Jan Baeke (b. 1956) is poet, translator, editor and curator. In 1997 his first collection of poetry Nooit zonder de paarden (Never without the Horses) got published. His fourth collection Groter dan de feiten (Bigger than the Facts, 2007), was nominated for the VSB Poetry Prize. For Seizoensroddel (Seasonal Gossip, 2015) he won the prestigious Jan Campert Poetry Prize 2016. His most recent collection is Het verkeerde hart (The Wrong Heart, 2022).

Jan Baeke’s work has appeared in various magazines and anthologies, both in the Netherlands and other countries. In 2020 Bigger than the Facts by Arc Publications (UK) by Vies Parallèles in Brussels  (title trans. Plus grands que les faits).

Since 2006, together with visual artist and composer Alfred Marseille, under the name Public Thought, he has been making poetry films, data poems (texts and images driven by data traffic), soundpieces and installations. 

Jan Baeke has translated poetry by Liz Lochhead, Deryn Rees-Jones, E.E. Cummings, Norbert Humelt, Derek Walcott and Jack Spicer.

He also has edited and co-written the essay collection The Truth Is a Woman (Cossee Publishers, 2012), a collection of contemporary essays mirroring the Mythologies collection by Roland Barthes.

Besides being a poet and translator, Jan Baeke is one of the programmers of the famous Poetry International Festival in Rotterdam.

NO OBJECTION, NO SOUND EITHER

I have gathered the shards of my heart

and wondered how we should embark on this

new, ever-recurring time.

I played a song in which your voice was hidden.

I washed the clothes that you’ll never wear again.

I saw you off, said goodbye to you, explained to you

that the flowers and the visits wanted to mean everything.

You made no objection, no sound either.

I went home to put it all in place

and to wait and see what the chairs and the bed

and the empty space in your coat want to mean.

Translatad by Judith Wilkinson