Dean Bowen
(The Netherlands, 1984) is a poet, performer and events programmer. As evident in his multilingual poetry collection Bokman (2018), his work looks at the relationship of people's identity to society. A strong performance won him the first Van Dale SPOKEN Award. In 2019 and 2020 he was poet laureate of Rotterdam. Ik vond geen spoken in Achtmaal (I Found No Ghosts in Achtmaal, 2020) describes, via diary entries, poems, confessions, and rituals, the search for what remains of a person long after he has died. He has published poems on the online platforms SampleKanon and Hard//Hoofd and in magazines such as nY and Kunsttijdschrift Vlaanderen. He teaches performance literature and poetry at the Creative Writing programme at ArtEZ. Together with Flemish writer and musician Joost Hoekaf, he creates introspective hip hop in the Vudu Cru project. His next collection, Masc:r, will be published in January 2026.
Instagram: @dean_bowen
Instagram: @vudu.cru
Past events
Warriors! Heroes from Suriname and the Caribbean
Spoken word, music, dance and stories by Gershwin Bonevacia, Dean Bowen, Julien Ignacio, Raj Mohan, OTION - Master of Sceneries, and Karin Amatmoekrim
Poems from the Berber Library
Poets recited works of the four greatest Rif poets on the occasion of the completion of the Berber Library.
Writing poetry in Dunglish and other languages
Which role does English play in the poetry of the Dutch language area? Seven young poets answer with new poems.
