Branchings
‘Branchings’ by Roland Jooris is the culmination of an oeuvre that increasingly strives for reduction, stillness and abstraction. From his neorealist beginnings, Jooris has evolved towards a poetry that does not depict reality but distils it into a minimal, almost ascetic linguistic form. In this collection, themes of transience, absence and observation are central. The pared-down poems, surrounded by generous white space, show how much meaning emerges from what is left unsaid.
Pared-down poems in which the white space between the lines allows meanings to proliferate. – Boekenkrant
Jooris explores how the unseen and the unsayable can nevertheless become visible in the imagination: language reaches towards those things that elude direct perception. At the same time, the collection reflects on art and creation as such, with clear references to sculpture and painting. Like the work of Giacometti, to which they explicitly refer, the poems form gaunt, skeletal structures that lay bare their essence.
At an advanced age, Jooris is writing here against mortality; his poems resemble skeletons of language that take a stand against disappearance. In this concentrated form, poetry itself becomes an act of resistance — an attempt to use minimal means to make something endure.
A collection for connoisseurs – Cutting Edge
Timeless – Literair Nederland
