Met Poetry International Web se mees onlangse uitgawe word daar gekyk na die digkuns van die Japannese digter, Michio Mado, wat op 102-jarige leeftyd na alle waarskynlikheid die oudste lewende digter ter wêreld is. Volgens die oorsigartikel was Mado tot onlangs toe nie juis as ‘n ernstige digter gereken nie, aangesien hy meestal bekend is vir kinderliedjies en -verse. Deesdae word sy digkuns egter in ‘n ietwat ánder lig beskou, aldus Sarah Ream van die PIW-redaksie: “Mado’s poems are linguistically simple and sparse, yet they resonate with a moving spirituality in their quiet contemplation, and wonder, of the small, everyday things of our world, ‘such a distant place where / stars can be mixed / with mosquitoes’.”
Ook Yasuhiro Yotsumoto, redakteur van die Japannese-forum eggo dié siening: “Despite his renowned reputation around the world as a children’s writer and his recent celebrity as a 100-year-old poet, Mado’s poems have rarely been published in mainstream literary magazines or discussed by literary critics. For them, Mado’s poems may appear too straightforward and ‘easy’ to be taken ‘seriously’. But Shuntaro Tanikawa has long recognised the beauty and the depth of Mado’s works and selected poems of his for the audiobook anthology Masters of Modern Japanese Poetry: Six Distinctive Vocies of the Postwar Era (The Morris-Lee Publishing Group, Rosemont, NJ, 1999).”
Aangesien Michio Mado se gedigte besonder kort is, plaas ek vanoggend sommer twee onderaan vir jou leesplesier.
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Sedert gister het daar ‘n paar interessante bydraes bygekom: Leon de Kock en Cas Vos ‘n briefwisseling tussen hulle vir die Brieweboks gestuur waarin die interaktiewe aspek van vertaling blyk; Amanda Lourens het ‘n blog geplaas oor tierkatmammas, terwyl Elly de Waard haar welkome toetrede tot Wisselkaarten maak met ‘n bydrae (en gedig!) oor Ingrid Jonker.
Ten slotte is daar ook nog die absoluut fassinerende stuk deur Marcelle Olivier oor Indië se Fees van Kleure (Holi) wat onlangs plaasgevind het, die digter Agha Shahid Ali en die ghazal as digvorm, om te geniet.
Lekker lees aan dit alles.
Mooi bly.
LE
Why all the time
The sun
The moon
The stars
And
The rain
The wind
The rainbow
The echoes in the mountains
Why are
Only the oldest
Always the newest?
***
Apple
As I place
one apple
here
the apple,
its mass,
all by itself
occupies all
Here exists
0ne apple
nothing else
Ah
what is
and what is not
come together
blindingly clear
© Michio Mado