Putting On My Species is about identity and selfhood, the desire for the very beginning, the sardonic pleasure of making and destroying in order to start over again, the love of poetry. How should I live? Sasja Janssen wonders. Who am I? Am I my memories? In a sober but moving style, Sasja Janssen gnaws away at her species.

"What makes this poetry so good? Janssen takes a risk by letting the poem find its own bedding, she is open to any new vista that appears and astonishes with absurd images, yet this isn't all it takes to write strong poetry. What matters is that the stakes are high. This poet desperately tries to grasp something of the insane world in which we have ended up and in which we have to make do with totally inadequate means." -Piet Gerbrandy, De Groene Amsterdammer

Translated by: Michele Hutchison