Poet| writer | speaker

Marije Langelaar

Capturing the ephemeral

Words are a writer’s secret instruments. The precise confluence of sound, word, meaning and rhythm creates a vortex: a voltage that can spark a little electric shock in the reader’s mind – a breath-stopping still point in a chaotic world, a web spun in gold or a wave you can ride.

I am endlessly fascinated by the attempt to capture the unnameable, the ephemeral. Words can be an anchor. The wonderful thing about writing is that you can do it anywhere. All you need is the richness of your mind, your life force, your being. With words and letters you can build entire worlds and invite the reader to enter.

Seeing is an alchemy

You disappear into the rock, the tree, the house. You detach from yourself and become the thing you look at. You become the world. There are points in my life when the strongest impulse is to throw everything overboard and dissolve into nothingness. From here it is possible to create anew.

Biography

2020

Langelaar's first novel was published in June 2020. Time and space are fluid. A person can be anything and everything is interconnected.

2017

A collection that shows the cutting edge of life. Vonkt roars, blazes, and consoles. Words are ways of being. (VSB Poetry Prize jury report)

2009

Disconcerting and sometimes hilarious poetry that paints a pan-erotic universe where things have souls too. (De Standaard newspaper)

Works

Irresistible

Creation is a fascinating process. When does the magic happen, and when not? There has to be magic in the content for a work of art to come alive and exert irresistible appeal. It’s a balance between content, size, form, sunlight, and so on. Every piece of art, every poem, every creation is a direct expression of the artist’s experience.

In the media