Wall poems in Leiden

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File:BlokLeiden2.JPG
A wall poem in Russian by Alexander Blok

Wall Poems (Dutch: Muurgedichten, alternatively Gedichten op muren or Dicht op de Muur) is a project in which 101 poems in many different languages were painted on the exterior walls of buildings in the city of Leiden, The Netherlands.[1][2][3]

History and description

The Wall Poems project was funded by the private Tegen-Beeld foundation of Ben Walenkamp and Jan-Willem Bruins, the project's two artists, with additional funding from several corporations and the city of Leiden.[2][4] It began in 1992 with a poem in Russian by Marina Tsvetaeva and (temporarily) finished in 2005 with the Spanish poem De Profundis by Federico García Lorca.[4] Other poets included in the set include e.e. cummings, Langston Hughes, Jan Hanlo, Du Fu, Louis Oliver, Pablo Neruda, Rainer Maria Rilke, William Shakespeare, and W. B. Yeats,[3][5] as well as local writers Piet Paaltjens and J. C. Bloem.[4] One of the more obscure poems in the collection is written in the Buginese language on a canal wall near the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies; it and many of the other poems are accompanied by plaques with translations into Dutch and English.[2]

Guides

A guide available on the web describes a walking tour for visitors to Leiden that takes in 25 of the 101 poems.[6] The first 43 poems have been collected in a book by Marleen van der Weij, Dicht op de muur: gedichten in Leiden, and the rest are described in a second volume, published in 2005.[7]

Gallery

Influence

The poem Le bateau ivre on a wall in Paris

Based on the success of the Leiden poetry project, wall poems have also been painted in several other Dutch cities.[8][9] In 2004 the Dutch embassy to Bulgaria launched a similar project in Sofia,[10] and in 2012 the Tegen-Beeld foundation collaborated with the International Society of Friends of Rimbaud to paint a poem by Arthur Rimbaud, "Le Bateau ivre", on a government building in the 6th arrondissement of Paris.[11] In 2012 a poem by Marsman was painted on a wall in Berlin.

Publications

  • Marleen van der Weij: Dicht op de muur. Gedichten in Leiden. Gemeente Leiden, Dienst Bouwen en Wonen, 1996. ISBN 9080139580 (2nd ed.: 1996, 3rd ed.: 1997). 6th, rev. ed.: Burgersdijk & Niermans, Leiden, 2000. ISBN 9075089082 [Description of the first 43 poems].
  • Marleen van der Weij: Dicht op de muur 2. Gedichten in Leiden. Burgersdijk & Niermans, Leiden, 2005. ISBN 9075089112 [Description of the poems 44-101]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found..
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found..
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found..
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found..
  5. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found..
  6. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found..
  7. ↑ Dienst Bouwen en Wonen, Leiden, 1996, reprinted 2000 and 2005 by Burgersdijk & Niermans, Leiden; see worldcat. A second volume, published in 2005, (Dicht op de muur 2) describes the poems 44-101.
  8. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found..
  9. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found..
  10. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found..
  11. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found..

External links

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