In het Bos met de Blos

Jolanda Kooijmans received a grant to write the poetry collection In het Bos met de Blos: a subtle and profound volume about growth and decay, creation and destruction, family bonds, competition, and solidarity. The collection holds up a crystal-clear mirror to our turbulent times and is at the same time a bizarre ode to the sweet and the cute.

Jolanda is a poet and visual artist. Her work is a graceful ode to imagination, language, and the wilful river of poetry. Like an alchemist, she blends linguistic registers from all eras and ferments them into the fable-like substances that become her poems. In doing so, she explores the tension between narrative progression (a fluid movement) and the open space of poetry (passion, inspiration, and surprise). The mythological and metaphysical are never far away, yet her work remains strikingly earthy and grounded. Her poetry collection Addertje was published in 2025 and received widespread critical acclaim in numerous newspapers, magazines, and literary platforms.