Toon Tellegen: Raptors

This weekend I had to write a brief review of a collection of poems by the Dutch poet Toon Tellegen, owner, surely, of the best name in the world? The collection is called Raafvogels, or Raptors in English. What more do I need to say? If you're thinking, (as I did) that's good enough on its own, and let's not spoil it now! then you're in for a treat. His poetry is even BETTER! Now I don't know if I'm allowed to post any of his work directly up here- don't want to upset a fellow poet, especially not with such a profoundly awesome name as Toon, but I can post my review. And if you think it sounds up your street, the book is available on Amazon, or if you can wait, will also be on the Poetry Book Society online store. To read the article, click below.


Toon Tellegen

Born in 1941 in Den Briel, in the rural southwest of Holland, Toon Tellegen is one of the best-known Dutch writers of his generation. His span and volume of work is prolific; he has written a series of successful and award-winning books for children, material for the stage, as well as short stories and longer prose for adults. In addition to this, he has also had several highly acclaimed collections of poetry published, and until recently worked as a GP in his hometown of Amsterdam. A jack of all trades perhaps, but Tellegen has certainly mastered more than one. His latest collection of poems, Raafvogels, finds him at the peak of his productivity, and shows he has no intention of slowing down. 

Raafvogels, or Raptors in English, is Tellegen's second collection of poetry published in the UK (Carcanet). The title, plucked blind from a dictionary, is indicative of a collection of poems that are as dazzlingly original as they are bewilderingly abstract.

Each poem starts with the line "My father...", and in each serves as a jumping off point for a series of colourful, bittersweet and downright strange anecdotes about his family. At least, one presumes it's his family. Tellegen is typically cryptic about this issue: 

 'Years ago, I invented someone whom I called my father...' he writes in his prologue, 'and, in his turn, invented my mother, my brothers and myself.' 

This theme of misdirection and layering of truths is consistent throughout Raafvogels, and has the potential to make it an infuriating read. But it's Tellegens' relentless inventiveness and his humour and lightness of touch that instead compel us onwards, hooked on the madness, on the delightful drip-feed of surprises:

'My father/stuck to his guns... my mother was a cloud, dissolved... my father, my little father/grew like spearwort/out of his own skull.'

Tellegen describes his writing method as similar to jazz; it is a continual and seemingly limitless improvisation on a theme. That this theme should be his father, the man he followed into a career in medicine (his father also happened to be a GP), and how much we owe to Mr. Tellegen Snr. for this work, is never clarified. Indeed, Tellegen seems to want to distance himself, and his work from any concrete attributions. It is perhaps just as well- it's the ambiguity, the suspension of reality, and the sheer non-sense of it all that delights:

'my brothers dreamed of cheese/and frivolous marmalade/my mother counted to a million.'

As one newspaper in his native holland wrote: 'as far as Tellegen is concerned, there is only one question left: whether he is a writer or a genius. I suspect the latter.'

It is hard to disagree with this statement, after all, as they say, you have to be a bit mad to be a genius.