Menno Wigman

Menno Wigman (1966-2018) published five poetry collections, compiled several anthologies and translated a large number of European poets, including Baudelaire, Rilke and Laske-Schüler. In 2006, Wigman was the youngest poet to write the ‘Gedichtendagbundel’: a small collection with a print run of 15,000 copies, published to celebrate the Dutch and Flemish National Poetry Day. In 2007 he made his debut as a prose writer with Het gesticht (The Mental Institution), a lively and fascinating report of the three months he spend as a poet-in-residence at a mental institution near the Dutch village Den Dolder. A collection of his essays on poetry, Save Us from the Poets, was published in 2010. His collection of poems, My Name is Legion (2012), was shortlisted for the VSB Poetry Prize and won the Awater Poetry Prize in 2013. In 2018 he was awarded the Ida Gerhardt Poëzieprijs.