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This article traces the multilingual dimension of ‘Dutch’ poetry. Drawing on insights from the emerging field of Literary Multilingualism, it interrogates the various ways in which multilingualism is used in Dutch poetry from the early twenty-first century. Relating examples taken from five poetry collections of the early twenty-first century to ‘older’ examples of multilingual poetry, it argues that, to some extent, ‘Dutch’ poetry has always had a multilingual dimension. However, earlier examples of multilingual Dutch poetry tend to emerge from the experience of a shared and multilingual urban space, whereas contemporary examples of multilingual Dutch poetry tend to be grounded in the individual background of the respective poet. Despite this shift from collective to highly individualised forms of multilingualism, contemporary ‘Dutch’ poetry nonetheless conveys a longing for community. By conceptualising multilingualism as an expression of this longing, this article also highlights the ways in which multilingualism can be used as a flexible searchlight instead of, as has hitherto often been the case, a static quality that can be ascribed to a literary text.