Jasper Albinus (1997) is a young poet and spoken word artist. He uses the art of poetry and performance as an instrument to make issues concerning identity, history and politics tangible. He performs at literary festivals, in theatres and sometimes adds a poetic note to a debate. He is affiliated with spoken word collective Poetry Circle and attended the Slow Writing Lab of the Dutch Foundation for Literature.

Geert Buelens (1971) was born in Belgium and has been living and working in the Netherlands since 2005. He is an award winning poet and literary and cultural historian. This fall renowned publishing house Querido will publish his fourth volume, Ofwa (Right?) - three long poems about our world, our planet, and our language in crisis. His book about European First World War poets has been translated into English, German and Serbian. For some of his poems in English, German and French translation, see: https://www.lyrikline.org/en/poems/verlies-7961

Dorien Dijkhuis (1978) is a poet, writer and freelance journalist. Her poems and travel essays are published in various literary magazines. In november 2019 her debut collection Waren we dieren (Were we animals) was released. In it she bridges distances in both time and space: between present and past, reason and instinct, ourselves and the other. Distance and the desire to eliminate that distance are key themes in her work. Her poems are explorations of what it means to be connected. She also finds connections in performing her poetry and in collaborating with other disciplines such as musicians and digital image makers.

Ben Hartman, a.k.a. MC Reazun, has been performing as a rapper and spoken word artist in Utrecht since 2003. Ben started rapping in French after he fell in love with a French girl at age 15, and continued doing so when he moved to Utrecht to study law and met other musicians there. 
 
In 2009 he was part of the Kyteman Orchestra and toured Europe and the Netherlands. His first Dutch solo album, called Ik Ben Hartman (I, Ben Hartman), was released in 2014. 
 
In 2018 he launched his second album with John Konatty, called Lopen en rennen (Walking and Running). Most recently he switched back to French and started singing too; the latest single is called "Essentiel".

Astrid Lampe (1955) has published nine works of poetry. Her collections with thought-provoking titles as De memen van Lara (The Memes of Lara, 2002) and K’NEX Studies (2007), are closely linked to the performing and visual arts. Her poems seem to resist conventional notions of poetic beauty and formal consistency, her work can cause particularly strong reactions. Undoubtedly this has much to do with the emphatic sense of physical presence that is characteristic of Lampe's work. As Lampe herself puts it, “In the end, the fundamental idea is a loving engagement without first having to deny the ugly and the horrible. My poetry is an unconditional love poetry.”

Marieke Lucas Rijneveld (1991) is regarded as one of the greatest talents in Dutch literature. In 2015 she made her debut with the poetry collection Kalfsvlies (Calfskin), which has been reprinted multiple times and was awarded the C. Buddingh’ Prize for best poetry debut. She has given readings at many literary events and her poems and stories have been published in numerous literary magazines. Rijneveld grew up in a Reformed farming family in North Brabant and currently lives in Utrecht, the city that awarded her the C.C.S. Crone Scholarship in 2015. Alongside her career as a writer she works on a dairy farm. Her first novel, De avond is ongemak (The Discomfort of Evening, 2018), sold over 60,000 copies and won the Booker International Prize in 2020.

Vrouwkje Tuinman (1974) published four novels and six poetry collections. Some of them have been published in English and German. Her latest collection, Lijfrente (Life Annuity), has been awarded the Grote Poëzieprijs 2020 – the annual prize for the best poetry publication in the Dutch language. Vrouwkje performs regularly at festivals and literary events in the Netherlands and abroad, mainly in the UK. She also works as a journalist. In recent years she wrote lyrics for several musical theatre pieces. Find her on www.vrouwkje.com. 

Maarten van der Graaff (1987) is a writer and a poet. He published Vluchtautogedichten (Getawaycarpoems) in 2013. A year later, this book was awarded the C. Buddingh' Prize for best debut collection. Dood werk (Dead Work), his second collection, was published in 2015. This book was awarded the J.C. Bloem Poetry Prize. Van der Graaff is an editor and co-founder of Samplekanon, an online literary magazine. In 2017, Wormen en engelen (Worms and Angels), his first novel, was published to great acclaim, recently followed by Nederland in stukken, his third poetry collection.

Photo : Bianca Sistermans

Ruben van Gogh (1967) is a Dutch poet, libretto writer and smartphone-art maker living in Utrecht, who published over 10 volumes of poetry (and anthologies), saw over 10 operas staged and had 3 exhibitions of his smartphone art. His voice is unique within Dutch poetry, combining clarity and wit with metaphysical aspirations. His most recent poetry collection is called Nikola – Een soort van antenne (Nikola – a kind of antenna, 2018). Van Gogh contributed to literary festivals around the world, ranging fromk Taiwan to Capetown. His poetry was translated in English, Chinese, Italian, French and German for several festivals, magazines and books. Currently he is the Guildmaster of the Utrecht City-poets Guild and board member of the P.C. Hooftprijs (the main Dutch prize for literature). He was a board member of the Dutch P.E.N. for several years.

Mia You was born in South Korea, raised in the United States, and currently lives in Utrecht, the Netherlands. She is the author of the poetry collections I, Too, Dislike It (1913 Press, 2016) and Objective Practice (Achiote Press, 2007). Her writing also appears in Artforum, Bookforum, The Boston Review, The Hairpin, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and Poetry magazine. She teaches literature and writing at Utrecht University and the Sandberg Institute.