[CLOSED] Open call: Poets for Vers van het Mes 2024

Vers van het Mes has been organised since 2003 and pays attention to up-and-coming poetry talent. During three stage events in the Netherlands and Flanders, the selected poets will have the chance to present their work to an audience through readings and a poetics in which they talk about their work, the poetry landscape and their role in it.

We ask for a first draft of the poetica by mid-February. On 5 April 2024, we will organise a performance workshop for the selected poets in Amsterdam and the first performance in the evening. Two performances in Belgium will follow in the weekend of 13 and 14 April. Please keep these dates free if you apply.

Want to participate?

For this thirty-eighth edition, we are making an open call for poets to submit a critical selection of a number (minimum 5 and maximum 10) of poems to vvhm@perdu.nl by 20 November 2023. Submissions will be assessed by the editors of Perdu and deBuren.

The submission consists of:

– A short motivation (maximum 200 words),
– A brief positioning of your work in the poetry landscape (maximum 200 words),
– A critical selection of a number of poems (minimum 5, maximum 10),
– If you wish, you can also include an audio version of one of your poems.

Please keep these guidelines in mind:

– We anonymise submissions. Do not mention your name anywhere in your application. Do mention your telephone number and current place of residence in your accompanying e-mail,
– Submit your application as 1 PDF file; give the first 5 words of your first poem as file name,
– Audio files should be submitted as an mp3 file via WeTransfer. Give the file the same name as your PDF file (even if it is not the recorded text),
– Give your e-mail the subject line ‘Kandidatuur Vers van het Mes’.

Requirements for participation:

– You are at least 18 years old,
– Your entry has not been published before. You have not yet published your own collection; magazine publications or (DIY) chapbooks or zines are allowed,
– Your submission is your own work,
– Your submission is submitted by 20 November 2023.

Note: We only accept entries in Dutch, as the jury is Dutch-speaking and best able to judge literary works in Dutch.

You will receive confirmation of receipt within 3 working days. By the end of December at the latest, we will announce whether you are part of the selection for Vers van het Mes 2024. We cannot correspond about the results.

Vers van het Mes is a cooperation between deBuren and Perdu.