Jakobus Cornelis (Jacques) Bloem (10 May 1887,

Oudshoorn Oudshoorn is a former village in the Netherlands, Dutch province of South Holland. It was located on the Oude Rijn (Utrecht and South Holland), Oude Rijn, opposite the village of Alphen (South Holland), Alphen, with which it merged to form the cit ...

– 10 August 1966, Kalenberg) was a Dutch

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems ( oral or wr ...

and

essay An essay is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a letter, a paper, an article, a pamphlet, and a short story. Essays have been sub-classified as formal ...

ist. Between 1921 and 1958 he published fourteen volumes of poetry. In 1949 he won the

Constantijn Huygens Sir Constantijn Huygens, Lord of Zuilichem ( , , ; 4 September 159628 March 1687), was a Dutch Golden Age poet and composer. He was also secretary to two Princes of Orange: Frederick Henry and William II, and the father of the scientist C ...

prijs, one of the country's highest literary awards, and in 1952 the

P. C. Hooft Award The P.C. Hooft Award (in Dutch: P.C. Hooft-prijs), inaugurated in 1948, is a Dutch-language literary lifetime-achievement award named after 17th-century Dutch poet and playwright Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft. The award is made annually. Background ...

for his literary oeuvre. In 1965, in rapidly declining health, he was awarded the highest Dutch-language literary award, the

Prijs der Nederlandse Letteren The Prijs der Nederlandse Letteren (''Dutch Literature Prize'') is awarded every three years to an author from the Netherlands, Belgium or, since 2005, Suriname writing in Dutch. It is considered the most prestigious literary award in the Dutch-spe ...

. He was nominated for the

Nobel Prize in Literature ) , image = Nobel Prize.png , caption = , awarded_for = Outstanding contributions in literature , presenter = Swedish Academy , holder = Annie Ernaux (2022) , location = Stockholm, Sweden , year = 1901 ...

. Dubbed the poet of unfulfilled desire, he is hailed as one of the 100 greatest Netherlanders of the twentieth century. The Dutch poetry award J.C. Bloem-poëzieprijs is named after him.

Life

In his early years, Bloem was a great admirer of the

symbolist Symbolism was a late 19th-century art movement of French and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts seeking to represent absolute truths symbolically through language and metaphorical images, mainly as a reaction against naturalism and real ...

poetry of

Charles Baudelaire Charles Pierre Baudelaire (, ; ; 9 April 1821 – 31 August 1867) was a French poet who also produced notable work as an essayist and art critic. His poems exhibit mastery in the handling of rhyme and rhythm, contain an exoticism inherited ...

; it is, however, for a relatively simple, almost naive poem that he is best remembered in the Netherlands, "Domweg Gelukkig in de Dapperstraat", "simply (or foolishly) happy in the Dapperstraat", a market street in East

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...

. The poem also lent its title to a popular anthology of Dutch poetry. His legacy, beside his poetry, remains a bit controversial: he was suspected of

antisemitism Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism. Antis ...

and of sympathizing, at least initially, with the

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...

Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hit ...

government, and in a recent biography the possibility of his having been

homosexual Homosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or sexual behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions" to pe ...

was proposed. Still, his importance to the country was reaffirmed at the fortieth anniversary of his death, a celebration of his life and work in Paasloo, where he and his wife Clara Eggink were buried.

Select bibliography

*''Het verlangen''. 1921. *''Media vita''. 1931. *''Nederlaag''. 1937. *''Sintels''. 1945. *''Quiet though sad: gedichten'' ’s-Gravenhage, A.A.M. Stols, 1946. *''Verzamelde gedichten''. ’s-Gravenhage, A. A. M. Stols, 1947. *''Verzamelde Beschouwingen''. ’s-Gravenhage, A.A.M. Stols, 1950. *''Afscheid''. ’s-Gravenhage: L. J. C. Boucher, 1957. *''Poëtica''. Amsterdam: Athenaeum/Polak & Van Gennep, 1969. *''Ongewild archief''. ’s-Gravenhage: BZZTôH, 1977. .

References

1887 births 1966 deaths 20th-century Dutch poets Dutch male poets Constantijn Huygens Prize winners P. C. Hooft Award winners Prijs der Nederlandse Letteren winners Officers of the Order of Orange-Nassau People from Alphen aan den Rijn 20th-century Dutch male writers {{Netherlands-writer-stub