FFÛH x Writers Unlimited Festival: presentation anthology by young The Hague poets

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Nine young poets from The Hague worked for a year on the publication of the first FFÛH anthology in which the main theme is the sea. Saturday afternoon 25 January 2025, the anthology, entitled Zilt en Asfalt, a publication of PIP Den Haag, was festively presented with readings by the poets in the foyer of Theater aan het Spui as part of the Writers Unlimited International Literature Festival Den Haag 2025.

The poets who contributed to Zilt en Asfalt are Lila Maria de Coninck, June Versluis, Gijs Huizinga, Frank van den Boom, Fester Vogels, Wouter van den Elzen, Agata Luisa Dohne, Jady van Zijl and Berthe Kemperman.

Together with Writers Unlimited, FFÛH brought literary delights to the foyer of Theater aan het Spui in two parts:

- from 13:00 to 14:00: open mic with readings by poets from FFÛH circles and by six authors who took part in Oude werken, jonge schrijvers by deBuren, Flemish-Dutch House for culture and debate, in which they read their poem or short story inspired by one of the museum's paintings on Friday night 24 January 2025 at Het Mauritshuis. Support, listen or recite your own work. Everyone was welcome.

- From 15:00 to 16:30: festive presentation of the first FFÛH anthology with readings of the poems it contains.

Saturday afternoon 25 January, the foyer of Theater aan het Spui was accessible free of charge. The FFÛH anthology was available after the presentation at the festival stand of bookshop De Vries Van Stockum in the foyer of Theater aan het Spui.

FFÛH is a poetry collective in its infancy. In FFÛH there is a great desire for a wider stage for the young writing talent hiding in The Hague. FFÛH is committed to putting the city behind the dunes on the map as a breeding ground for poetry. The first idea that grew out of that desire was to publish a collection of poems - by, for and about The Hague. Meanwhile, FFÛH also emerged as a platform for poetry evenings, open mics and collective writing sessions. In 2024, there were FFÛH meetings at De Utopie on Waldeck Pyrmontkade, at Waterkant in Westbroek Park and at Museum West, the former US embassy on Lange Voorhout.


Festival tip 1: for the full festival experience, you joined us for the grand festival events Friday Night Unlimited (24 January) and Saturday Night Unlimited (25 January)! Both nights you chose your own route along some 20 performances, readings and conversations on five stages in Theater aan het Spui and Filmhuis Den Haag. English and Dutch spoken.

Festivaltip 2: as Writers Unlimited presented in 2025 its 30th literature festival edition, we celebrated this anniversary with Playing with Fire, a show full of music, dance and literature at Amare (Danstheater) on Sunday afternoon, 26 January. You saw and heard Spinvis, Shirma Rouse, XILLAN, Babs Gons, Joost Oomen, Zaïre Krieger, Claudia Karapanou Flamenco Trio, Royal Conservatoire Dance and percussion group Pulse led by Eli Wing, among others. Note: Dutch spoken.


From 23 to 26 January 2025, Writers Unlimited International Literature Festival The Hague was to be found in theatres, libraries and schools throughout the city: from Theater aan het Spui, Filmhuis Den Haag, Amare and Paard to Theater Dakota, Theater De Vaillant, the Laakkwartier, Nieuw Waldeck, Schilderswijk and Ypenburg libraries, the Institute of Social Studies and De Haagse Hogeschool. With over 120 writers, poets and spoken-word artists and musicians from the Netherlands and abroad. With readings, prose, poetry, storytelling, spoken word, author interviews, topical talks, films and music.

Information

Date and time Saturday 25 January 2025 from 15:00 to 16:30 hrs
Location Theater aan het Spui - foyer
Price Free entrance.

Frank van den Boom

is a poet, thinker and co-founder of The Hague-based poetry collective FFÛH. He studied literature and classical languages at the Leiden University and enjoys writing about the relationship between man and nature in art and literature. Together with Gijs Huizinga, he forms a writing duo that seeks out all the wry corners of emotional life, for which Dutch poets like Simon Vinkenoog and Johnny van Doorn are inspirational sources.
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Fester Vogels

(The Netherlands, 2000) is a writer, visual artist and co-founder of the Hague poetry collective FFûH. Their texts attempt to find recognition within alienation, with texts full of stimuli, twists and turns. Within the chaos, representation and the recovery of narratives are central to his work. They contributed work, and also served as editor and cover designer, to Zilt en Asfalt, the first collection by FFûH, which was presented with readings during the Writers Unlimited Festival 2025. Their work has also appeared in Kluger Hans and SKUT. Fester's first poetry collection, Tijgerbalsem in je Ogen - Een opeenhoping van queer, poëtisch proza (Tiger Balm in Your Eyes - An Accumulation of Queer, Poetic Prose), was published in 2024.

Instagram: @festervogels
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Noah Gorrissen

is a large language model for human talk and a dyslexic addon. Always there to host and to connect everything. Co-founder, programmer and host of PIP Radio, a projects pooper with ongoing studies somewhere.
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Gijs Huizinga

(1998) is working as a chef at restaurant N and an autonomous artist. In his painting, he searches for an order in chaos, which manifests itself in abstract self-portraits. Together with Frank van den Boom, he forms a writing duo that explores all the wry corners of emotional life with sources of inspiration such as famous Dutch poets and spoken word artists Simon Vinkenoog and Johnny van Doorn.
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Lila Maria De Coninck

(2004, she/them) writes texts, performances and music. She is graduating this year from the ArtScience Interfaculty in The Hague. Her work deals with and simulates both the confusion inherent in multilingualism and self-taught learning, as well as the miscommunication that comes with it. Through experimental translations and writing experiments, she explores how an incorrect (interpretation of) speech simultaneously deconstructs and renews the language and the reality it describes. She works with alienation to make the reader, viewer or listener think about the underlying systems of meaning and nuances of their language use.

Instagram: @whothehellislila
Lila Maria De Coninck on SoundCloud
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June Versluis

(2001) is a chaotic writer, thinks up most of her writing on a bicycle and likes to read objectively bad books. Is engaged but also single and, as an archaeologist-to-be, she finds her inspiration in the evolution of the human psyche and flint. Her passions include - but are not limited to - sriracha, human evolution, hand washing, geology, coriander and the colour purple.
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Wouter van den Elzen

(2001) writes sporadically with/for/about ambiguity. He also studies ArtScience at the Royal Academy of Art (KABK, The Hague) and is into sound and/or music. Wouter hasn't hit it off in terms of passions that earn a living and decides to dedicate his life to getting his naan recipe perfect (only to inevitably bump his head against the fact that only the design of the pot scraper is perfect anyway).
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Agata Luisa Dohne

(Frankfurt am Main, 2002) is a writer and visual artist based in The Hague. In her texts, she explores themes such as femininity, the existence and non-existence of a body, and how best to portray a mouse in everyday life. She studies at the Royal Academy of Art, where she allows her textual research to resonate in her painting, textile and sculpture work, among other things. Since 2025, she has been part of the organisation behind the Hague poets' collective FFûH, with which her work was published earlier that year in the collection Zilt en Asfalt (Salt and Asphalt).
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Jady van Zijl

(2000) studied philosophy in Tilburg. Their view of poetry is that it is the place where language is used to strip language of itself. Poetry's job is to show the ambivalence of speaking thought and then to let it collapse into itself, thereby wresting it from its own purpose. His poetry was published in the first collection by The Hague's young poets collective FFÛH, titled Zilt en asfalt (2025).
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Berthe Kemperman

(2000) likes to dream away with a pen and paper, in words and pictures. As a teacher, she uses the power of language to instil a love of language in children. She enjoys breathing new life into dying words.
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