Arimei Books

May is Editor's Pick at BookLife - Review:

...This thoughtful, lyrical translation will stir the imagination and invite consideration of what makes the heart sing, even if the joy, like May, is only temporary. The poem, though, will endure.

... Kruijff’s translation of Dutch writer Herman Gorte...

Famous first words -

Gorter started his Mei (May) with what would quickly become the most famous line in Dutch poetry: "Een nieuwe lente en een nieuw geluid" (a new springtime and a new sound), expressing both the theme of youth and a totally fresh approach to poetry. It purposefully brings to m...

Introduction to 'May, an epic poem about youth' (full text)

How Kruijff's nostalgic reminiscence of springtime and his childhood led to The May Project and to the translation of Gorter's Mei into English.

Read now the introduction to May by translator M.Kruijff.

Introductie Lees Mei 2021 (volledige tekst, in Dutch)

Op 13 mei 2021 in Dat Bolwerck, Zutphen, is een speciale editie gehouden van Lees Mei, georganiseerd door Hans Heesen. Twintig liefhebbers lazen Gorters Mei in haar geheel voor. M. Kruijff, die Mei in het Engels vertaalde, verzorgde de introd...

'She found then, at the highest of sharp mounds
Of barren heather-hills, which formed a round
Fortification of a shallow hole,
A wall about a heath-camp like a bowl
With dark erica, not yet flowery.
She chased a bee that buzzed there hungrily
For honey, stepped into it, disappeared
From the red f...

'The spring is new and new the sound it brings' - Herman Gorter, 'May', The Netherlands, 1889.

'How often she has now been listening
To the first bird song, when leaves jittering
And skittish flutter up for morning wind,
The swallow flight and buzz of bees begins.'

Photo: Hylke de Vries

'So fell a lot of flowers in the flow;
It took them with it, stuck them to the bounds
Of the estates, and Holland soon was found
Alight with little flames. The pastures' whiff
Fills sails of ships, and rich blossoms adrift
On wind adorn the orchard trees for miles,
No burden to them, they'll jus...

Review by Lloyd Haft (poet and translator)

M. Kruijff has captured the rhythm, and with it the spirit, of Gorter’s timeless spellbinder. The reader is drawn almost breathlessly onward through magnificent word-groups...'the water seethed in its eternal flames'..., 'in the glittering of mother gle...

Reviews and errata to May now available

An overview of reviews and errata to the first edition of May can be found on below link.

Illustration: Cisca Baars.