'A very good. Dutch poet is Nijhoff. His poem "Awater" is the poem to reckon with, one of the grandest works of poetry in this [twentieth] century...This is the future of poetry, I think, or it at least paves the way for a very interesting future.'-Joseph Brodsky: Conversations (2003)<BR><BR>The poetry of Martinus Nijhoff (1894-1953) was distinguished by clarity of language combined with mystical content. His masterpiece Awater, written in 1934, is the most important Dutch poem of the 10th century.<BR><BR>This edition of Awater features three English translations, made at different periods, for comparison. As well as the Dutch text, it includes excerpts from a lecture by the poet on Awater's origins, an essay on the first translation of the poem by Daan van der Vat, which quotes from his fascinating correspondence about the poem with Nijhoff; and an essay by the most recent translator, David Colmer. It concludes with an essay by the leading Nijhoff specialist, Wiljan van den Akker, which illuminates key elements of the poem in the context of modernism.<BR><BR>Thomas Mohlmann is a poet who works for the The Dutch Foundation for Literature in Amsterdam.<BR><BR>Wiljan Van Den Akker is a distinguished professor of Modern Dutch Literature at University whose special field is modernist poetry in an international context.