Eva Cox
(Belgium, 1970)   
 
 
 
Eva Cox

Eva Cox is a late-bloomer. She began writing poetry just before she turned thirty, in 1999, and made her debut later that year as a performance poet. After many performances, she entered Flanders’ first poetry slam competition, which she won hands down. Cox writes rattle rhymes and verses that work well on stage, and creates an alienating atmosphere in more carefully written, delicate texts.

Cox’s first poetry collection Pritt.stift.lippe. (2004) was nominated for the C. Buddingh’ prize and the Flemish debut Prize and awarded with the highest stipendium for a literary debut by the Flemish Literature Fund. With this volume, she also won the Literature Prize of the Province of East Flanders in 2008. With only twenty published poems to her name, Cox established herself as a new, long-awaited voice in Flemish poetry. She was the first woman poet in decades to surprise critics and readers.

The Dutch critic and fellow-poet Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer wrote about her: “Eva Cox writes poems like girls with eyes like pinball machines, ( . . . ) a voice like a flapping flag, a mineshaft in her throat( . . . ) Read this aloud and burn your throat. This is tough poetry.”

In 2009 Cox published her successful second collection Een twee drie ten dans (One two three let’s dance) with the Bezige Bij publishers.

© Tom Van de Voorde

Bibliography
Pritt.stift.lippe., Uitgeverij Holland, Haarlem, 2004 
Een twee drie ten dans, De Bezige Bij, Amsterdam, 2009

Literary prizes
Nomination for C. Buddingh’ prize (2005)
Honorable mention from the jury of the Flemish debut Prize (2005)
Literature Prize of the Province of East-Flanders (2008)

Links
Eva Cox’s personal website

A video of Cox performing her poetry

 

 



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