Babs Gons

Image Credit: Angela Tellier

Babs Gons is a Dutch writer, spoken word-performer and host.

For decades, she has been a driving force behind numerous poetry stage initiatives.

Gons made her debut in 2021 with her poetry collection and has since published several books and won several prices for her work. She has been presenting her work for years at festivals, in museums, debate centers, on radio and television, and has traveled with her work to South Africa, Sudan, Curaçao, Suriname, Hungary, and Brazil, among other places.

Gons is the Poet Laureate of the Netherlands from 2023 until 2025. The selection committee of the Poet Laureate praised Gons as 'one of the most appealing poets the Netherlands has right now, with a voice full of fire, burning and warm, both on stage and on paper. She is a poet who knows how to give passionate and committed words to what is going on in this day and age, in a society that she, full of conviction, connects with poetry.'