Van den Boom is the seventeenth in-house poet and will succeed Philip Rozema. She impressed the jury with her ‘intimate, understated poems with a strong rhythm and linguistic power, evoking surprisingly beautiful imagery.’
‘I’ve known for two months, but I had to keep it a secret. But now, people just keep on congratulating me. It’s a great day’, says the new in-house poet. She has been writing for years: she is a poet as well as a singer-songwriter under the stage name ‘Mees’. She also served as president of Literary Society Flanor and was editor at the Poetry Marathon. ‘I’m usually organising things behind the scenes. It’s really weird to suddenly find myself in the spotlight. But when I heard, I literally jumped for joy’, she says.
Challenge
As in-house poet, she wants to use her poetry to challenge students to experience and think about things differently. ‘Poetry should tell what it’s truly like to be human, especially with everyone projecting their 2D image online in the form of the most flattering profile picture’, says Van den Boom.
She wants to perform a lot in the coming months. Monday will be her first time: she will do a recital during the opening of the academic year at the Martini church. ‘I might like to organise something as well this year. My final project is still a secret, but it’s musical and should bring people who usually don’t pay a lot of attention to poetry closer to it’, says the new in-house poet.
This year marks the first that the RUG has fully organised the election for in-house poet. In previous years, it was organised by the UK. The Universiteitskrant passed the organisation on to the RUG last year after the editorial staff decided to take a different course.