OUT NOW: PEACE, PEACE THEY SAY

MARTINE VAN BIJLERT'S FIRST POETRY COLLECTION

 

"Trying to write about peace, I kept writing about war"

 

Available in print and ebook from all major online stores. 

 


In this collection of poems that "refused to sound upbeat," Martine van Bijlert confronts the dissonance of writing about peace "while the world around us bucked and roiled." 

Fuelled by "memories of aftermath and foreboding" and a stubborn insistence not to call peace what isn't, the poems keep returning to the "messy work / of hoping for a miracle / while wading through / the mud of trying." 

Van Bijlert's refusal to sugarcoat either war or peace infuses the poems with raw power and emotional depth.

 

Martine van Bijlert is a mixed media poet, artist and researcher, who grew up in Iran, lives in the Netherlands and in between worked as an aid worker, researcher and diplomat, mostly in Afghanistan.

 

Available in print from all major online stores (amazon, Barnes & Nobles, Bol, other places).

Also available as ebook. 

Published by Rainfed press. Available in paperback and ebook. 

Audiobook expected soon.

 

FROM THE REVIEWS

Review by Alex Strick on Goodreads

"Soft words to knock you down

These collection of poems by Martine van Bijlert is made up of a series of short poems originally conceived as part of a 'World Peace Poetry Postcard Exchange'. I'll be chewing on these poems for a while, but at first reading I found them deeply moving. She wrestles with the fact that "the horrible true is the digging up of children / will not stop the war" and of what happens when you come back from war to a country where peace reigns. Reading these poems is like having someone strike a resonant gong in your guts. Powerful stuff, and deserves a wide audience."