Volgens ‘n berig op The Guardian se webblad is die verwagte kop-aan-kop-stryd tussen Seamus Heaney en Derek Walcott om vanjaar se Forward-poësieprys afgeweer deurdat Walcott, anders as wat dit met Heaney die geval is, toe nie die kortlys vir dié gesogte prys gehaal het met sy bundel White Egrets nie.
“It was extraordinarily hard to choose,” het Hugo Williams, sameroeper van die paneel beoordelaars met die bekendmaak van die kortlys verlede week gesê. “Walcott seems to have dropped off [the list]; this was not his best thing. I thought it a bit florid, and I’ve stayed with that.”
Heaney is wel vir sy bundel Human Chain op die kortlys benoem; ten spyte daarvan dat dié eweneens bundel nié as sy beste gereken kan word nie. “It’s a brave effort,” het Williams glo gesê. “It’s not his finest hour but nevertheless he’s there.”
Heaney het al bykans elke prys wat daar vir die poësie te wenne is, gewen, maar nog nooit die £10,000 Forward prys vir poësie nie. Ander digters op die kortlys is Lachlan Mackinnon (Small Hours), Sinéad Morrissey (Through the Square Window) en Fiona Sampson (Rough Music). Verlde jaar se wenner was Don Paterson met sy bundel Rain.
Ruth Padel, wat as voorsitter van vanjaar se keurkomitee optree, het haar tevredenheid oor die verskeidenheid van die groepie digters op die kortlys uitgespreek. “It was tough, whittling a rainbow down to a shortlist, and giving up many books we really loved, which in other years certainly would have been on the shortlist. But what we have got represents the quality and brilliant variety of poetry, and poetry publishing, in Britain today.”
In totaal is 147 publikasies vir dié gesogte prys, waarvan die wenner op 6 Oktober aangekondig sal word, beoordeel. Maar, indien die debakel tussen Ruth Padel en Derek Walcott rondom die Oxford Professor of Poetry-pos verlede jaar in gedagte gehou word, is dit seker nie vreemd dat ‘n literêre reus soos Walcott nie die kortlys kon haal nie …
By wyse van troos plaas ek die titelgedig uit sy bundel onder aan vanoggend se Nuuswekker.
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Op die webblad is daar vanoggend sommer heelwat nuwe leesstof om die week mee te verwelkom. So is daar ‘n resensie deur Bernard Odendaal van Melt Myburgh se debuutbundel, oewerbestaan, en ook nuwe blog-inskrywings deur Jan Pollet, Jannie Malan, Lewies Botha, Andries Bezuidenhout en Charl-Pierre Naudé.
Mmmm, lyk inderdaad na ‘n bedrywige week wat op hande is …
Mooi bly.
LE
White Egrets
I watch the huge trees tossing at the edge of the lawn
like a heaving sea without crests, the bamboos plunge
their necks like roped horses as yellow leaves, torn
from the whipping branches, turn to an avalanche;
all this before the rain scarily pours from the burst,
sodden canvas of the sky like a hopeless sail
gusting in sheets and hazing the hills completely
as if the whole valley were a hull outriding the gale
and the woods were not trees but waves of a running sea.
When light cracks and thunder groans as if cursed
and you are safe in a dark house deep in Santa
Cruz, with the lights out, the current suddenly gone,
you think: “Who’ll house the shivering hawk, and the
impeccable egret and the cloud-colored heron,
and the parrots who panic at the false fire of dawn?”
© Derek Walcott (Uit: White Egrets, 2010: Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Pragtige,pragtige vers van Walcott. Dankie.