Paul Muldoon is saam met Seamus Heaney waarskynlik van Ierland se vernaamste digters. Daarom, wanneer jy ook al iets oor of deur dié digter te lese kry, loon dit beslis die moeite. So het daar verlede week op The Economist se webtuiste ‘n besonder insigegewende onderhoud met Muldoon verskyn. Dié onderhoud is met hom gevoer na aanleiding van die verskyning van sy nuutste digbundel, Magott, wat in die VSA deur Farrar, Straus & Giroux uitgegee is en in Brittanje deur Faber & Faber.
Enkele hoogtepunte uit dié onderhoud is die volgende:
Op die vraag of die skryfwerk ná 11 publikasies vir hom makliker begin word, het hy soos volg geantwoord: “I fear it’s always been hard for me. […] But it gets even harder, I think. I think one expects more of oneself. I always do. But I try to keep something of that wide-eyed thing one has when one’s 18. If one doesn’t, one turns into a parody of oneself, which is what happens to most poets of my vintage.”
Oor sy gewaande voorkeur vir klassieke versvorme: “I rarely think in those terms, actually. I try to get the right shape for the poem in hand. Sometimes that’s reminiscent of an inherited form and sometimes not. I think the sonnet or some version of it is fairly common. That’s because the sonnet is a great size and shape for transporting water for drinking. It’s like a bucket. One ends up reaching for it again and again because it keeps presenting itself again and again as some version of itself. As is a Stetson, a gourd, a skull.”
En, ten slotte, sy siening oor die stand van die digkuns tans: “Poetry is as vital as ever. The teaching of poetry reading, however, is sluggish and, often, slovenly. It needs to be expanded in the school curriculum and be more a feature of society at large. The newspapers should all be carrying a daily poem. It should be as natural as reading a novel.”
Vir jou leesplesier plaas ek een van Muldoon se vroeëre sonette onder aan hierdie Nuuswekker.
***
Sedert gister het daar nuwe blogs deur Andries Bezuidenhout en Desmond Painter bygekom. Ook Vrouwkje Tuinman het ‘n kort inskrywing geplaas waarin sy vertel van die frustrerende tyd wat sy tans beleef. Dan wil dit voorkom asof ons bydraes tot Keelskoonmaak nou begin opdroog. Ten einde die momentum te behou het ek sommer solank ‘n vers geplaas …
En daarmee is dit reeds weer Vrydag. Gebniet die naweek wat op hande is; ons hervat weer Maandag.
Mooi bly.
LE
Holy Thursday
They’re kindly here, to let us linger so late,
Long after the shutters are up.
A waiter glides from the kitchen with a plate
Of stew, or some thick soup,
And settles himself at the next table but one.
We know, you and I, that it’s over,
That something or other has come between
Us, whatever we are, or were.
The waiter swabs his plate with bread
And drains what’s left of his wine,
Then rearranges, one by one,
The knife, the fork, the spoon, the napkin,
The table itself, the chair he’s simply borrowed,
And smiles, and bows to his own absence.
© Paul Muldoon