Ménage à deux (a dialogue in pieces) by Benne van der Velde published on Double Dutch magazine!

Written By Benne van der Velde

Preface:

“And he never again did. Talk to me. Since 2001… Why, hi there! Between 1998 and 2001 Benne penned down 5000+ pages of internal dialogue. To be able to do that he wrote 10 pages per day, every day aboard the Ferry where he worked at the time, and, somehow, came up with me: Erik. Erik Ergo. Nice to meet you, I’m sure. For the last couple of years he’s been fiddling with it practically non-stop, and, if nothing else, he hopes we pieced together a result that reads like a fucking bullet train and does justice to what stuck with him the most after reworking a selection of about 500 pages from those 5000+ into the volume in front of you. The amount of energy committed to just about anything he set his mind to at the time. How we drove each other onward, relentlessly, and often made things so much harder than needed or healthy in the process. But in hindsight, talk is cheap. Even a shit load of it. We talked ourselves into some unnecessary and often easily avoidable frenzies, and he himself into a serious mental breakdown by the end of us, in the French Pyrenees. But boy oh boys, we sure were alive! For the rhythm, getting more than lost in The Process, stumbling in, and out, and back in love, an obsession with a certain French connection, friends and family, and yes, for the sex, those fucking drugs and an emerging career as a poet. You don’t have to like us from back then, or even sympathize. Wholesome we were most certainly not, nor always in tune to the blistering heat we radiated. For those negatively affected, sorry about that…? We tried so, so hard. Being unbearably young and much, much too beautiful. It was a trip. 29 trips a day, every work day, to be more accurate. In your face, unapologetically hardcore and yet, at the same time, completely vulnerable. Imperial, butt naked Odysseys across some Dutch river. With, after all these years, this unique ego/slice of life and Zeitgeist document to show for it. A love story like no other we know of. So, if nothing else we guess there’s that, at least.”

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Benne van der Velde

After thoroughly enjoying the Dutch slam poetry scene in the early and mid 2000s (with wins in 7 cities and eventually a place in the Nationals of 2012) and performances at the Lowlands-, Uitmarkt- and Parade festivals a/o, Benne successfully made the transition from the stage to paper by signing his first publishing deal in 2005. Since then 4 publishing houses (kleine Uil, Douane, Nadorst and Stanza) released volumes of his poetry. For a 5th (Passage) he co-edited an anthology of satirical/pamphlet poetry with fellow poets Daniel Dee and Alexis de Roode.

As a member of the artist movement ‘Het Ongeboren Idee’ he helped to organize (and was part of/presented) cultural lo-fi festivals, exhibitions, making a movie, monthly poetry stages in his hometown of Vlaardingen (Poezie in De Steeg), Rotterdam (De Poetsclub) and Nijmegen (Late Letteren Live) + a talent show for bands.

In 2002 and 2003 he studied ‘writing for performance’ at the vocational university of the Arts in the city of Utrecht (HKU) and as a result saw 3 of his theater plays make it to a stage. Writer Hiekelien van den Herik and he co-wrote a knight spectacle play complete with real choreographed sword fights, men in heavy plate armor and more great stuff like that. Theater-/enactment group Ridderspoor performed said play in 2004 and 2005 at Het Archeon, during De Kasteeldagen and at an Elfia-fantasy fair. He also gave numerous poetry and rap workshops at schools and other institutions. There were a lot of collabs too, for example voice-over work for a Rock Opera, a monumental art project for which he partnered up with the artist Erwin Adema and thrice alongside the R.J.S.O (The Rotterdam Youth Symphony Orchestra).

Benne has been an editor for several literary magazines (Krakatau, Renaissance and Op Ruwe Planken), at one time he and his wife owned a secondhand bookstore, he’s been the official poet laureate for his hometown of Vlaardingen and released his first and only Dutch rap-EP in 2011. In 2012 he rapped his way into the finals of Art Rocks. An EP with songs in English followed in 2021. A year later he started translating Dutch musical and lyrical classics from Dutch into English, and vice versa. Some of his short sci-fi and fantasy stories have found their way to medium related websites, magazines and anthology’s.

According to the poet himself rewriting his own poetry, lyrics and prose in English somehow feels like the next logical step in his career, a way to open up to the world at large. Which is both exhilarating and terrifying. So far several of these translations have been published in Bebarbar, Hare’s paw, Festivalforpoetry, Punt Volat, The Dewdrop, The Dillydoun Review and Months to Years a/o.

In everyday (some claim real) life he worked as an industrial tank cleaner, in pest control, on a garbage truck, driving a forklift, in a chemical waste facility, on a Ferry and 10 years as a bartender in a cannabis bar. At the time of writing this resume he can be found at home or in the hospital battling throat cancer. He’s been off the Herb since 2008, has a wife, 2 dogs, mild anxiety issues and likes to read every sci-fi and fantasy classic he can find.

www.linkedin.com/in/benne-van-der-velde-8b17a7296

The poet/lyricist and author Rob Chrispijn: ‘Benne writes sentences that stick; clean, dark and intense. This way a poem lasts!’

The poet Philip Hoorne on the website Poetry rapport: ‘There’s a genius hiding in Benne van der Velde, those are the Good Tidings of today. Amen.’

https://www.doubledutchmagazine.com
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Double Dutch magazine (regular) issue nr. 2 is live!