News

/ 17 April 2017

Els Moors to become the new Dichter des Vaderlands – Belgian National Poet

On the World Poetry Day the Flemish poet Els Moors was announced to become the new Dichter des Vaderlands – Belgian National Poet. She will be inducted on 25 January 2018. Until then she is the ambassadress of the current Dichter des Vaderlands Laurence Vielle. 
Els Moors (1976) is a Flemish poet and novelist. Her debut Er hangt een hoge lucht boven ons (There is a tall sky above us; 2006) was nominated for the C. Buddingh’-prize and was awarded the prestigious Herman de Coninck prize for best poetry debut. Her second collection of poetry, Liederen van een kapseizend paard (Songs of a capsizing horse), was published in 2013 and won the J.C. Bloem price. Moors’ work shows evidence of a strong feeling for composition, both in content and in form. This becomes clear, for example, in her continuing play between vitality and stasis and between horizontality and verticality. Undoubtedly, this strong feeling for composition and the equally sharp provocative nature of the poems are partly the reason why Els Moors is considered as one of the rising stars of Dutch language poetry. In 2008 Els Moors made her debut as a prose writer with Het verlangen naar een eiland (Longing For An Island), a novel about love, sex and the yearning for the Other. Moors teaches creative writing in Brussels, Antwerp and Arnhem and is active as an editor of a literary magazine ny. Since 2016 she is also one of the Versopolis poets.
The function of Dichter der Vaderlands - Belgian National Poet, is modelled on the Dutch national poet launched in 2000. It is an initiative of different Belgian literary organisations. The national poet is expected to write six poems a year, commenting the current national affairs. All the poems are published and available to read in all three national languages: in Dutch, French and German. The basic idea behind the project is to build bridges between different language communities with and thanks to poetry and to research the impact poetry can have on society.