Leonie Zijlstra Kolarov

Kiezen is schneiden in Wasser is a four-language collection about a fragmented body, which finds itself in the nameless grandfather wrinkled in the palm of a hand, broken eggshells, a grandmother who guards her emptiness like a sheepdog, blood clots and a silent compartment. The loss of a language is an embodied process and becomes palpable in this collection. As a reader, you are drawn into the fragmentation of a character who lives between different countries and languages. A body that is stranded in trivialities, which harden into a place.  

sie sagen dat je moet kiezen 

und kiezen is schneiden in Wasser 

mein Gesicht aangelengd met wind 

so das es 

makkelijker zu trinken ist 

ich verliere dich lopend 

als ein kassabon  

die uit mijn jaszak fällt 

ich verliere jou in Supermärkten 

mein Gesicht aangeraakt wo es 

lekt en sleept een spoor 

van aarde door de kamer 

een puistig bos das nur 

in reflecties sichtbar wird 

Leonie Zijlstra Kolarov (2003) is a multilingual poet, writer and interdisciplinary artist.  

She writes and creates in an associative and sensory manner, exploring the boundaries of the body, dead animals in wombs, physical grief, bloodlines and narrative centres of gravity. For her, language is a space where the wind blows hard and things constantly come together in new ways. During her spellbinding readings, the listener is invited to see language as a possibility, rather than a given. She has performed at venues including Mensen Zeggen Dingen, Wintertuin and Frontaal Podium. Her work has been published in Seizoenszine and pulp De Luxe Magazine. With Kiezen is schneiden in Wasser, she is graduating from the Creative Writing programme.