Leaving: A Poem from the Time of the Virus [Hardcover]

An exceptionally current volume of poems from one of Europe’s greatest poets that dwell on the most pressing reality of our times: the coronavirus pandemic.

One of the leading living European writers, Cees Nooteboom never shies away from contemporary issues. His latest collection of poems,Leaving, begins in a garden with descriptions of Mediterranean plants, but what emerges are memories of the war—images of a distant past that have never disappeared. The poems take another turn when, unexpectedly, a mysterious virus takes control of the world and turns life upside down.
 
A collection that can be read as a single poem, in which desolation and beauty, past and future, nostalgia and mortality all merge to represent the most mature work of a great poet. German artist Max Neumann’s haunting images that accompany the poems work as complex visual metaphors that further underline the beauty and the gravity of the poems. Together, they make for a delicate and thoughtful read.Cees Nooteboom is one of Europe’s leading living authors. His poetry, novels and, travel literature have been translated into many languages. Several of his books, includingLight EverywhereandMonk’s Eye,are also available from Seagull Books.Max Neumannis a German artist.David Colmeris an award-winning translator.The end of the end, the man in the winter garden
Asked himself, what could that be?
If nothing else, he thought, not any kind of sorrow.
He looked outside and saw a cloud that looked
 
Like a cloud, as grey as lead, too heavy
For every balance, the bare fig against the wall
With the thousand-year-old stones,
The geese next door, their disapproval,
 
The way the night needed to be set right,
The grammar of expropriation, nobody
Themselves anymore, not a single apparition,
Withdrawal after defeat
 
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