Peter Verhelst receives the Grand Poetry Prize for a collection that sparkles

“Start and start again. That can be so heartbreakingly beautiful,” writes the jury of the Grand Poetry Prize Zabriskie by Peter Verhelst. In that collection, Verhelst drops us into a desert landscape, a mythical universe in which two lovers undertake seven ‘voyages’, interrupted by four mirages and an oasis – a representation of life, sketched by Verhelst in a visual, vibrantly sensory language.

“Soon we used it all up. The grasses are yellow. / We open the wrists, the children’s necks”, read the ominous opening verses. Sparseness and heat shine through in it. Together with the characters in the collection we travel to the horizon, to the gold mountain, to the promised land, as if in a fever dream.

Zabriskie is the final part of a trilogy. Together with Zon (2015) in 2050 (2021), the collection is a dystopia about people looking for something to hold on to in a time that smells of doom. But there is also another sound: hope and a longing for a new beginning. “It is a feverish trip to the essence of human life,” said the jury report. Unlike the previous collections, we seem to have entered “a world that is emerging anew,” wrote reviewer Paul Demets The Standard of Letters. A woman throws sugar into the air, which is caught, solidifies and forms a bridge: ‘The origin of desire‘. Yes, that is possible in the beautiful, sensual imagery of Peter Verhelst. The incipient world is built on remains of the past, on ‘Vertebrae of what was once a city‘, for example.”

It is a collection that, unlike the earlier parts in the trilogy, calls for dreams, dancing and singing, as an antidote to the apocalypse. “Sing through treetops, make cables hum, buildings hum. Whistle through holes in walls. / Howl like the wind through the valley. Jump up against the flanks while barking.”

Fireworks above water

Zabriskie is full of references to music, film and art. First of all, the title refers to Zabriskie Point in Death Valley, one of the hottest places on earth. But it is also a reference to the film of the same name by Michelangelo Antonioni. The collection also contains references to Bach’s Goldberg Variations and the choreography that Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker made for them, to artists such as Bram Demunter and Dirk Braeckman, and to a song by the Pixies. Pain and comfort, strength and fragility are close together in this poetry. Verhelst lets everything end in an open ending. And on fireworks: “Under an oak tree a woman takes off and runs across the pond into the mist. Think: tonight/ nothing is impossible. The next woman starts running and/ a man is already taking off his shoes. One by one./ Fireworks above water. Billions of glitter.”

Zabriskie is “a glowing, enchanting collection that invites reflection and celebrates language, with dreams, visions, songs and rituals, a fairytale collection in which we can find comfort in these dark times,” according to the jury. The much-lauded Peter Verhelst (61) was the old age dean of the shortlist. He beat Merel van Slobbe (32), Sofie Verdoodt (41), Dewi de Nijs Bik (36) and Jens Meijen (28). The Grand Poetry Prize is the successor to the VSB Poetry Prize. An amount of 20,000 euros is involved. The audience award goes to the collection Anchor cross heart by Sofie Verdoodt.