I cannot NOT write about losing Kevin Higgins and all that he meant to me. I was not the closest person to him on earth. That would no doubt be his wife Susan and Ziggo his ginger cat, his close friends and relatives, followed by fellow poets, followed by his students in Galway, followed by his online students of whom I was only one. In short Kevin was loved by many and as you could see from the many reactions in the days after his passing on 10 January, he will be missed by many.

Visual art by Wim Biewenga enhances C. Buddingh’s poem, even for non-Dutch speakers.

Like encountering a splash of red on a grey walk in the winter, I am excited about Kevin Higgins' workshop starting on 7 February 2022.

Brilliant in simplicity. Rutger Kopland is my favourite Dutch poet as I must have mentioned before. He uses plain language that takes you places. In this poem he takes us to the place of the poem, Leeuwarden, then to himself.

Pantoums are great for poems because of their repetitive rhythm . At the Scottish Association of Writers (SAW) conference, I came across the pantoum again. I love this Malaysian poem form. You need to say the words out loud. Then you get how it originated, and how the repetition works best.

Sometimes you experience something that can only be described as gezellig. It's nearly the same as cosy but cosy refers more to a place than to a time. Like a cosy house, a cosy room. But you would not say thank you for giving me cosiness. In Dutch you can do that and it's not odd at all.

Leeuwarden, Friesland in the north of the Netherlands is a great city for cycling. Leeuw is Dutch for lion. Creating one made out of bike parts makes sense. But the origin of the name Leeuwarden has unfortunately little to do with lions.