Skuil daar ’n verhaal in ’n liriese gedig? Nederlandstalige digters oor narratiwiteit in die poësie: Robert Anker, Tomas Lieske, Leonard Nolens, Willem van Toorn en Eva Gerlach

Is there a narrative hidden in a lyric poem? Dutch poets on narrativity in poetry: Robert Anker, Tomas Lieske, Leonard Nolens, Willem van Toorn en Eva Gerlach This article is concerned with the views expressed by poets on narrativity in lyric poems. Contemporary poetic ideas and tendencies, such as the preference for longer poems, the use of sequences (sequential poetry) and cycles, are used as a point of departure and thus the argument is linked to historical issues. A motivation for the theoretical approach is provided because the article forms part of a larger project in which narrative structures and techniques in lyrical poetry are studied. The main part of the article is devoted to a discussion of the ideas of five poets, who write in Dutch, on the role and function of narrativity in their recent work. The discussion is based on extended interviews conducted with these poets. The article is concluded with an analysis and interpretation of a short cycle of poems by Eva Gerlach