Sadiqa de Meijer | Keynote Lezing

Grondel Zonder Grendel: On Holding A Language Close

Thursday 11 June 2026 | 10:00–11:15
Online Viewers in Europe: 16:00–17:15

Languages are intimately aligned with the landscapes of their origins; in the rural Netherlands, “it’s almost as if language rises like a vapour, an early morning fog that fills the drainage creeks and blankets the tilled soil, and might drift to reveal the otherworldly dance of a stork, that clicking bird whose name is all long vowels and soft consonants, ooievaar.” Through a selection of readings from alfabet/alphabet: a memoir of a first language (Palimpsest Press, 2020), the grounded beauty of the Dutch language will be channeled through English. Then an exploration of Ida Gerhardt’s poem, Biografisch I, will raise the question of how we might constructively reenvision, in current political contexts, what it means to be responsible for a beloved language.