I Dreamed in the Cities at Night : Selected Poems

Remco Campert - a household name in his own country where he is highly regarded not just as a poet but for his fiction and his entertaining newspaper column - is virtually unknown outside The Netherlands. In his Translator's Preface, Donald Gardner explains what drew him to Campert's poetry: "I liked its jaunty pessimism. I was attracted by the tension between the romantic, often sexual, energy of this poetry, and the off-hand cynicism, wit and irony...It is a poetry that draws the reader into it, so that one is seduced and lost before one realizes it." The present selection (drawn from Campert's entire oeuvre, though largely focusing on recent work) is his first UK publication since "In the year of the Strike" (Rapp & Whiting) appeared in 1968 and certainly the most substantial collection to date to appear in the English-speaking world.