Dit is vry algemene gebruik aan die einde van ‘n jaar om ‘n bestekopname van bepaalde digkunste te neem. So is daar op Edward Byrne se webblad, One Poet’s Notes, ‘n besonder goeie oorsig oor W.S. Merwin – volgens hom die Amerikaanse digter van die jaar – na aanleiding van die Pulitzer-prys wat Merwin gewen het met sy nuutste digbundel The Shadow of Sirius (uitgegee deur Copper Canyon Press).
Byrne motiveer sy huldiging soos volg: “Indeed, various reviews of The Shadow of Sirius have remarked upon the book’s sense of retrospection, how this volume seems to present messages that blend memory and imagination with a mixture of mature wisdom and acute awareness of mortality (“part memory part distance remaining”), apparently serving as an apt culmination of his career.”
Tydens ‘n onderhoud met Bill Moyers het Merwin hom soos volg oor sy nuwe bundel uitgelaat: “We are the shadow of Sirius. There is the other side-as we talk to each other, we see the light, and we see these faces, but we know that behind that, there’s the other side, which we never know. And that-it’s the dark, the unknown side that guides us-and that is part of our lives all the time. It’s the mystery. That’s always with us, too. And it gives the depth and dimension to the rest of it.”
Vir jou leesplesier plaas ek vanoggend W.S. Merwin se gedig “Term” hieronder.
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En dan lê die jaar vanoggend vollengte op die naat van sy rug uitgestrek. Aan almal wat aan die (vroeë) suksesse van hierdie webblad meegewerk het: Baie dankie. Mag die nuwe jaar ons verbyster met vreugde. Intussen kan jy jou verlekker aan die Franse vertalings deur Pierre-Marie Finkelstein van Ronelda Kamfer se gedigte, asook die Nederlandse vertalings van Johan Lodewyk Marais se gedig “Monk’s Cowl” wat deur Herman Leenders gedoen is.
Mooi bly.
LE
TERM
At the last minute a word is waiting
not heard that way before and not to be
repeated or ever be remembered
one that always had been a household word
used in speaking of the ordinary
everyday recurrences of living
not newly chosen or long considered
or a matter for comment afterward
who would ever have thought it was the one
saying itself from the beginning through
all its uses and circumstances to
utter at last that meaning of its own
for which it had long been the only word
though it seems now that any word would do
(c) W.S. Merwin