Tsead Bruinja 

biography	poetry:	contact
	my love, 2003

BIOGRAPHY

Tsead Bruinja (in Dutch Tjeerd Bruinja) unfinished, like so many other Groningen poets, his university studies, in his case English Language and Literature. He was born to the world on that slightly cloudy 17th July 1974 in the Frisian hamlet of Rinsumageest. Nevertheless, over the past few years he has developed into a dedicated and celebrated Frisian language poet and all-round organiser, driving force behind the annual 'Dichters in de Prinsentuin-Festival' (from 1998) and co-organiser of e.g. 'No(o)rdschrift' and the Poëziemarathon Groningen (from 2000), the latter taking place during Dutch National Poetry Day. Bruinja also published volumes of poetry by e.g. Daniël Dee, Petra Else Jekel and Ramona Maramis. In 2000 his Frisian debut, De wizers yn it read (Indicators in the red), was published with Bornmeer. In December 2001 he followed suit with a second volume with Bornmeer, entitled De man dy't rinne moat / De man die lopen moet. (The man who has to walk).

He skipped a year with his third volume of Frisian poetry, which was published in February 2003: Gegrommel fan satyn / Gegrommel van satijn (Mutterings in satin; Bornmeer).

Later that same year, in June, he published his first volume of Dutch poetry: Dat het zo hoorde (That's the way it should be), this time with Amsterdam publisher Contact. Shortly before this publication, he moved from Groningen to Diemen, to be closer to the centre of things.

Bruinja also translates work by e.g. Bart FM Droog and Wouter Godijn into Frisian.

With his artists' collective Gewassen (together with Sieger M. Geertsma, Alan D. Joseph, Raoul Thepen and Michiel Rasker), now sadly discontinued, the city council of Groningen awarded him the Hendrik de Vries grant 2002.

There are poems of his included in the seminal anthology Vanuit de lucht (Out of the Air; Passage, 2001). Together with the editor of this anthology, Daniël Dee, he has now compiled an anthology about female genitalia, entitled Kutgedichten (Poetry cunts; Passage, 2004), set to appear in January 2004.

Please browse www.google.com for more information about Tsead Bruinja.

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of differences in age or beliefs maybe the space
between us was as concrete as a continent once
perhaps I was busy discovering ways
of starting a fire while you and your lover

were lighting candles on the other side of the ocean
am I holding you too tightly I'm sorry I don't want to crush
you but am happy and sad at the same time

that there will never be more between us
than this universe in which we cannot come together
because it is too small for the grief of two becoming one

my love let time prise us apart when one by one we die
in this life we'll retaliate with bridges of words

© Tsead Bruinja, 2003
translation by the author with kind help of the translator John Irons

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