Spot On Young Poets

High-school students from Dalton Den Haag, Edith Stein College and Chr. College De Populier recited their own poetry, the result of workshops and poetry lessons given at the schools by members of the Hague Poets Guild. Appearing with them are poets Radna Fabias and HemelBesem from South Africa, and the young student-poet Sumai Yahya.

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Information

Date and time Friday 18 January 2019 20:10 tot 21:05 uur
Location Theater aan het Spui - foyer

The literary future performed for you! Francis Broekhuijsen presented the students of High-school students from Dalton Den Haag, Edith Stein College and Chr. College De Populier reciting their own poetry, the result of the Spot on Young Poets workshops and poetry lessons given at the schools by members of the Hague Poets Guild. Appearing with them were poet Radna Fabias, winner of the 2018 C. Buddingh Prize, and rapper, spoken-word artist and writer HemelBesem from South Africa. Sumai Yahya, a participant from last year and winner of the 2018 Young Campert Prize, also performed. DJ Socrates took care of the sounds and beats.
One or two finalists for the 2019 Young Campert Prize were chosen during the Spot on Young Poets programmes on Friday and Saturday. The finalists recited their poems once more on Sunday during the Schrijversfeest (Writers Fest). One of them was chosen by the public and receivde the award of being the best Hague student poet.

Line-up

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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HemelBesem

(South Africa) os the stage name/nom de plume of rapper, writer, poet, actor and activist Simon Witbooi. He grew up impoverished in Capetown, where rap and hiphop became his outlet for the social inequality he saw all around. Although he began in English, Afrikaans quickly took over as his chosen langauge. HemelBesem (Heaven's Broom) calls himself an edutainer or educator because he wants to build bridges between communities and address African social issues. In his 2017 book God praat Afrikaans (God Speaks Afrikaans), he passionately defends the Afrikaans language. He is an ambassador for the Afrikaans Language and Culture Society (ATKV) and visits schools on a yearly basis in collaboration with the University of Stellenbosch for the Woorde Open Wêrelde (WOW) project. He is a descendant of Hendrik Witbooi, one of the greatest 19th-century resistance heroes during the genocide by the German colonizers in Southwestern Africa, now Namibia.


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Radna Fabias

(Curaçao, 1983) won all major poetry awards in The Netherlands and Belgium for her 2018 poetry debut Habitus. This startling, existentialist collection deals with Curaçao, feeling at home, and her role as a (black) woman, immigrant and outsider. She studied Writing for Performance at the Utrecht School of the Arts. Fabias' work is characterized by variety, both in terms of content and style. De Groene Amsterdammer magazine commented in 2018: "Fabias dares to utilize every nook and cranny of poetry as an art form; some poems are short and lyrical, others narrative and long, sometimes they are clear and accessible and then hermetic and experimental." Habitus has been published in France, Italy, Germany, Argentina and the USA. Fabias also translated poetry collections by British poet Warsan Shire and Nobel Prize winner Louise Glück into Dutch.
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Sumai Yahya

is a young poet from The Hague who won the Young Campert Prize during the 2018 Winternachten festival. In the fall of 2017, he participated in Spot on Young Poets, the educational project of Writers Unlimited, the Hague Writers Guild and Meermanno Museum | House of the Book. This project constitutes poetry workshops at Hague high schools, where students are given lessons in poetry and recitation. Sumai presented his poem during Winternachten 2018. One of the three finalists, he won the Young Campert Prize for best student poet during the Writers' Feast. He was at the time a pupil of the Edith Stein College in The Hague.
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DJ Socrates

(UK, 1980), like the philosopher, remains curious about new things. Always pushing boundaries and incorporating fresh music. He approaches each set as a unique road trip with a wide range of styles and countries passing by. His kaleidoscopic sound includes global reggae, trippy cumbia, UK bass, slow rave & African acid. With 20 years of experience under his belt, Socrates has matured like a good wine to celebrate life with. During Writers Unlimited Festival, he will provide a swinging Silent Disco in the foyer of Theater aan het Spui during Friday and Saturday Night Unlimited from 23:15 hours onwards.
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