Versindaba
~ 'n Kollektiewe weblog vir die Afrikaanse digkuns ~

 

Foto deur: Ela Lempp.

Die Poolse digkuns is inderdaad geseënd met ‘n aantal formidabele digters, waaronder die Nobelpryswenners Wisława Szymborska en Czesław Miłosz, plus die “kon-net-sowel-gewen-het”-kandidate soos Zbigniew Herbert en veral die weergalose Tadeusz Różewicz (foto). SJ Fowler, wat ‘n onderhoud vir 3:AM Magazine met die 91-jarige Różewicz gevoer het, begin sy onderhoud met die volgende waarneming: “A poet who changed the face of twentieth century poetry, Tadeusz Różewicz is a giant of Polish literature and undoubtedly one of the most important poets the country has ever produced. Still writing in his 91st year, his lifetime engagement with groundbreaking poetry, fiction and plays has spanned, and often encapsulated, the seismic tumult of the past century in his home nation. His poetic is the rarest of things, an anti-art that resides still within the realm of the explicable, and the ethical, striding between the utterly personal and the political – often brutal in its beauty and intensity, it is an aesthetic that is wholly his own, unique and unwavering [...] Tadeusz Różewicz has set him aside as one of the most respected innovators and stylists in modern European history.”

Inderdaad.  Danksy Różewicz se ervarings tydens die wêreldoorlog, en veral vanweë die feit dat hy grootliks as ‘anti-digter’ beskou word, sentreer heelwat van Fowler se vrae rondom dié aspek van Różewicz se skrywerskap en as sulks raak dit ‘n onderhoud wat netjies aanklank vind by heelwat van die onlangse gesprekke op hierdie webblad; veral die wat oor die etiese aspekte van die digkuns gehandel het …

 By wyse van lusmaker, die volgende drie vrae, met Różewicz se antwoorde daarby:

3:AM: You’ve spoken of an almost epiphanic moment when you realised literature could not provide you with refuge and solace in the aftermath of the horrors of the Second World War and your painfully intimate involvement with those experiences. Is your work centred on a notion of this failure of literature to provide concrete resolutions?

Tadeusz Różewicz: I‘m going back to 1945. I found myself in Krakow. I was going to study Art History at the Jagiellonian University, and it wasn’t accidental that what I chose to study was the history of art. It was in order to reconstruct the Human Being bit by bit. It was as if I had two different men living inside me then. One was full of admiration and respect for ‘fine’ arts – music, literature, poetry; the other was full of mistrust of all the arts. The site for this struggle inside me, between those two personae, was my poetic practice. I felt admiration, reverence, for works of art – the aesthetic experience replaced the religious experience – but at the same time I felt a growing disdain for those ‘aesthetic’ values. I felt something had ended forever – for me, for humanity – and it was something that religion or science or art hadn’t protected. As a young poet – and one who worshipPed all the great poets, living and dead, like gods – I came to understand Mickiewicz’s words, too soon: ‘It’s harder to live well through a day than to write a book’. And I understood, also too soon, what Tolstoy said: that writing a children’s alphabet book means more than all the novels of genius. Well, understanding ‘truths’ like that prematurely doesn’t help a writer who’s got years of apprenticeship ahead of him in the kingdom of art.

3:AM: And do you think this realisation is an ethical reality that all writers and readers need to grasp, to admit literatures limitation, and work forward under that foundation?

TR: I turned away from aesthetic sources. Dismissively. I thought: ethics, that can be the source of creative work. But both those wells had dried up: ‘The murderers washed their hands in them’. So I tried to reconstruct the one that seemed to me the most important for life, and for the life of poetry. Ethics. And because I’d linked politics with ethics and not aesthetics ever since my youth, my work had a political hue, and in my mind the political stood for the socially progressive.

3:AM: What are your reflections now, decades on from your decision to employ your definitive, direct, minimalist and fundamentally reactionary and ethical and responsible, poetic style?

TR: New art comes into being through the invention of a new form – a new form of expression, a new language and syntax. Not through making noble declarations, repeating slogans, signing letters and protests, not through insisting that we’re full of humanitarian feelings. An engaged artist is an artist who’s engaged in the struggle for a new form… the content’s the same for everyone: everybody suffers, has family conflicts, sexual problems, gets ill, has problems with children, political problems, religious, dietary, ecological, housing, and so on and so on. That’s the human condition… but only artists are condemned to try to solve the problems of form. An epigone’s not a creator, because the hardest problems have been solved for him by the real Creators. Nowadays we often hear that everyone’s an artist and a poet, that everything’s poetry… yes, it’s true, everything is poetry… except for bad poems.

Gaan lees gerus die volledige onderhoud by 3:AM Magazine. Vir jou leesplesier volg een van Różewicz se beroemdste gedigte.

***

Pigtail

When all the women in the transport
had their heads shaved
four workmen with brooms made of birch twigs
swept up
and gathered up the hair

Behind clean glass
the stiff hair lies
of those suffocated in gas chambers
there are pins and side combs
in this hair

The hair is not shot through with light
is not parted by the breeze
is not touched by any hand
or rain or lips

In huge chests
clouds of dry hair
of those suffocated
and a faded plait
a pigtail with a ribbon
pulled at school
by naughty boys.

© Tadeusz Ròzewicz (Vertaling deur Adam Czerniawski)

 

 

 

Onlangs het die PoëzieCentrum ‘n bloemlesing met die gedigte van twaalf kontemporêre Roemeense digters uitgegee en om dié geleentheid in die kalklig te plaas, het Sander de Vaan namens MeanderKrant ‘n onderhoud gevoer met Jan Mysjkin, samesteller en vertaler van Voor de prijs van mijn mond; ‘n bundel wat “alle aandacht verdient”, soos De Vaan dit onomwonde stel. Want dat die Roemeense lettere ‘n vreemde gedierte is, is nie te betwyfel nie; enersyds omrede hul vernaamste skrywers nooit in Roemeens geskryf het nie (hieronder is daar skrywers soos Paul Celan, Eugène Ionesco en Tristan Tzara), dog andersyds omrede hulle – ten spyte van wat as een van die ergste verdrukkings wêreldwyd, tydens die Ceauşescu-era, gereken kan word – tog daarin kon slaag om digters van die statuur van  Nichita Stănescu, Ana Blandiana en Nina Cassian te lewer.

Met sy eerste vraag tref De Vaan ‘n vergelyking tussen die Roemeense digkuns en dié van Pole en Rusland wat baie meer prominensie in Europese geledere geniet as die Roemeense; ‘n toedrag van sake wat volgens Mysjkin direk verband hou met die afwesigheid van ‘n internasionale  “kampvegter” vir die Roemeense digters. Ook bestaan daar volgens hom nie voldoende vertalings in ander tale nie.

Maar dit net ter syde. Die opmerking waarop ek egter wil fokus, het te make met die stand van die Roemeense digkuns na die omverwerping van die Kommunistiese diktatuur en die drakoniese sensuurwette wat dié era gekenmerk het.  “Nee, vandaag kunnen ze op papier zetten wat ze maar willen,” antwoord Mysjkin op de Vaan se vraag: “al heeft het tot 2000 geduurd voor er echt een beweging op gang kwam die schoon schip maakte met de abstracte en esthetiserende poëzie van hun voorgangers. In 1998 publiceerde Marius Ianuş het ‘fracturistisch manifest’, waarin hij pleit voor een poëzie waarin de dichter zonder schroom over zichzelf schrijft. Voor de fracturisten komt het er niet op aan om een mooi taalding ineen te knutselen, met gesofisticeerde enjambementen, meditatieve diepgang of hoogdravend lyrisme. Hun drijfveer is zuiver biografisch en existentieel. Ze willen zo direct en authentiek mogelijk het niet al te vrolijke leven in Roemenië vastleggen in een taal zonder versierselen. Onder het communisme was dat onmogelijk en het kwam dan ook als een schok bij de vorige generaties aan, die hen als vulgair en pornografisch afschilderden. De fracturisten streefden naar een ‘poëzie na de poëzie’, maar ondertussen maakt hun werk gewoon deel uit van het poëtische landschap. Nadat de beweging als groep een doorbraak had geforceerd, zijn de persoonlijkheden elk hun weg gegaan, dat was bij ons met bijvoorbeeld de Vijftigers niet anders. De critici die de ‘Generatie 2000’ proberen in kaart te brengen, hebben het over ‘neo-expressionistische’, ‘minimalistische’, ‘hyperrealistische’, ja zelfs ‘deprimistische’ poëzie. Het getuigt alvast van een gevarieerd palet aan invalshoeken. Maar al gaan de dichters van vandaag niet langer gebukt onder de politieke censuur, nu klagen ze wel over de dictatuur van de vrije markt: wat niet verkoopt, wordt niet gepubliceerd. Ze kunnen het natuurlijk altijd nog zelf drukken en aanbieden, ook door middel van internet, er is geen mens die hen een strobreed in de weg legt. Er is ook geen mens die om hen vraagt, dat is een andere kwestie.”

Klink dit alles bekend? Ai, ai. Hoe meer dinge verander, hoe meer bly dit dieselfde, lyk dit my … Gaan lees gerus die volledige onderhoud. (Daar is uiteraard vele ander aspekte waaroor gesels word wat ek nie in my oorsig hierbo betrek het nie.)

Nietemin, hieronder volg drie gedigte deur drie wonderlike digters. Op MeanderKrant is daar nog vele ander om te geniet.

***

 

ANA BLANDIANA

Glas met margrietjes

Glas met veldmargrietjes
Op een witte tafel
Waar ik aan schrijf
Vrijer dan ik ben;
Om mij heen
De geur van hooi
Die me tot de slaap verleidt,
Waaruit misschien een woord
Zal druppelen;
Zachte hemel in het avondrood
Gelijkend op de kudden
Die weleer naar de stal terugkeerden;
Liefde voor alles wat is geweest,
Voor alles wat nog moet verdwijnen,
Liefde zonder zin,
Liefde zonder grenzen –
De schaduwen van populieren, lange tralies over het veld,
Veldmargrietjes
In een glas.

***

NINA CASSIAN

Klucht

Ik zou graag een keer mijn beenderen schikken
in een andere configuratie,
mijn beenderen die de weg van mijn vlees
versperren, lastige beletsels die

het omleggen in de vorm van een vrouw
en een peer, en een zeester voor mijn handen.
Ik zou graag mijn goddeloze beenderen
uitproberen in schema’s allerhande,

bijvoorbeeld: de grondvorm van het oerschip,
het doorkijkskelet van de luzerne,
ofwel de stamboom met postume vruchten
die opklimt tot een maagdelijke kern.

En ik wil graag ook mijn beenderen plooien
alsof ik geknield aan het bidden toog,
zodat ik hém op een dwaalspoor kan brengen,
de argeloze Paleontoloog.

***

NICHITA STÃNESCU

Een hond kopen

De engel kwam en zei tegen me:
‘Wil je geen hond kopen?’
Ik was niet in staat om hem te antwoorden.
Alle woorden die ik hem zou hebben toegeroepen
zouden geblaf zijn geweest.
‘Wil je geen hond kopen?’
vroeg de engel me, en in zijn armen hield hij
mijn blaffende
hart,
kwispelend met zijn bloed als met een staart.
‘Wil je geen hond kopen?’
vroeg de engel me,
terwijl mijn hart
kwispelde met zijn bloed als met een staart.

 

 

Foto deur Steve Pyke.

In navolging van die onlangse gesprek oor hermetiese digkuns, lees ek ‘n interessante stuk op Poetry International Web oor die Amerikaanse digter John Ashbery raak; ‘n digter wat allerweë gereken word as nie net een van die vernaamste hermete vandag nie, maar ook as een van die mees gewaardeerde en geliefde digters in die Amerikaanse lettere beskou word.

By wyse van oriëntering, eers die volgende kommentare wat op Poem Hunter gevind kan word: “John Lawrence Ashbery is an American poet. He has published more than twenty volumes of poetry and won nearly every major American award for poetry, including a Pulitzer Prize in 1976 for his collection Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror. But Ashbery’s work still proves controversial. In an article on Elizabeth Bishop in his Selected Prose, he characterizes himself as having been described as ‘a harebrained, homegrown surrealist whose poetry defies even the rules and logic of Surrealism.’ Although renowned for the postmodern complexity and opacity of his work, Ashbery has stated that he wishes it to be accessible to as many people as possible, not a private dialogue. “

En – “No figure looms so large in American poetry over the past 50 years as John Ashbery,” Langdon Hammer, chairman of the English Department at Yale University, wrote in 2008. “[N]o American poet has had a larger, more diverse vocabulary, not Whitman, not Pound.” Stephen Burt, a poet and Harvard professor of English, has compared Ashbery to T. S. Eliot, the “last figure whom half the English-language poets alive thought a great model, and the other half thought incomprehensible”.

Die essay op Poetry International Web waarna ek hierbo verwys het, is deur Ton van’t Hof geskryf en handel oor die gedigte van John Ashbery wat hy vertaal het en wat nou as Ergens in Amerika gaan verskyn. Van’t Hof tipeer Ashbery se digkuns soos volg: “Over the years Ashbery has used a familiar technique: effective vagueness. Ashbery’s phrasing sounds concrete, but is in fact so general and ambiguous, that each time it smoothly fits in with the reader’s experiences, tuning his or her thinking to the poem. I rarely feel uncomfortable near an Ashbery poem. This effective vagueness is an important criterion for finding the proper words: whenever I have a choice, I always opt for the Dutch word that enlarges the meaning of the text in its entirety, even if it creates new connotations in comparison with Ashbery’s original work. Although I’ve never asked him, I believe that that is what he would want me to do […]Another effect of this vagueness is that every reader reads his or her very own John Ashbery poem.”

Hoekom hierdie van belang is? Wel, hierdie opmerkings oor Ashbery se kenmerkende digstyl kan myns insiens net so van toepassing gemaak word op Alfred Schaffer se digkuns; selfs die verwysing na “surrealisme” en Ashbery se versugting dat hy “toeganklike” verse wil skryf is van toepassing … Maar hoe gemaak met die vertaling van diesulke verse? Volgens sy eie verklaring het Van’t Hof homself die vryheid vergun om bepaalde woorde wat hy as “effektief vaag” beskryf in die Nederlands te “verruim”. Hierteenoor het Daniel Hugo weer met sy vertaling van Alfred Schaffer se gedigte (Kom in, dit vries daar buite, 2013: Protea Boekhuis) die oorspronklike teks met uiterste integriteit hanteer; ten spyte van die assosiatiewe (surrealistiese?) spronge wat die hermetiese vers so dikwels maak.

Myns insiens strek dít Daniel Hugo as vertaler tot eer.

Maar, ‘n laaste beskouing. In sy onderhoud met Danie Marais het Alfred Schaffer soos volg reageer op Marais se vraag oor die hermetiese aard van sy digkuns: “Watter soort poësie ek skryf, hang tot ’n mate ook af van die leser. ‘Hermeties’ sou ek my gedigte nie wil noem nie. ’n Gedig wat verwys na ’n musiekstuk of kunswerk of geografiese plek wat ek persoonlik nie ken nie, kan vir my meer hermeties voorkom. Die mate van verstaanbaarheid hang tot ’n mate saam met die soort van assosiatiewe denke van die leser. Wat wil jy as ’n leser van ’n gedig? Elke leeshouding is geldig, maar elke opvatting sorg weer vir ’n ander tipe leser. Moeilik of maklik, tradisioneel of eksperimenteel, poësie speel tot ’n mate altyd met die onsegbare.”

Inderdaad.

Op Poem Hunter is daar verskeie van John Ashbery se gedigte wat gelees kan word. Aangesien die meeste van hulle betreklik lank is, plaas ek as lusmaker hieronder net die laaste strofe van die gedig “Syringa”. En vir jou leesplesier, ‘n gedig van Alfred Scahffer soos dit deur Daniel Hugo vertaal is.

***

 

Droombegin

Die nagte is die ergste. Verderaan die laaste plase
maar alles is al onherkenbaar selfs my eie stem niks
niks maak meer sin nie – wat bestaan lyk skielik
supernaby en gedokumenteer, die water in die slootjies
die wind deur die kniehoë gras, die suigende grond
en daardie perd daar ek dink dit is ’n perd. Om tyd te wen
strik ek my veters. In my rugsak water kos droë klere
’n handvol los koeëls my selfoon het gewoonweg ’n sein.
Ek dink skaars, ek haal skaars asem, presies of ek dood is
maar ek is springlewendig. Is ek dors dan drink ek, is ek moeg
dan sing ek ’n liedjie wat my ma altyd vir my gesing het.
Van bo af sou dit miskien kon lyk of ek vlug maar
van bo af is alles duister. Hoogstens nog ’n paar kilometer skat ek
dan kom die son op, skitterend en helder lig oor alles.

© Alfred Schaffer (Vertaling deur Daniel Hugo)

***

Syringa

………..

But how late to be regretting all this, even
Bearing in mind that regrets are always late, too late!
To which Orpheus, a bluish cloud with white contours,
Replies that these are of course not regrets at all,
Merely a careful, scholarly setting down of
Unquestioned facts, a record of pebbles along the way.
And no matter how all this disappeared,
Or got where it was going, it is no longer
Material for a poem. Its subject
Matters too much, and not enough, standing there helplessly
While the poem streaked by, its tail afire, a bad
Comet screaming hate and disaster, but so turned inward
That the meaning, good or other, can never
Become known. The singer thinks
Constructively, builds up his chant in progressive stages
Like a skyscraper, but at the last minute turns away.
The song is engulfed in an instant in blackness
Which must in turn flood the whole continent
With blackness, for it cannot see. The singer
Must then pass out of sight, not even relieved
Of the evil burthen of the words. Stellification
Is for the few, and comes about much later
When all record of these people and their lives
Has disappeared into libraries, onto microfilm.
A few are still interested in them. “But what about
So-and-so?” is still asked on occasion. But they lie
Frozen and out of touch until an arbitrary chorus
Speaks of a totally different incident with a similar name
In whose tale are hidden syllables
Of what happened so long before that
In some small town, one different summer.

© John Ashbery

 

 

 

Ek het al vantevore oor Archipelago Press, my persoonlike gunsteling uitgewery en Jill Schoolman (foto), wat aan die hoof staan van dié inspirerende bedryf, geskryf.  Nie net is sy die hoofindoena by Archipelago nie, maar eweneens ‘n persoon wat so stadigaan besig is om die Amerikaanse poësie-landskap op ‘n besonder indrukwekkende wyse te herdefinieer. Daarom dat dit met groot vreugde was dat ek – tydens my navorsing vir ‘n blog oor die Roemeense digkuns wat volgende week geplaas sal word – ontdek het dat Archipelago Press pas een van die grootste klokke in die Amerikaanse lettere gelui het, naamlik die prys vir die beste vertaalde werk wat verlede jaar verskyn het, wat aan een van hul publikasies toegeken is.

Dié eer gaan aan Sean Cotter wat die Roemeense digter Nichita Stănescu se gedigte na Engels vertaal het. Archipeleago Press het dié bloemlesing – pragtig uitgegee in die formaat waarvoor hulle bekend is – gepubliseer onder die titel Wheel with a Single Spoke.  

 

Oor haar uitgewery en die rede hoekom hulle uitsluitlik op vertaalde tekste fokus, het Jill Schoolman haar soos volg uitgelaat tydens ‘n onderhoud met die Koreaanse joernalis Kim Meekyung: ”Archipelago Books was founded in 2003 as a non-profit press supported by individuals and foundations. I founded this company with the goal of increasing awareness of literary voices from around the world. There is an urgent need to make international literature available to American readers. According to a recent NEA study, of the 10,000 books of fiction and poetry annually published in this country, only 300 are works in translation. America has grown into an empire that prefers to export rather than import, even when it comes to literature. Our goal is to discover what’s out there, and it is a labor of love. In part, I started Archipelago because there seemed to be an urgent need. So many important international writers, both living and dead, are simply not being introduced and read here. But, I must admit, it was more out of love than duty. I’m naturally drawn toward literature beyond our borders. It’s what I love to read. Reading is a voyage, and for me it can be as eye-opening (and moving) as traveling abroad.”

En een so ‘n digter wat deur Archipelago Press aan ‘n groter gehoor bekend gestel is, was die Roemeense reus Nichita Stănescu (1933 – 1983). Op die webblad Words Without Borders kan die volgende oor Stănescu (foto) gevind word: “Part physicist and part naturalist, Romanian poet Nichita Stănescu was always a consonant lyricist. He had created an extraordinary body of work before his death in 1983. Just fifty years old when he died, he had published over a book a year between 1965 and 1971. Conventional wisdom states that prodigious output leads to paltry results, but Wheel With a Single Spoke and Other Poems, which gathers poems from all of Stănescu’s books without being close to comprehensive, presents the case that he may well have been one of Europe’s great twentieth-century poets. English-language readers have translator Sean Cotter to thank for this tremendous addition to their literature.”

Wat ‘n prestasie! Om nog ‘n aanhaling uit die reeds genoemde onderhoud aan u voor te hou: “My dream is that our books will open people’s minds and speak to their hearts, that they might chisel away at stereotypes and awaken curiosity about other cultures and ways of seeing and being. I hope that our books might touch people deeply and serve as catalysts for social change and that they might bring people together.”

Inderdaad. Maar, ter wille van volledigheid – die ander tekste wat genomineer was vir die prys, is die volgende:

Transfer Fat deur Aase Berg, vertaal deur Johannes Göransson (Ugly Duckling Press; Sweden).

pH Neutral History deur Lidija Dimkovska, vertaal deur Ljubica Arsovska en Peggy Reid (Copper Canyon Press; Macedonia).

The Invention of Glass deur Emmanuel Hocquard, vertaal deur Cole Swensen en Rod Smith (Canarium Books; France).

Notes on the Mosquito deur Xi Chuan, vertaal deur Lucas Klein (New Directions; China).

Almost 1 Book / Almost 1 Life deur Elfriede Czurda, vertaal deur Rosmarie Waldrop (Burning Deck; Austria).

Die beoordelaars was: Brandon Holmquest, digter, vertaler, en redakteur van CALQUE; Jennifer Kronovet, digter en vertaler; John Marshall, eienaar van Open Books: A Poem Emporium; Erica Mena-Landry, digter en vertaler; Kevin Prufer, digter, akademikus, essayis en mede-redakteur van New European Poets; en Russell Valentino, vertaler en direkteur van Autumn Hill Books en ook van The Iowa Review.

En by wyse van leestoegif volg ‘n gedig uit Wheel With a Single Spoke hieronder.

***

Poet, Like a Soldier

(Poetul ca si soldatul)

 

A poet, like a soldier

has no life of his own.

His own life is wrecks

and ruins.

 

With the forceps of his cerebrum he lifts

the emotions of ants

brings them closer and closer to his eye

until they and his eye become one.

 

He puts his ear to the belly of a starving dog

His nose smells the half-open muzzle

until his nose and the dog’s muzzle

are the same.

 

During waves of heat

he fans himself with flocks of birds

he startles into flight.

 

None of you should believe the poet when he cries.

His tear is never his own.

He has wiped tears from things

and cries things’ tears.

 

The poet is like time.

Faster or slower

more deceitful or more truthful.

 

Be careful not to say anything to a poet.

Be especially careful not to say something true.

Really, be careful not to say something heartfelt.

 

Just then, he will claim he said it,

and he will make the claim such that

all of you will say, it’s true

he said it.

 

I beg you, above all

do not touch a poet!

Never put your hand on a poet!

 

…except when your hand

is thin as a ray.

Only then your hand might

pass straight through him.

 

Otherwise, it will not pass

your fingers will remain on him

and he will be the one to brag

he has more fingers than you.

And all of you will have to say, yes,

it’s true, he has more fingers….

 

Better, if you can believe me,

it would be better if you never

touched a poet.

 

…And he’s not even worth a touch…

A poet, like a soldier

has no life of his own.

 

© Nichita Stănescu (Vertaal deur Sean Cotter)

 

 

 

Die vraag word dikwels geopper of die liriese vers in staat is tot sosiale kommentaar en die aktualiteite wat daarmee verband hou; dikwels met ‘n gevoel van “Nee”, as gevolg van die eksplisiete geneigdheid van so ‘n betoog en die gevolglike inboet van poëtiese resonansie. Ook tydens die onlangse Dansende Digtersfees was daar ‘n besonder interessante gesprek wat onder andere oor die kwessies van morele verval en hoe dit in die digkuns reflekteer word, gehandel het.  Die vraag wat sentraal gestaan het, is hoe skryf ‘n mens ‘n liriese vers vanuit die posisie van “evil”, soos Carolyn Forché daarna verwys het. Uiteraard is Adorno se beroemde – en dikwels skeef aangehaalde – uitspraak oor Auschwitz en die onmoontlikheid van poësie onder die vergrootglas geplaas. (As voorbeeld van hoe ‘n liriese digter ‘n vers oor die “boosheid” kan pleeg, het Forché haar kragtige gedig “The Colonel” voorgehou.) Ook Dan Pagis se aangrypende gedig “Written in Pencil in the Sealed Railway Car” wat in haar bloemlesing Against Forgetting (1993: WW Norton) gevind kan word:

 

here in this carload

I am eve

with abel my son

if you see my other son

cain son of man

tell him that i

 

© Dan Pagis (Vertaal deur Stephenn Mitchell)

 

Nietemin, dié gesprek het my onwillekeurig herinner aan James Fenton (foto), loshande een van my gunsteling Britse digters. Veral vanweë sy gedig “A German Requiem”.  Hoe die skrikwekkende kwessies van ons verknoeide samelewing deur dié liriese digter hanteer word, bly vir my na soveel jare nog steeds ‘n bron van aspirasie; soos dit ook gevind kan word in die onderhoud wat Robyn Creswell verlede jaar met Fenton gevoer het vir The Paris Review, No. 96.

Maar eers, by wyse van agtergrond: James Fenton is bekend as oorlogsverslaggewer, librettis, garnaalboer, drama-kritikus, digter en ook voormalige Oxford Professor of Poetry. Die veelsydige geskakeerdheid van dié digter word goed raakgevat deur Creswell in sy openingsparagraaf: “Fenton was born in Lincoln, in northern England, in 1949. He attended the Chorister School, Durham, where he sang in the choir. He went on to read psychology, philosophy, and physiology at Magdalen College, Oxford. In 1968, he won the university’s Newdigate Prize with a sequence of sonnets and haikus on the opening of Japan. The theme was set by the prize committee, but the history of Western imperialism in Asia became one of Fenton’s abiding interests (as did questions of poetic form). Five years later, having joined the Trotskyite International Socialists, Fenton used the prize money from another poetry award to go to Cambodia. He found work as a journalist, moved to Vietnam, and reported the fall of Saigon with evident satisfaction, famously riding the first North Vietnamese tank into the compound of the presidential palace.”

Oor die kwessie van sang en die liriese toon, die volgende:

Creswell: Song has an important place in your own poetry. In your Introduction to English Poetry you write, ‘Poetry itself begins in those situations where the voice has to be raised . . . The voice is raised, and that is where poetry begins.’ What are the consequences for poetry when you think about it in this way?

Fenton: When I wrote that, I was probably thinking about my time in the rural Philippines. One of the advantages of running a prawn farm is that you meet interesting people. I knew this guy who was illiterate, but, probably by virtue of being illiterate, he had preserved the oral form of Filipino poetry, whose rules are quite complex. For example, the last word of the first line of a poem must rhyme with the penultimate syllable of the second. The whole poem is in couplets, of a sort. And this is an improvised poetry. If there was a drinking session and somebody important had arrived, this poet might be called on to ad-lib some appropriate words. The first thing he did was produce a special raised voice that went with his improvisation. It was a voice that could be heard at the back of the room. This is something that that kind of village bard has in common with the street vendor.

Creswell: You say that the raised voice, the sung word, is essential to poetry. On the other hand, there’s a long tradition that says otherwise. John Stuart Mill thought that lyric poetry is not heard, but overheard. The reader listens in on the poet talking to himself. That’s Mill’s definition of the lyric—not a raised voice, but a private one. 

Fenton: I wonder what exactly he was thinking of. Because lyric poetry is, of course, musical in origin. I do know that what happened to poetry in the twentieth century was that it began to be written for the page. When it’s a question of typography, why not? Poets have done beautiful things with typography—Apollinaire’s Calligrammes, that sort of thing. But now we are left with people who write only for the page, who feel that a poem is something very far from performance.

Maar genoeg hiervan. Gaan lees gerus die volledige onderhoud by The Paris Review; ‘n wonderlike, wydlopende gesprek oor ‘n swetterjoel aangeleenthede.

Waarop ek eintlik jou aandag wil fokus, is ‘n aantal van James Fenton se gedigte wat as voorbeeld kan dien van presies hoe ‘n liriese digter hom met eietydse tema’s kan bemoei sonder om ‘n politieke vlag (of vaandel) daaroor te laat wapper.

Hieronder volg vier voorbeelde.

***

Cambodia

 

One man shall smile one day and say goodbye. 

Two shall be left, two shall be left to die. 

One man shall give his best advice. 

Three men shall pay the price. 

 

One man shall live, live to regret. 

Four men shall meet the debt. 

 

One man shall wake from terror to his bed. 

Five men shall be dead. 

 

One man to five. A million men to one. 

And still they die. And still the war goes on. 

***

Blood and Lead 

Listen to what they did.

Don’t listen to what they said.

What was written in blood

Has been set up in lead.

 

Lead tears the heart.

Lead tears the brain.

What was written in blood

Has been set up again.

 

The heart is a drum.

The drum has a snare.

The snare is in the blood.

The blood is in the air.

 

Listen to what they did.

Listen to what’s to come.

Listen to the blood.

Listen to the drum.

***

THE SONG OF THE GENERAL

The moon is sharp on the blade.
The dew shines on the hill.
The heart bleeds dark
And my men lie still.

The heads on the palisades
Dried in the wind so black
Call out to the venturing foe:
Turn back, fool, turn back.

Here snores no feasted clown
Who has drunk disgrace with his wine.
Here drools no amorous dupe
In the lap of his concubine.

Here watches a bitter pride
In exile lonely and long.
He serves an unjust lord.
He endures a continuing wrong.

One watches. One endures
On the ramparts, on the towers,
The laughter of the stars,
The taunts of the small hours.

Who sweeps my ancestors’ graves?
Who holds the reins for my son?
Will my dog still come to my call?
Does my wife sleep alone?

I serve an unjust lord.
Exile is an early tomb.
The heart bleeds dark.
Death is a journey home.

By the bright dew on the hill,
By the sharp blade of the moon,
I shall wake my grieving men.
I shall make that journey soon. 

 

A German Requiem

 

It is not what they built. It is what they knocked down.

It is not the houses. It is the spaces in between the houses.

It is not the streets that exist. It is the streets that no longer exist.

It is not your memories which haunt you.

It is not what you have written down.

It is what you have forgotten, what you must forget.

What you must go on forgetting all your life.

And with any luck oblivion should discover a ritual.

You will find out that you are not alone in the enterprise.

Yesterday the very furniture seemed to reproach you.

Today you take your place in the Widow’s Shuttle.

 

The bus is waiting at the southern gate

To take you to the city of your ancestors

Which stands on the hill opposite, with gleaming pediments,

As vivid as this charming square, your home.

Are you shy? You should be. It is almost like a wedding,

The way you clasp your flowers and give a little tug at your veil. Oh,

The hideous bridesmaids, it is natural that you should resent them

Just a little, on this first day.

But that will pass, and the cemetery is not far.

Here comes the driver, flicking a toothpick into the gutter,

His tongue still searching between his teeth.

See, he has not noticed you. No one has noticed you.

It will pass, young lady, it will pass.

 

How comforting it is, once or twice a year,

To get together and forget the old times.

As on those special days, ladies and gentlemen,

When the boiled shirts gather at the graveside

And a leering waistcoast approaches the rostrum.

It is like a solemn pact between the survivors.

They mayor has signed it on behalf of the freemasonry.

The priest has sealed it on behalf of all the rest.

Nothing more need be said, and it is better that way-

 

 The better for the widow, that she should not live in fear of surprise,

The better for the young man, that he should move at liberty between the armchairs,

The better that these bent figures who flutter among the graves

Tending the nightlights and replacing the chrysanthemums

Are not ghosts,

That they shall go home.

The bus is waiting, and on the upper terraces

The workmen are dismantling the houses of the dead.

 

But when so many had died, so many and at such speed,

There were no cities waiting for the victims.

They unscrewed the name-plates from the shattered doorways

And carried them away with the coffins.

So the squares and parks were filled with the eloquence of young cemeteries:

The smell of fresh earth, the improvised crosses

And all the impossible directions in brass and enamel.

 

‘Doctor Gliedschirm, skin specialist, surgeries 14-16 hours or by appointment.’

Professor Sarnagel was buried with four degrees, two associate memberships

And instructions to tradesmen to use the back entrance.

Your uncle’s grave informed you that he lived in the third floor, left.

You were asked please to ring, and he would come down in the lift

To which one needed a key…

 

Would come down, would ever come down

With a smile like thin gruel, and never too much to say.

How he shrank through the years.

How you towered over him in the narrow cage.

How he shrinks now…

 

But come. Grief must have its term? Guilt too, then.

And it seems there is no limit to the resourcefulness of recollection.

So that a man might say and think:

When the world was at its darkest,

When the black wings passed over the rooftops,

(And who can divine His purposes?) even then

There was always, always a fire in this hearth.

You see this cupboard? A priest-hole!

And in that lumber-room whole generations have been housed and fed.

Oh, if I were to begin, if I were to begin to tell you

The half, the quarter, a mere smattering of what we went through!

 

His wife nods, and a secret smile,

Like a breeze with enough strength to carry one dry leaf

Over two pavingstones, passes from chair to chair.

Even the enquirer is charmed.

He forgets to pursue the point.

It is now what he wants to know.

It is what he wants not to know.

It is not what they say.

It is what they do not say.

© James Fenton (Uit: New Selected Poems, 2006: Penguin)

 

 

 

Die hele kwessie van hermetiese poësie is iets wat wêreldwyd in bykans alle vername digkunste weldeeglik gevestig is, terwyl dit hier by ons eintlik nog nooit inslag gevind het nie. Trouens, met die uitsondering van Gilbert Gibson, twyfel ek of daar enige Afrikaanse digter is wat as ‘hermeties’ (of te wel ‘ondeurdringbaar’) beskryf sal kan word. Heelwat verse wat as ‘hermeties’ beskryf word, is myns insiens wel ontoeganklik, dog selde hermeties.In die meeste van hierdie gevalle is dit (waarskynlik) weens onvoldoende kontekstualisering en nié as gevolg van die vers se tegniese vernuf om sy eie spore dood te vee, soos dit die geval is met Gilbert Gibson se gedigte, nie.

Nietemin. ‘n Belangrike boek oor hierdie onderwerp wat pas in Nederland verskyn het, is Paul Claus se Zwarte zon, code van de hermetische poëzie.  Op De Contrabas kon ek ‘n deeglike bespreking hieroor vind.

 

Maar eers: volgens die uitgewer, Van Tilt Uitgeverij, se liriese inligtingstuk: “Niets is zo helder en tegelijk zo duister als de zon. Het zonlicht zelf verblindt, alleen een eclips maakt het zichtbaar. Voor de hermetische poëzie geldt dezelfde paradox. Als een zwarte zon schittert haar zin pas door afwezigheid. Zwarte zon leert de lezer de geheimtaal van de hermetische poëzie lezen. Paul Claes past een nieuwe ontcijferingsmethode toe op twaalf duistere dichters: Horatius, Luis de Góngora, Willem van Swaanenburg, Gerárd de Nerval, Stéphane Mallarmé, Arthur Rimbaud, Rainer Maria Rilke, Karel van de Woestijne, Wallace Stevens, André Breton, e.e. cummings en Hugo Claus. Het is een misverstand te denken dat de poëzie verdwijnt als we haar mysterie doorgronden. Integendeel, pas zo verschijnt ze in haar volle luister: als de zon na een verduistering.”

In De Contrabas se bespreking word Claus dan soos volg aangehaal: “‘Lezen is steeds ontcijferen. Wie de sleutel niet heeft, staat voor een gesloten deur. [...] Een moeilijk gedicht bestaat bij de gratie van het geheim. Het plezier van de lezer bestaat erin dat raadsel te ontsluieren […]  De Rousseau-achtige opvattingen die tegenwoordig in het literatuuronderwijs en in het cultuurbeleid opgeld doen, ontkennen deze evidenties. Iedere kleuter wordt als een kunstenaar in de dop gezien. Iedereen zou n staat zijn zonder voorkennis cultuurproducten te consumeren. Elke vorm van initiatie wordt als doctrinair, elitair en contra-emancipatorisch afgewezen. De gevolgen voor deze doorgeschoten romantiek zijn dagelijks te merken. Cultureel simplisme en pueriel populisme voeren de boventoon in de media. Alles wat niet hapklaar is, wordt gecensureerd.”

‘n Belangrike publikasie, inderdaad.

Ten slotte word Claus soos volg aangehaal: “De twintigste-eeuwse avant-garde wil de politieke revolutie ook in de poëzie doorvoeren en creeërt zo een experimentele poëzie die steeds cryptischer wordt. Vreemd genoeg verzet ze zich tegelijk ook tegen iedere inwijding van de lezer. Hermeneutisme wordt zodoende een doel op zichzelf. Wellicht is de tijd gekomen om tegenover dit anti-intellectualisme een nuchtere technische analyse van de moderne poëzie te stellen.”

Maar waarom is hermetiese digkuns dan enigsins van belang? Uiteraard ‘n vraag waarop vele antwoorde moontlik is. Persoonlik het dit vir my te make met taal-verknoeiing en –ontginning, soos met die voorbeeld van Paul Celan. (Selfs Dylan Thomas?) En tog, altyd, altyd met T.S. Eliot (selwers ‘n gedugte hermeet) se beroemde uitspraak voor oë: “Genuine poetry moves before it is understood.”

En die hermetiese digkuns se vernaamste belemmering? Seer sekerlik die gebrek aan opwindende, of avontuurlustige  lesers.

As leeslekkerte volg sommer twee gedigte deur Gilbert Gibson; albei geneem uit sy mees onlangse bundel [vii], en eweneens deur Joan Hambidge aangehaal in haar resensie oor die betrokke bundel.

*

[60]

 

in daardie film zapruder

kruip jackie in rukkerige bleek

kleure oor die kar

om dele van haar man

se brein bymekaar te maak

elkeen van haar hande

daar is net twee

van sosiale media bevry

dante is haar digter

hy verstaan haar wêreld in die motor

in daardie wêreld van liefde en chaos

soek haar hande bloed

soos hansie smal se hande soek na staal

*

[24]

 

alice oswald op my af

die geluid van ’n fiets

van ’n bui reën wat jy

voor die tyd reeds ruik

jy kan haar spore na my toe volg

soos ink na ’n inkvis verskrik

bo ’n strandmeer se oopgevoude bodem

hier sluip iets soos koue

teen my ruggraat af

haar voetval wentel

’n aasdier

om ’n dooie skaap

in die naderkom van die hoogste wuppertal

wat mits dese vir haar van nuuts af

soos ’n bliksemstraal stuur

spoorloos en indrukwekkend

daardie grens van naamloosheid

wat om my baan en daar buite

op ’n ander reis begin gaan

 

© Gilbert Gibson (Uit: [vii], 2013: Human & Rousseau)

 

 

 

Groot opgewondenheid heers in die internasionale boekgemeenskap nadat The Independent bekend gemaak het dat ‘n joernaal van W.H. Auden (foto), wat vir dekades as “verlore” geag was, inderdaad gevind is: “Auden, who died in 1973 aged 66, wrote the journal between August and November 1939. It gives an insight into the poet whose works include “Funeral Blues”, “Lullaby” and “The Unknown Citizen”. Edward Mendelson, the literary executor of Auden’s estate and an English professor at Columbia University, said: ‘The journal gives a personal sense that we don’t really have elsewhere of Auden in this hugely important era’.”

Dié joernaal gaan glo volgende maand deur Christie’s opgeveil word en die algemene verwagting is dat dit vir tussen £40,000 en £60,000 van die hand gesit sal word. Die joernaal, wat 96 bladsye beslaan, is glo  deur Auden aan sy vriend George Davis gegee waarna dit verlore geraak het.

Volgens The Independent se berig, die volgende: “It is one of only three journals that the poet is known to have kept and covers the period shortly after what he described as the ‘eleven happiest weeks of my life’ – the honeymoon period of his relationship with the American poet Chester Kallman. The frank details of his personal life are set against the build-up to the Second World War. He wrote: ‘I am happy, but in debt… I have no job. My [US] visa is out of order. There may be a war. But I have an epithalamion to write and cannot worry much’.”

Aangrypend is egter die volgende aanhaling uit die joernaal: “Woke with a headache after a night of bad dreams in which C [Kallman] was unfaithful. Paper reports German attack on Poland. Now I sit looking out over the river. Such a beautiful evening and in an hour, they say, England will be at war.”

Sjoe. Vir jou leesplesier volg een van die drie gedigte wat in die periode wat dié joernaal geskryf was, ontstaan het.

*

Funeral Blues (Song IX / from Two Songs for Hedli Anderson)

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone.
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling in the sky the message He is Dead,
Put crêpe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever, I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun.
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

© Wystan Hugh Auden (1907 – 1973)

 

 

 

Waarskynlik was Oscar Wilde (foto) in sy lewe die mees verguisde individu in Koningin Victoria se ganse Groot Brittanje. Maar nou, bykans 140 jaar na hy ‘n gedig – wat hy met die hand geskryf het, uiteraard, en nooit gepubliseer het nie – het hy beslis die laaste lag aangesien dié gedig, Heart’s Yearning, vir ‘n groter bedrag geld verkoop is as wat die standbeeld van ‘ou Mies Victôria met ha’ klein spanspek’ daar ‘vorie Paalmint-hys’ waarskynlik werd is.

Volgens die berig by Irish Independent, is dié handgeskrewe gedig van 40 reëls vir die rekordbedrag van €79,430 (ZAR 939,417) deur die makelaar Bonhams in Londen opgeveil. Dit is ongeveer die ekwivalent van R23,500 per versreël, of R2,406 per woord. “The poem, ‘Heart’s Yearnings’, one of the earliest written by Wilde, was written in 1873 and has become one of the most valuable poems ever written by an Irishman, according to Bonhams in London, who said it was sold to someone living in the UK. The poem begins: ‘Surely to me the world is all too drear/ To shape my sorrow to a tuneful strain/ It is enough for wearied ears to hear/ The Passion – Music of a fevered brain…’”

Nog ‘n gedig van Wilde, ‘Les Ballons‘, wat vroeg in die 1880s geskryf was, is tydens dieselfde geleentheid vir €19,200 (ZAR 227,335) verkoop.

 

Die inskrywing in Bonhams se katalogus lees soos volg:

 

AUTOGRAPH REVISED MANUSCRIPT OF HIS EARLY POEM ‘HEART’S YEARNINGS’, signed in full at the end (‘Oscar O’F. Wills Wilde Magdalen College Oxford’), 40 lines in eight five-line stanzas, with some autograph revisions including changing the fourth line of the second stanza from ‘Only with tired eyes to wait’ to ‘I sit and wait’ preserving reconsidered readings, 2 pages, ruled folio, Magdalen College, Oxford [undated, but 1873-1874]

THIS IS ONE OF THE EARLIEST EXTANT POETICAL MANUSCRIPTS BY OSCAR WILDE; no earlier one of any length is recorded by Bobby Fong and Karl Beckson (2000). Before the publication of their edition of the poems, ‘Heart’s Yearnings’ had remained unpublished (text taken from this manuscript).

 

 

 

 

Hieronder volg die voorlaaste strofe uit Oscar Wilde se lang gedig, “Ravenna”, met daarna die bekende gedig “The Harlot’s House” volledig.

*

Adieu! Adieu! yon silent evening star,

The night’s ambassador, doth gleam afar,

And bid the shepherd bring his flocks to fold.

Perchance before our inland seas of gold

Are garnered by, the reapers into sheaves,

Perchance before I see the Autumn leaves,

I may behold thy city; and lay down

Low at thy feet the poet’s laurel crown.

 

© Oscar Wilde (Uit: Ravenna)

*

THE HARLOT’S HOUSE

 

We caught the tread of dancing feet,

We loitered down the moonlit street,

And stopped beneath the harlot’s house.

 

Inside, above the din and fray,

We heard the loud musicians play

The “Treues Liebes Herz” of Strauss.

 

Like strange mechanical grotesques,

Making fantastic arabesques,

The shadows raced across the blind.

 

We watched the ghostly dancers spin

To sound of horn and violin,

Like black leaves wheeling in the wind.

 

Like wire-pulled automatons,

Slim silhouetted skeletons

Went sidling through the slow quadrille.

 

The took each other by the hand,

And danced a stately saraband;

Their laughter echoed thin and shrill.

 

Sometimes a clockwork puppet pressed

A phantom lover to her breast,

Sometimes they seemed to try to sing.

 

Sometimes a horrible marionette

Came out, and smoked its cigarette

Upon the steps like a live thing.

 

Then, turning to my love, I said,

“The dead are dancing with the dead,

The dust is whirling with the dust.”

 

But she–she heard the violin,

And left my side, and entered in:

Love passed into the house of lust.

 

Then suddenly the tune went false,

The dancers wearied of the waltz,

The shadows ceased to wheel and whirl.

 

And down the long and silent street,

The dawn, with silver-sandalled feet,

Crept like a frightened girl.

 

© Oscar Wilde (In 1885 gepubliseer in The Dramatic Review)

 

 

 

Soos ons almal weet, het die astronomiese ontwikkeling in moderne tegnologie tot gevolg dat selfs Mars deesdae net ‘n haikoe ver is … En nou, volgens ‘n berig by Poetry Foundation, het NASA besluit om dié beginsel sommer baie letterlik te demonstreer: “NASA is inviting poets and space-afficionados to pen their best haiku to celebrate the voyage of MAVEN: a spacecraft that will leave Earth in November to study the Martian atmosphere. Managers of the MAVEN-voyage began accepting haiku submissions on May 1 and they will continue to accept haiku submissions until July 15th. From July 15th to July 29th, NASA will allow the public to vote for its favorite three submissions. On August 8th, NASA will announce the three haiku that garnered the most votes. NASA plans to display all three poems on the MAVEN website—and to give the poems three spots aboard the MAVEN spacecraft, which will launch in November.”

Nou ja, toe, julle haikoemane: laat waai met die tel van lettergrepe en versreëls …

Vir meer besonderhede kan jy intussen by NASA se webblad gaan koekeloer.

As leestoegif volg ‘n toepaslike gedig.

*

A Martian Sends a Postcard Home

Caxtons are mechanical birds with many wings
and some are treasured for their markings–

they cause the eyes to melt
or the body to shriek without pain.

I have never seen one fly, but
sometimes they perch on the hand.

Mist is when the sky is tired of flight
and rests its soft machine on the ground:

then the world is dim and bookish
like engravings under tissue paper.

Rain is when the earth is television.
It has the properites of making colours darker.

Model T is a room with the lock inside –
a key is turned to free the world

for movement, so quick there is a film
to watch for anything missed.

But time is tied to the wrist
or kept in a box, ticking with impatience.

In homes, a haunted apparatus sleeps,
that snores when you pick it up.

If the ghost cries, they carry it
to their lips and soothe it to sleep

with sounds. And yet, they wake it up
deliberately, by tickling with a finger.

Only the young are allowed to suffer
openly. Adults go to a punishment room

with water but nothing to eat.
They lock the door and suffer the noises

alone. No one is exempt
and everyone’s pain has a different smell.

At night, when all the colours die,
they hide in pairs

and read about themselves –
in colour, with their eyelids shut.

 

© Craig Raine (1979)

 

 

 

Na maande waartydens ek deur werksdruk en ander vreugdes onderwater gesleep is, kan ek uiteindelik darem weer kop optel en na die berge kyk. Uiteraard het bepaalde dinge agterweë gebly en is daar berigte en/of gebeurlikhede wat ek so soort van agterna sal moet byhaal; soos die berig oor Gerrit Komrij, wat verlede jaar op 5 Junie oorlede is, se huis in Portugal, “Villa Pouca”, wat voortaan as gastehuis vir die digkuns tot die beskikking van digters – of iemand wat met die digkuns gemoeid is – gestel gaan word.

Luidens die berig wat ‘n aantal weke gelede in Knack.be verskyn het, die volgende: “Komrij was bij leven en welzijn, zoals bekend, een groot promotor van de poëzie. Hij schreef niet alleen zelf gedichten maar financierde ook allerlei poëtische initiatieven: van het uitbrengen van een dichtersreeks voor debutanten (‘De Sandwichreeks’) tot het steunen  van een poëzietijdschrift (‘Awater’) en de jaarlijkse Turing Nationale Gedichtenwedstrijd, waar iedereen die een dichtregel op papier wil zetten aan kan meedoen. Uiteraard dat Komrij ook via zijn legendarische poëziebloemlezingen de dichtkunst alle eer aan deed.

Daarom besloot Charles Hofman, partner van Komrij, in  samenspraak met Suzanne Holtzer van De Bezige Bij om Huize Komrij als dichterscentrum om te functioneren. Op die manier  wordt de herinnering aan Komrij, het poëziebeest, levendig gehouden. Hofman en Holtzer vertelden Haerynck dat de subsidie-aanvragen al de deur uit zijn om dit initiatief alle kans op slagen  te geven […] Charles Hofman heeft een heel duidelijke en betrokken visie op hoe het moet worden. Hij wil niet alleen de geest en het werk van Komrij levend houden – de literaire nalatenschap is daar ook te bekijken – maar vooral ruimte bieden aan anderen die betekenis willen geven aan de poëzie.”

Nou ja, toe. Wat ‘n fantastiese gebaar …

Hieronder volg ‘n toepaslike Komrij-gedig soos dit deur Daniel Hugo vertaal is.

*

Tussendeur

 

Soos jy op die televisieskerm

Somtyds ‘n man sien wat, te midde van

‘n Karnaval of ‘n groep wat kerm,

Reguit by jou kamer inkyk, om dan

 

Vol oorgawe – hy bly mos ongesien –

Net vir ‘n oomblik te wuif. Die ellende

Of die vermaak rondom hom merk hy nie.

Wuif hy vir sy mense, vir ‘n bekende?

 

So wuif ek ook vir jou in dié gedig.

Baie vlugtig, tussen die reëls deur.

Hier’s nie ‘n skerm nie, jy’s naby my.

 

Ek wuif. Dit is regstreeks aan jou gerig.

Ek voel dit, grinnikend van oor tot oor:

G’n niemand het my gesien nie, net jy.

 

(c) Gerrit Komrij (Uit: Die elektriese gelaaide hand, 2005: Protea Boekhuis)

Vertaal deur: Daniel Hugo

 

 

Ons almal weet watter opdraande stryd die Engelse digters hier ter plaatse voer teen die oormag van die internasionale mark. Nie net is dit bykans onmoontlik om ‘n uitgewer te vind nie, maar wanneer daar wel iemand is wat hul bemoei met die uitgee van Suid-Afrikaanse Engelse digters, is dit meestal ‘n kleinerige uitgewer met eiesoortige beperkings ten opsigte van bemarking en verspreiding. Eweneens word daar bitter selde in die Engelse media oor die plaaslike digters berig; met enkele uitsonderings soos BooksLive, uiteraard. Nietemin, ten spyte van dié ongelukkige toedrag van sake, kan die plaaslike Engelse digkuns met ‘n hele aantal werklik indrukwekkende digters spog, soos Ingrid de Kok, Finuala Dowling, Gabeba Baderoon, Rustum Kozain, Kelwyn Sole, Karen Press en nog vele ander.

Daarom dat The Common, ‘n literêre tydskrif wat deur Amherst College uitgegee word en onder die redakteurshand van Jennifer Acker staan, besluit het om met hul nuutste uitgawe bykans volledig op die Suid-Afrikaanse Engelse digkuns te fokus.

En watter handeklapgeleentheid is hierdie nie … Met ‘n omvattende oorsigartikel deur Kelwyn Sole, plus gedigte deur bykans al die vernaamste Engelse digters daarin vervat, is hierdie gewis ‘n gedugte toetrede tot die internasionale verhoog vir ons Engelse kollegas.

“Liberation in South Africa and the first free elections, in 1994, unleashed a social and cultural energy and sense of possibility,” skryf Kelwyn Sole by wyse van inleiding. “In the two decades since then, there has been an explosion of innovation in South African poetry, with a number of poets experimenting with fresh perspectives and themes. In a society still bearing the effects of deep division—most obviously, but not only, racial—poetry has become one of the cultural media through which individuals from previously antagonistic groups can share and explore their feelings and emotions, thereby, at times, creating bonds of mutual sympathy. At the same time, the social and political foci of pre-liberation poetry have remained but have been transformed and augmented by a number of fresh areas of concern.”

Na ‘n nogals indringende kyk na die verskillende aspekte van die Engelse digterskap hier ter plaatse, eindig Sole sy oorsig met die volgende: “The poems vary from humorous to angry, from lyrical to prophetic, from the self-referential to realistic depictions of wider natural and social landscapes. We hope they will prove as compelling to read as they were to search out and compile. We hope, too, that this selection will allow readers to gain at least a first insight into contemporary poetry in South Africa, in its abundance 
of forms, concerns, and attitudes.”

Inderdaad. Die besonderhede van hierdie besonderse publikasie is soos volg: The Common, Issue no. 4, 210 bladsye.  Jy kan dit via hul webtuiste bestel, of met Protea Boekwinkel op Stellenbosch in verbinding tree. Die verkoopprys is R120.

Vir jou leesplesier volg ‘n besonder treffende gedigte deur Ingrid de Kok en Karen Press.

***

Today I do not love my country

South Africa, May 2008

Today I do not love my country.
It is venal, it is cruel.
Lies are open sewers in the street. 
Threats scarify the walls.

Tomorrow I may defend my land 
when others X-ray the evidence:
feral shadows, short sharp knives.
I may argue our grievous inheritance.

On Wednesday I may let the winded stars
fall into my lap, breathe air’s golden ghee, 
smell the sea’s salt cellar, run my fingers
along the downy arm of the morning.

I may on Thursday read of a hurt child
given refuge and tended by neighbours,
sing with others the famous forgiving man
who has forgotten who were enemies, who friends.

But today, today, I cannot love my country.
It staggers in the dark, lurches in a ditch.
A curdled mob drives people into pens, 
brands them like cattle,
only holds a stranger’s hand
to press it into fire,
strings firecrackers through a child,
burns stores and shacks, burns.

 

© Ingrid de Kok

 

***

“Photographing the building is forbidden until the war is over”

1
A relief supply ship for the bombed citizens of Iraq
called Sir Galahad
arrives tomorrow in the port of Basra.

Oh where is the beautiful lady
who will come out of the charred crowd
to lay her long hair along the shore
and wave the green scarf of welcome?

How they dream themselves good,
the madmen of the West.

2
The poets gird their loins again.
Outrage. Metaphors. The assonance of keening.
There are enough poems lamenting war to last for eternity.

All we can offer are images of horror in modern dress,
all we can do is confirm that helplessness includes
life in a fine apartment overlooking cityscapes,
spin doctors, cell phones and cappuccinos
for the unexpectedly last time before the glass shatters
and the eyes are burnt beyond recognition.

Forgive us, people digging through your bombed houses
with wails as raw as each buried limb you glimpse,
forgive us for finding metaphors inside your torn shirts and
    bleeding dogs.

Forgive us, captured American soldier, if we hear you
tell your captors “I come to fix broke stuff”
and find in your half-formed logic
the voice of a machine still being tested for defects.

Our words mean everything we’ve learned about them,
and it is right that we don’t have words for the feeling of being destroyed,
there should be no words for destruction,
it is the moment for silence
in every language in the world.

3
Raindrops stay on the leaves a long time.
The birds sip at them without breaking the sparkling nets.

The ground around every landmine holds its breath
for the moment when fire will explode its seeds into life.

Nature made everything, even the B-52 and George Bush.
Patterns of screaming children travel far into international airspace

melting the ice on every jet’s wings,
sending it in to land ahead of schedule.

4

In their different ways

a war-torn country
a war-torn province
a war-torn region
a war-torn community
a war-torn house
a war-torn friendship
a war-torn memory
a war-torn body
a war-torn poem
a war-torn understanding
a war-torn room
a war-torn tree

5
(Margin note:
something not mentioned in the reports
or seen in the photographs whose captions
misdirect your attention—

the child’s wounded body is always shaded by a man
crouching there with desperate eyes,
waving away insects or touching the bandages
as if there were something he could do
to mend the exploded flesh

and at funerals there are so many men
crying over the little body

even if they have locked their women inside houses and windowless clothing,
even if they carry guns and wear beards,
even if their turbans contain great hatred,
these men would give their lives to save this small child,
these men with broken hearts.)

6
Walking between George Bush and a full heart,
I choose the path of trees and cobbles
in a familiar city full of foreigners.

To be invisible in a place you know well
is the best kind of freedom.
There’s so much chatter in the world,
only silence now would change anything.
George Bush shadows me as I walk, complete
power and powerlessness on a street where trees do what the wind wants
and cobbles grow slowly softer in profile,
footstep by footstep.

Whether or not I love you, you’ll sleep well tonight.
In my heart too you’ll sleep well, close to me.
I’ll breathe in time to the wind.
George Bush passing through these hours
will leave only the lightest footprints.

7
On the record
the bombs kept falling
long after the journalists had left.

Off the record
he went out when he could
in the early morning hours
to watch the sky change colour undisturbed
and his wife sometimes joined him.

Once a reporter saw them walking, holding hands,
and he felt he should run after her
to explain.

8
Will the war be over
when people are dying of hunger instead of bomb strikes?
When the victors run out of new weapons to test?
When their radioactive debris has finished decaying on the battlefields?
When the sad little wingless men they bred in captivity
climb up on the podium
and announce that they are the leaders
of the new democracy?

The barbed wire around the US Consulate
will come down when the war is over.
We can stop praying and chanting outside the unphotographable building,
holding these placards that blow so wildly in the southeaster
we nearly get knocked down
when the war is over.

The oil price will stabilise when the war is over.
Holiday travel will be safe again when the war is over.
Everyone will be happy when the war is over,
and we can take photographs of ourselves smiling.

 

© Karen Press

 

 

 

 

Einde verlede maand het die poëzietydskrif Awater met hul nuutste uitgawe bekend gemaak dat die gewilde digter, Menno Wigman, aangewys is as wenner van die Awater Poëzieprys 2012 vir sy bundel Mijn naam is Legioen; ’n bundel wat eweneens vir die VSB Poëzieporys genomineer is.

Luidens die berig by Ooteoote, die volgende: “De Awater Poëzieprijs is de jaarlijkse poëzieprijs van poëzietijdschrift Awater ter waarde van € 500 . Voor de toekenning van de prijs is een keur aan ‘beroepslezers’ (medewerkers van onder meer De Morgen, NRC Handelsblad, Het Parool, Vrij Nederland, Meander, De Groene Amsterdammer en de Universiteit van Amsterdam) gevraagd een top 3 in te leveren van dichtbundels uit het afgelopen jaar. Aan de hand van deze top 3 kregen de bundels punten toegekend.”

Enkele aanhaling uit die beoordelaars se lofrede is die volgende:

•‘Wat is dit goed! Een gerijpte dichter die almaar scherper, soepeler en nietsontziender wordt. Wigman schrijft regels die je wilt zingen en brullen, op hartstochtelijke wijze.’

• ‘Beste bundel tot nu toe van onze meest vormvaste en klassieke dichter van het moment. Laat weer eens zien dat oude vormen en hedendaagse onderwerpen elkaar niet hoeven uit te sluiten.’

• ‘“Iedereen zijn eigen hel,” schrijft Wigman. Er is geen enkele andere dichter vandaag die ze zo scherp, snijdend kan beschrijven.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Vir jou leesplesier volg die openingsgedig uit die bundel hieronder.

*

Tot mijn pik

 

Het wordt wat koud. De dagen zijn van glas,

gewapend glas en Seroxat. Zocht ik

een woord voor alles waar geen woord voor is,

ik geef het op. Je bent een zak, een zak

ben je dat je ook nu weer dicht. En jij,

 

mijn pik, wat hebben we vandaag verricht?

Ik wil geen weemoed die niks kost, kom op,

je slaapt al dagen in mijn broek, zo moe

van wie je ziedend van je zaad ontdoet.

 

Geen hoop, geen zin, geen bedvriendin. En naakt

als water sliert wat heupwerk door mijn hoofd.

Oktober. Veertig en geen bed werkt over.

 

Ooit wist je alles van genot. Iets met

voltage, wijsheid – ach mijn sleutel tot.

 

 

© Menno Wigman Uit: Mijn naam is Legioen, 2012: Prometheus.)

 

 

Die Poetry Foundation in die VSA het onlangs bekend gemaak dat die stigting se keurpaneel eenparig ten gunste van die nuwe president, Robert Polito (foto), se aanstelling as president gestem het. Die volg na die teenswoordige president, John Barr, sy uitrede aan die begin van verlede aangekondig het. Volgens die persverklaring sal Polito die leisels amptelik by Barr oorneem op 8 Julie vanjaar.

Ek haal aan uit die persverklaring: “A highly respected poet, critic, and biographer, Polito has served since 1992 as director of Creative Writing at The New School, where he founded the MFA Program in Creative Writing and (with Len and Louise Riggio) the Riggio Honors Program: Writing and Democracy. Born in Boston in 1951, he earned a doctorate in English and American language and literature from Harvard University. Polito’s poetry, which blends lyric, collage, and narrative impulses and draws on both American pop culture and literary tradition, has been collected in two books, Hollywood & God (2009) and Doubles (1995) [...] The recipient of numerous honors and awards, including fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the Ingram Merrill Foundation, Polito is a contributing editor to BOMB and the Boston Review. His poetry, essays, and criticism have been published widely, including in the Best American Poetry, Best American Essays, and Best American Movie Writing annual anthologies.”

Indrukwekkend, inderdaad. John Kenney, voorsitter van die Poetry Foundation se beheerraad, het hom soos volg oor Polito se aanstelling uitgelaat: ““Robert Polito is the right leader for the next chapter of the Poetry Foundation.  He is an accomplished poet, writer, and teacher. And he will bring to the job broad experience and a creative energy that will move the organization in new directions while remaining true to the legacy of Poetry magazine and the mission of the Poetry Foundation. I am delighted that Robert is joining the Foundation and look forward to working with him.”

In reaksie op sy aanstelling het Polito soos volg gereageer: ““We live at a lucky moment for poetry, when there are so many surprising poets across generations, cultures, and styles—and this situation is one of the powerful legacies of Poetry, the magazine Harriet Monroe proposed a little over a century ago. I’m grateful to the Poetry Foundation for the chance to join their tradition of innovation and change—at once touchstone, template, and aspiration for the century ahead.”

En ja, gewis bevind die Amerikaanse digkuns, en dan veral hierdie betrokke organisasie hom in “a lucky moment”; veral na die skenking van 200 miljoen USD deur die filantroop (en asprirat digter) Ruth Lilly. Met dié finansiële rugsteun kan hulle met reg – en volslae selfvertroue – die volgende as riglyn vir die organisasie stel: “The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine, is an independent literary organization committed to a vigorous presence for poetry in our culture. It exists to discover and celebrate the best poetry and to place it before the largest possible audience. The Poetry Foundation seeks to be a leader in shaping a receptive climate for poetry by developing new audiences, creating new avenues for delivery, and encouraging new kinds of poetry through innovative literary prizes and programs. “

Ter verdere ondersteuning van dié aanstelling is daar ‘n onderhoud met Robert Polito wat op die Poetry Foundation se webblad gelees kan word.

Hieronder volg die lang titelgedig uit Polito se voorlaaste bundel.

*

Hollywood & God

 

If only God would save me,
I would know how to hurt you.

If only God would save me,
I would know who to sell my soul to.

Anything is an autobiography,
but this is a conversation –

William Burroughs insisted
literature lagged 50 years behind painting,

thinking no doubt about abstraction, collage,
fragmentation, his cut-ups.

But whatever that meant (why always 50 years?), or however
he presumed to rile other writers,

poetry probably does lag behind any credible media theory
     about it –

so that if I put a pine tree
into a poem,

a grove of pine trees
and beyond them the sea,

you’d think it was the same tree Wordsworth put there;
instead of two obligatory centuries of nature studies, all those

Technicolor vistas, torch songs, couples
drifting through leaves in Salem commercials.

Into one life and out another,

the way a junkie playing a writer,
a writer playing a priest,

so that when I finally blurted out,
You-betrayed me/I-wounded-you/We’re-so-unhappy

you assumed the burden of personal urgency,
supposed it was me speaking at the limits of my self-control

and not The Damned Don’t Cry,
Temptation, and Leave Her to Heaven.

You open your mouth and a tradition dribbles out.

But that’s mimesis –

how almost impossible to avoid mimesis,
anybody’s hardest truths prompting the most fractured
     constructions,

the way to think about God might be
to disobey God,

if only God’s wish to remain hidden,

so that if everything is an autobiography,
this is a conversion.

As my lives flash before me,

why must the yearning for God
trump all other yearnings?

You often hear converts confess
the drinking, his pills, her sexual addiction,

concealed inside them a yearning for God –
why not the other way around?

The admission of Jesus into your life
concealing instead the wish, say, a need

to be fucked senseless drunk drugged & screaming
OH GOD! OH GOD! on a hotel bed…

God embraces our yearnings.

That afternoon my father heard his diagnosis of inoperable   
     cancer,
my aunt Barbara demanded we get him to Lourdes.

She demanded this with a glass of vodka in her hand –
she demanded this running her fingers up and down my leg –
she demanded this before she passed out in her car –

In the movie of my life,
my father died

after I forgave him,

& when my secret tormentor said may the ghosts of your dreams
gnaw at your belly like a wolf under your jacket,

did she really want revenge,
or was she just killing time?

For me God is a hair shirt, or he’s nothing;
for me God is a pain in the ass;

that’s mimesis, again,

this hour I tell you things in confidence,
I might not tell everybody, but I’ll tell you.

The world is a road under the wall to the church,
the world is a church, & the world is a road,

& the world is a stone wall.

Still, he wanted her the way the Cardinal wanted the  
     Caravaggio,
& when the ill-advised possessor of the painting resisted –
one night Papal Guards searched his house.

Of course contraband came to light, some illegal rifles,
& when the ill-advised possessor of the painting went to prison –the Cardinal got his Caravaggio.

But I wasn’t a Cardinal, nephew to the Pope,
and you –
you were not a Caravaggio.

So I asked you to be in my movie.

 

© Robert Polito (Uit: Hollywood & God, 2009: University of Chicago.)

 

 

 

Vroeër het ek berig oor die digter Richard Blanco se geleentheidsvers wat hy tydens president Obama se inhuldiging moes voordra. Dié optrede was blykbaar so vervelig en bloedloos dat bykans die ganse Amerikaanse media nou in oproer is. So het Alexandra Petri op Washington Post se webblad ‘n ellelange betoog gelewer waarin sy onomwonde bevind dat die digkuns saliger is: “I say this lovingly as a member of the print media. If poetry is dead, we are in the next ward over, wheezing noisily, with our family gathered around looking concerned and asking about our stereos. Still I think there is a question to be asked. You can tell that a medium is still vital by posing the question: Can it change anything?”

Ja, liewe leser, daardie bebaarde vraag wat telkens teen die digkuns afgevuur word en wat so eie is aan die verbruikersetiek waarvan ons helaas deel uitmaak. Maar sy vervolg: “I think the medium might not be loud enough any longer […] I think what we mean by poetry is a limp and fangless thing. Poetry has gone from being something that you did in order to Write Your Name Large Across the Sky and sound your barbaric yawp and generally Shake Things Up to a very carefully gated medium that requires years of study and apprenticeship in order to produce meticulous, perfect, golden lines that up to ten people will ever voluntarily read.”

Daarna volg ‘n lang uiteensetting van wat die digkuns is (behoort te wees) met die volgende gevolgtrekking wat uiteindelik bereik word: “All the prestige of poetry dates back to when it was the way you got the most vital news there is — your people’s stories. ‘The Iliad,’ ‘The Odyssey,’ and ‘Gilgamesh.” All literature used to be poetry. But then fiction splintered off. Then the sort of tale you sung could be recorded and the words did not have to spend any time outside the company of their music if they did not want to. We have movies now that are capable of presenting images to us with a precision that would have made Ezra Pound keel over. All the things that poetry used to do, other things do much better. But naturally we still have government-subsidized poets. Poets are like the Postal Service — a group of people sedulously doing something that we no longer need, under the misapprehension that they are offering us a vital service.”

Vervolgens verwys Petri na die dramaturg Gwydion Suilebhan se tweet wat kort na die Obama-inhuldiging die wêreld ingestuur is: “Poetry is dead,” het hy glo ge-tweet. “What pretends to be poetry now is either New Age blather or vague nonsense or gibberish. It’s zombie poetry.” Hierop vervolg Petri met: “There is no longer, really, any formal innovation possible. The constraints of meter have long been abandoned. What is left? It is a parroting of something that used to be radical. It is about as useful as the clavichord. There is no ‘Howl’ possible or ‘Song of Myself’. There is no ‘The Waste Land’.”

Maar dit is Petri se slotparagraaf wat ek graag wil voorhou, aangesien dit na die mens se volgehoue behoefte aan poësie (of iets dergliks) verwys en ook te make het met wat ek persoonlik as verklaring vir die ontploffing van aspirant-digters op die soasiale media beskou: “We get it in diluted doses in song lyrics. Song lyrics are incomplete poems, as Sondheim notes in the book of his own. If it is complete on the page, it makes a shoddy lyric. But there is still wonderful music to be found in those words. We get it in rap. If we really want to read it, it is everywhere. Poetry, taken back to its roots, is just the process of making — and making you listen.”

Nog ‘n sterk mening oor dié toedrag van sake is deur Craig Santos Perez op The Kenyon Review  se webblad gemaak. Sy doodskoot lees soos volg: “The public attention that Obama has brought to poetry has led some to declare that poetry is dead. I think they are right. Poetry is dead because many Americans have sold their souls for the dream of capitalism, militarism, and colonialism—what Whitman called the “deformed democracy” of America.  Unlike some of Blanco’s other poems, his ‘One Today’ is a perfect poem to present to zombie Americans because it is a dead poem [...] For many of us whose native homelands are occupied by America, poetry is one of the few things that keeps us alive. Poetry is our defense against tyranny. It should not be the poet’s role to lip sync the rhetoric of empire. The poet’s role is to challenge and question. The poets role is to inspire others towards dismantling empire so that a truly humane form of life can emerge.”

Sela. So is dit dan. Maar is dit waar?

Hieronder volg ‘n toepaslike vers. Ook met Daniel Hugo se vertaling daarvan as leestoegif.

*

Poëzie

Zoals je tegen een ziek dochtertje zegt:
mijn miniatuurmensje, mijn zelfgemaakt
verdrietje, en het helpt niet;
zoals je een hand op haar hete voorhoofdje
legt, zo dun als sneeuw gaat liggen,
en het helpt niet:

zo helpt poëzie.

© Herman de Coninck (Uit: Met een klank van hobo, 1980)

 

Poësie

Soos wat jy vir ‘n siek dogtertjie sê:

my miniatuurmensie, my selfgemaakte

verdrietjie, en dit help nie;

soos wat jy ‘n hand op haar warm voorhofie

lê, so dun as sneeu gaan lê,

en dit help nie:

 

so help poësie

 

(c) Herman de Coninck (Vertaal deur Daniel Hugo. Uit: 1996: Liefde, miskien)