To me writing is a way to investigate and understand the world around me, and a way to to share and connect with others. I write in my mother tongue, Dutch, and in English, a language that I have made my own and love.
My love for words started through my love for music, gaining inspiration from musical lyricists like Ben Howard, boygenius and Taylor Swift. So it is no surprise that my debut album, released in March 2022, is a combination of poetry with music, produced by my friend and collaborator Jochem Broersen from Ocabo Music. The conceptual album tells the story of what it is like to be the person standing next to a loved one, who is suffering from mental illness. It is called ‘Naastenliefde’, meaning ‘love thy neighbor’, and is in the end a celebration of human strength and (self) love.
I have always seen myself as a “performance poet” first. I perform at different events, enjoying the directness of sharing my words with a live audience. In September 2023 I was chosen as the winner of a SPOKEN Award for poetry, resulting in a theater tour in the beginning of 2024.
I started writing in English around 2020, resulting in my first English piece ‘Don’t say war‘, written as a response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2021. After director Jan-Willem Bult produced a video of me performing the piece, it was selected by multiple film festivals and won Best Experimental Film at the Venice Fullshot Film Festival and the Toronto Indie Film Makers Festival, and won Best Poem Short Film at 8 & Halfilm Awards Rome.
This was followed by ‘ARMOR‘, recorded in Brooklyn, New York City in May 2024 in support of the worldwide student protests for a free Palestine.
On 8 August 2025 I will release my first English EP, called STANDSTILL, as the first chapter of the trilogy album DYNAMO. The DYNAMO project will take the connection between poetry and music a step further, incorporating more song writing influences. Read more about this project here.
