With only 3.4 million people, Uruguay is the smallest Spanish-speaking country in South America, but it has always been well-populated with poets. The Uruguayan poet Leo Masliah makes this clear in his song “Biromes y Servilletas” (“Ballpoint Pens and Napkins”), which pokes fun at Montevideo, the capital where half the country’s population lives, as the place where “there are poets poets poets” that “claim neither glories nor laurels, laurels, laurels” and only “write, write, write” on every piece of paper they can find. Masliah does not exaggerate. The poetry scene in Uruguay is hyperactive. On most nights in Montevideo, there are poetry readings at multiple venues ranging from the national library to neighborhood bars.… Lês fierder

In trouwe en tige wurdearre lêzer fan It Nijs is Pieter de Groot, sjoernalist by de Ljouwerter Krante. De Groot hat in kollum yn dy krante, Dwers, en yn dy kollum neamt er It Nijs ek gauris. Meastal docht er dat yn positive sin, mar hy is soms ek kritysk.

Op 31 oktober skreau De Groot de njonkensteande tekst. No’t de diskusje oer de stavering fan it Frysk ek wer losboarsten is, like it ús aardich om de kollum hjir oer te nimmen en ris te hifkjen hoe’t ús lêzers oer de takomst fan it Frysk as skriuwtaal tinke.

De Groot, tige tank foar it meilêzen en meilibjen!… Lês fierder

Jacob van Lennep had een halfbroer die gestoord was. Dat werd geweten aan kwaad bloed in de familie van diens moeder.

Lês fierder by Marita Mathijsen… Lês fierder

Now lees ik een protte Friestaelige boeken en ik kan deurgaons meraokelse best mit de Friezen akkederen. De Friese schriever Douwe Kootstra is ien van mien beste kammeraoden en vandemiddag gao ’k weer over de Kuunder et Friese laand in. Mar d’r bin greenzen!

Lês fierder by Johan Veenstra… Lês fierder

Ta myn grutte skrik sjoch ik dat myn lêste bloch hast ien moanne lyn skreaun is. Ien hiele moanne, 30 dagen… Ik haw al wat e-mailtsjes krigen oft De Guozzepinne útskreaun is, de inket op is, oft ik lêst haw fan in skriuwersblokkade, KPN wer ris problemen hat mei it ynternet, myn klapbek stikken is, Windows net meiwurkje wol omt de lêste update net mear beskikber is, en sels mei de fraach oft myn Hollânske klapbek it net docht op Fryske stroom.

Lês fierder by Kitty Madison… Lês fierder

Mark Strand died today at eighty, we were sorry to learn. When Wallace Shawn interviewed him for The Paris Review in 1998—a year before he won the Pulitzer Prize for his collection Blizzard of One—Strand described his relation to death: “It’s inevitable. I feel myself inching towards it. So there it is in my poems. And sometimes people will think of me as a kind of gloomy guy. But I don’t think of myself as gloomy at all. I say ha ha to death all the time in my poems.”

Lês fierder by The Paris Review… Lês fierder

Soms kan ik me verbazen over de manier waarop Randstad en Noorderlingen tegen elkaar aan zitten te hikken. Of het nu gaat om de aardgaswinning en de daaruit voortvloeiende schade of om zoiets als de Friese taal, gefronste wenkbrauwen zijn meer regel dan uitzondering.

Lês fierder by Koos Tiemersma… Lês fierder