad stuff (no wonder, for I am no native
english speaker and I was 16 at the time), there are still pieces
that I like for the sake of memory. Those were the days...
How It Went On
For the poetry book of my little nieces I wrote my first poem in
dutch. It was weak, but it was far better than the rubbish people
use to pour in those books. When I fell in love with a girl that
published poems of her own in the school paper, I decided that I
had to write better ones. It took me one day.
Just before I left school, I sent three poems to the school
paper, for the last piece of that year. When I got my diploma, I
was given that paper also. I debuted on graduation day.
As a student I met some guys who wrote also poetry. Together we
conferred nearly every week to develop ideas for a new literary magazine . The more we
talked, the less we agreed, and finally we decided to get our
stuff published in other magazines first. After that would
happen, we could be able maybe to "take over" a
magazine.
Of course this didn't work either. After four years the group
split up.
Out of the material from these years in my archive I distilled
some pages in Dutch that I called "De
Kristal protocollen". They're no longer part of this site.
Some Examples
In 1991, three of my poems were published in De Revisor. These
poems are De Tuin, Droom Van Ouderdom and Verhuizing. Of these
three, De Tuin was chosen for Gedichten 1992, a
compilation of poems published in literary magazines in 1991 in
The Netherlands and Flanders. I found myself the youngest poet in
that book...
The future and some years that are already part of the past...
Though I still think of myself as a poet, I do no longer skip
other parts of the literary landscape.
1996
In November 1996 I finished a play in poetry (OK, I do mix 'em up a little
sometimes) called Een Engel In Achet-Aton.
Intermezzo: Landinwaarts, the novel
Since february 1994 I have been working on a novel called Landinwaarts.
I stuck for a long time in the first part, but since 1996 things speeded up a little. The first part was finished in july
1997 and I immediately started with the second part, which was completed in june 1998. The third part I finished somewhere in
december 1999. I have started with the fourth and most difficult part in january 2000 and that one was finished late september 2000.
The typing and rewriting of that part took until the beginning of december 2000, so I can proudly declare the first version of my novel
completed. It is four parts together and more than 550 pages. During 2001 I was working
on the rewriting of the whole thing. Hopefully during the next years there will be some
time left to work out the ideas I have for about 15 short stories.
My novel I have finished in a definitive way (with an annotated version!) in 2002 and put on the shelf,
forever I am almost sure.
2000
Between the prose work I have been working on a new poetic epic called Dansen
voor Zerdesjt about the Kurdish struggle for independence. It was
finished on Christmas Day 2000. I guess there will be no more epics for quite
some time, though one of course never knows where inspiration might lead to...
2002
It is now January 2002 and I must confess I have hardly had the time to do anything with my novel.
I wrote about 35 poems last year and most of them are of quite reasonable quality. So I
decided to spend this years leisure time (there won't be a lot of it, I fear) in the
preparations of a collection of poems to be published by one of the important Dutch
publishers (like Van Oorschot).
March 2002 and the first version of the poems collection has been made under the
working title "Handlijnen". Most of the poems have to be adjusted in minor ways and some
need rewriting of major parts. There is a logic in the collection, a kind of story line if
you like, which I am quite happy with. So I guess the year 2002 will be a year of poetry and
not of prose. Since I think of myself primarely as a poet after all, that is fine
with me.
2005
Since july 2005 I am publishing my poetry at
www.dichttalent.nl where maybe someone will "discover" it.
I can also be found at the Lettertempel.
2006
In january 2006 three of my poems have been published in the online literary magazine
Meander and in the
Verl@ine web-log and again some exposure of my work has been gained!
At my own weblog I have put some work as a critic.
Last modification: January 26th, 2006
© Peter J.R. Vermaat 30 November 1994