Johannes Pieter "Jan" Kal (born 1946 in

Haarlem Haarlem (; predecessor of ''Harlem'' in English) is a city and municipality in the Netherlands. It is the capital of the province of North Holland. Haarlem is situated at the northern edge of the Randstad, one of the most populated metropoli ...

) is a

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or writte ...

. He lives in

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...

. Along with others, such as

Gerrit Komrij Gerrit Jan Komrij (30 March 1944 – 5 July 2012) was a Dutch poet, novelist, translator, critic, polemic journalist and playwright. He rose to prominence in the early 1970s writing poetry that sharply contrasted with the free-form poetry of his ...

, , and , he helped revive the

sonnet A sonnet is a poetic form that originated in the poetry composed at the Court of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II in the Sicilian city of Palermo. The 13th-century poet and notary Giacomo da Lentini is credited with the sonnet's invention, ...

Dutch poetry Dutch language literature () comprises all writings of literary merit written through the ages in the Dutch language, a language which currently has around 23 million native speakers. Dutch-language literature is the product of the Netherlands, ...

, and substantially all of Kal's work is in sonnet form. His earliest published work is dated 1966, and his first volume of sonnets, ''Fietsen op de

Mont Ventoux Mont Ventoux (; oc, Ventor, label= Provençal ) is a mountain in the Provence region of southern France, located some northeast of Carpentras, Vaucluse. On the north side, the mountain borders the department of Drôme. At , it is the highest m ...

'' ("Cycling up Mont Ventoux") was published in 1974. His range of styles and subjects is wide, including

love poetry Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings in a ...

, religious poems, and

occasional poetry Occasional poetry is poetry composed for a particular occasion. In the history of literature, it is often studied in connection with orality, performance, and patronage. Term As a term of literary criticism, "occasional poetry" describes the wo ...

(notably celebrating sportsmen Ard Schenk,

Joop Zoetemelk Hendrik Gerardus Joseph "Joop" Zoetemelk (; born 3 December 1946) is a Dutch former professional racing cyclist. He started and finished the Tour de France 16 times, which were both records when he retired. He also holds the distance record in T ...

, and

Johan Cruijff Hendrik Johannes Cruijff (, internationally known as Johan Cruyff; 25 April 1947 – 24 March 2016) was a Dutch professional football player and manager. As a player, he won the Ballon d'Or three times, in 1971, 1973 and 1974. Cruyff was a pr ...

). His poetry tends to humorous

irony Irony (), in its broadest sense, is the juxtaposition of what on the surface appears to be the case and what is actually the case or to be expected; it is an important rhetorical device and literary technique. Irony can be categorized into ...

as well as, at times, melancholy. To English-speaking readers who understand a little Dutch, perhaps his most accessible poems are his many sonnet versions of American popular songs, including those of

Buddy Holly Charles Hardin Holley (September 7, 1936 – February 3, 1959), known as Buddy Holly, was an American singer and songwriter who was a central and pioneering figure of mid-1950s rock and roll. He was born to a musical family in Lubbock, Texas ...

Bob Dylan Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture during a career sp ...

, and his favourite,

Frank Sinatra Francis Albert Sinatra (; December 12, 1915 – May 14, 1998) was an American singer and actor. Nicknamed the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, Chairman of the Board" and later called "Ol' Blue Eyes", Sinatra was one of the most popular ...

. In 2007, Kal appeared at the Crossing Border festival of literature and music in

The Hague The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital of ...

Volumes of sonnets

There are no translations of Kal's poetry in English yet. *''Fietsen op de Mont Ventoux'', 1974 (''Cycling up Mont Ventoux'') *''Praktijk hervat'', 1978 (''Practice resumed'') *''December'', 1979 *''Waarom ik geen Neerlandistiek studeer'', 1980 (''Why I don't do Dutch studies'') *''Assepoester'' (1981) (The ''

Cinderella "Cinderella",; french: link=no, Cendrillon; german: link=no, Aschenputtel) or "The Little Glass Slipper", is a folk tale with thousands of variants throughout the world.Dundes, Alan. Cinderella, a Casebook. Madison, Wis: University of Wisconsi ...

'' story retold in 39 sonnets, illustrated by Irene Wolfferts) *''Chinese sonnetten'' (1984) *''Amsterdam, Halfweg'' 1987, 1989 ("Halfweg" – meaning literally half way – is a railway station midway between Amsterdam and Haarlem) *''Mijn manier – 144 Sinatra-sonnetten'' (1990) (''My Way''. Dutch translations of Sinatra songs in sonnet form) *''100 doortimmerde sonnetten uit 25 jaren, 1966-1990'', 1991 (''100 well-crafted sonnets'') *''Oprechte Haarlemse sonnetten en tekeningen'', 1992 (''True Haarlem sonnets and drawings''. The title is an allusion to a former Haarlem newspaper, the

Oprechte Haerlemsche Courant The ''Haarlems Dagblad'' is a regional newspaper in Haarlem, Netherlands. It makes claim to being the newspaper with the oldest publishing history in the world, even if this claim is based on its (forced) merger with another title. ''Oprechte ...

) *''Het schrijvershuis'', 1995 (''The House of Writers'') *''1000 sonnetten, 1966-1996'', 1997 *''Laat ons leven en minnen'', 2000 (''Let us live and make love''. Love poems translated from the

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

Catullus Gaius Valerius Catullus (; 84 - 54 BCE), often referred to simply as Catullus (, ), was a Latin poet of the late Roman Republic who wrote chiefly in the neoteric style of poetry, focusing on personal life rather than classical heroes. His s ...

) *''Hun zeggen'', 2007 (''They say'' in working-class Amsterdam Dutch) *''Een dichter in mijn voorgeslacht'', 2015 (''A poet among my forefathers'')

References

Sources

Jan Kal at the Digital Library of Dutch Literature

External links

Several Jan Kal sonnets

Photos of Jan KalBibliographical information and a link to two of his sonnets
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kal, Jan 1946 births Living people Dutch male poets Dutch republicans Writers from Haarlem Occasional poets