Versindaba
~ 'n Weblog vir die Afrikaanse digkuns ~

Konteks?

Die Italiaanse filosoof Giorgio Agamben begin sy wonderlike essay “The melancholy angel” (in: The man without content, 1994: Stanford University Press) met die volgende stelling van Walter Benjamin: “The quotations in my works are like robbers lying in ambush on the highway to attack the passerby with weapons drawn and rob him of his convictions” (p.104).

Mmm, aanhalings inderdaad  wat vanweë hul gebrek aan konteks soos struikrowers funksioneer en ‘n totaal ánder funksie buite rasionele betoog om verkry. Amper soos ‘n antieke plaasimplement in ‘n museum wat sy nutswaarde as werktuig verloor het en nou gewoon as ikoon van kulturele oordrag (of beskouing) funksioneer. Maar is dit nie maar presies die essensie van ‘n gedig nie?! Net soos ‘n mens ‘n gedig met jou eie skakerings van belewenisse en insigte kleur, resoneer dieselfde ook by die aanhoor (of lees) van ‘n aanhaling; word die konteks inderwaarheid deur ons as toehoorder of leser bygelees en geïnterpreteer.

Daarom vanoggend, skaamteloos, net ‘n aantal treffende aanhalings wat ek onlangs op De Contrabas se webblad raakgelees het:

“The artist is of no importance. Only what he creates is important, since there is nothing new to be said. Shakespeare, Balzac, Homer have all written about the same things, and if they had lived one thousand or two thousand years longer, the publishers wouldn’t have needed anyone since.” (William Faulkner)

When I moved into the poetry world in the mid-90s – in comparison to the art world – the work seemed shockingly passé: either disjunctively modernist or else depressingly academic and blandly subjective, full of “special moments.” Both ways of writing seemed pointless to me at the dawn of the internet age.” (Kenneth Goldsmith)

En, ten slotte, ‘n besonder treffende uitspraak van Mahmoud Darwish (soos aangehaal deur Breyten Breytenbach in sy essay “The pity and the horror” (2009: Notes from the Middle World, p. 103): “Poetry is fragile despite its metaphorical resource to the power of silk and the firmness of honey. Fragile, because its work to change the soul and make the heart bigger is slow and invisible. And so, even though it unites the intimate with the universal, it cannot escape its image as daughter of solitude and of the outer edge, like an echo rising from an obscure dream … The poets should not deny that solitude, nor glorify it, but must continue being eternal travelers between their interior and the outside.”

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Sedert gister het daar net twee nuwe plasings bygekom. In navolging van vandeesmaand se blogfokus vertel Ilse van Staden van singende skilderye, terwyl Bibi Slippers netjies hierby aansluit deur te vertel waarom skilderye, én gedigte, soms nie (wil) sing nie.

Lekker lees en wees tog maar op die uitkyk vir struikrowers langs die pad vandag; hulle wil jou dekonstrueer en/of van alle konteks beroof.

Geniet die korter week wat op hande is.

Mooi bly.

LE