Babeth Fonchi Fothchind. Remember that name, because she's going to be big, if she wasn't already, but out of my sight. Can happen, with all the bubbles and tick marks we make our way through life. In June 2022, her debut collection out, and then you can read it for yourself. I saw her on a Tuesday night during Book Week at Amsterdam's Perdu and she made a deep impression.
We owe the meeting with Babeth to former Poet Laureate Tsead Bruinja. He presented a new collection in Perdu and, in his own words, he can only do that if he turns it into a literary evening where others perform their own work. Quite a generous man, that Bruinja, because at most book presentations it is only about the collection to be presented. Friends and colleagues drop by to praise the author and develop their own network over white wine. Which in turn led to their generosity, as everyone stepped up for two consumption vouchers. Don't let the Authors' Association hear it.
Scream
Incidentally, Bruinja also did it during the evening to tout his new project. He is currently touring Frisian churches and barns with Arnold de Boer, aka ZEA. De Boer is guitarist and singer of The Ex, and the nice thing about his music is that he treats an acoustic guitar in all the ways you shouldn't do with an acoustic guitar. It delivers exciting music and singing on, and during this evening ZEA also paved the way for by far the most extraordinary musical phenomenon I saw in years: Willie Darktrousers.
This man from Donkerbroek has a thing for vowels. There is a guitar, and there are lyrics, but he turns each vowel into a combination of primal screams, Mongolian overtones and Albanian songbirds. This is beyond weird, and so it works on the chuckles. But then the good laughs, because the seriousness with which he works makes you listen more closely to why these heart cries sound anyway. And that's in the lyrics. It is refreshingly unsettling, and that is welcome on this festive literary evening, which at first threatened to get bogged down in the solemn church rhetoric that many less gifted stage poets tend to fall into.
Colourful
So the build-up was beautiful, from the fine cabaretesque recitation From Joost Oomen to the special appearance of Jerry King Luther Afriye, who on this, Frisian-determined evening, was able to look back with some irony at his first encounter with the people for whom the word 'block' stood at that time. On this evening, still attended by predominantly white and not very squeaky-clean audiences, that was a point of hope for someday a more colourful book week.
A word about Babeth. She is a lawyer and works at the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, so being a (performing) poet is not at all strange. Indeed: in earlier centuries, theatre talent and poetry practice was compulsory for lawyers. If this were more widely accepted again, Dutch culture would regain appreciation in our jurist-dominated society.
So let her be an example. Will we all benefit.
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