Friday Night Wintercafé: Spot on Young Poets

High-school students from the Hague region reading their own poetry, the result of workshops led by members of the Hague Poets' Guild. Professional poets Salena Godden and Marieke Rijneveld accompany the up-and-comers.

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Information

Date and time Friday 20 January 2017 20:10 tot 21:00 uur
Location Theater aan het Spui - foyer

Francis Broekhuijsen presents students of Hague high schools reading their own poetry, the result of workshops led by members of the Hague Poets' Guild. Young poet and 2016 C. Buddingh Prize winner Marieke Rijneveld and British poet and performer Salena Godden keep them company. During each Spot on Young Poets event (Friday and Saturday), one finalist for the Young Campert Prize will be chosen. Both finalists will read their poems during Sunday's Writers' Festival event, ahead of the award ceremony of the Jan Campert Foundation prizes. The public will choose one of them as the winner of this new prize for best Hague student poet. Come down and witness the literary future!

Francis Broekhuijsen

(The Netherlands, 1970) is a presenter, producer, actor and voice-over artist specializing in music, literature, arts and culture. After graduating as actor from the Toneelschool Amsterdam he was a member, among others, of the ensemble of the Nationale Toneel. He was a presenter at Amsterdam-based broadcaster AT5 and a radio producer with the KRO on national network NPO Radio 1. He narrates audio books, and was shortlisted for the Storytel Award 2019 for Best Audio Book with his reading of Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer's novel Grand Hotel Europa. Until last year, he presented on radio station Sublime the daily morning show Sublime Sunrise, the Instagram poetry programme Sublime Smooth and evening show The Sublime Experience. In 2025 he wrote and hosted the tv-series Kringlopen met Francis on regional Dutch broadcaster NH. Broekhuijsen works for Writers Unlimited as festival curator and presenter.

Go to the website of Francis Broekhuijsen
Instagram: @francisbroekhuijsen
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Salena Godden

is an icon of the British spoken-word scene, a beloved English poet and performer, a social and political activist, and a radio producer. In the early nineties she began publishing CDs and DVDs of her poetry readings and live performances; she continuously expands this series, such as with 2020's The Lockdown E.P. Her poems, essays and short stories have been included in dozens of anthologies. Since 2011 she has published the poetry collections Under the Pier and Fishing In The Aftermath - Poems 1994-2014, and the youth memoir Springfield Road. Pessimism is for Lightweights - 13 pieces of courage and resistance (2018) was inspired by protests and demonstrations about issues such as women's rights, justice, sexism, racism, immigration and identity. Her debut novel Mrs Death Misses Death was published in January 2021.
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Lucas Rijneveld

(The Netherlands, 1991) is a writer and poet. The first Dutch writer to do so, Rijneveld won the 2020 International Booker Prize for The Discomfort of Evening, the English translation by Michele Hutchison of his 2018 debut novel De avond is ongemak. His Kalfvlies (Calf's Membrane, 2015) won the C. Buddingh Prize for best poetry debut, was followed in 2019 by his collection Fantoommerrie (Phantom Mare). His poems are riddle-like prose stories featuring notably strong metaphors. He writes about grand themes like death and loneliness, and about his experiences as the country child who goes to study in the big city.  In 2021 he published his second novel Mijn lieve gunsteling, in which a veterinarian and a farmer's daughter develop a mutual obsessive fascination. Its English version My Heavenly Favorite was awarded the James Tait Black Prize for Fiction in 2025. His poetry collection Komijnsplitsers (Cumin Splitters, 2022) explores what it means be home: in a house, within oneself, and in relation to others.

Instagram: @lucasrijneveld
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