Versindaba
~ 'n Weblog vir die Afrikaanse digkuns ~

Hoe het die heelal ontstaan? Deur ’n oerknal, ’n Skepper-god? Niemand kan met absolute sekerheid weet nie; slegs aannames kan aangevoer word.

Die Boeddhisme veronderstel dat geen fenomeen (dharma, nie te verwar met die Dharma wat na die Boeddhistiese leerstellings verwys nie) onafhanklik van ’n ander dharma kan ont- of bestaan nie. Hierdie sentrale veronderstelling word dependent origination genoem. Boeddhisme kibbel dus nie oor die aanwesigheid of afwesigheid van ’n godheid nie:

All phenomena in the Universe are produced within the cosmos by internal causes. This is to say, each phenomenon is the cause of a further phenomenon, which, in its turn, will go on to be a cause of something else, and so on, ad infinitum (Snelling 2000:29).

Dependent origination sluit dus aan by die Interkonneksie-konsep wat ek reeds aangevoer het in Deel 1 en 2. Waar presies sou die Groot Poësiebrander op Facebook ontstaan het? Was dit een individu of ’n groep wat die konsep uitgedink het? Was die land van oorsprong dalk Amerika? Ek is deur Annette Snyckers genooi en sy deur iemand anders … die terugspeel na elke rolspeler klink byna soos die Ou-Testamentiese geslagsregister, “begat”. Die entoesiasme waarmee die Poësieuitdaging begroet is, het my verstom en laat besef dat facebook ’n perfekte manifestasie van beide Interkonneksie (Indra se Net) en dependent origination is.

Op Dag 2 lyk my status só:

“Vir dag twee van die poësie-uitdaging waarvoor Annette Snyckers my genomineer het, besin ek oor Wallace Stevens se ‘The Snow Man’. Ek het dit die eerste keer raakgelees op die brose ouderdom van 15. Bron: Rika Cilliers se digbundel, Vlier. Sy haal ’n gedeelte aan uit ‘The Snow Man’ wat as motto vir een van die gedigte dien. Ek was onmiddellik oorrompel. Tog had ek geen idee wat Stevens se woorde beteken het nie. Dit was ’n beeldskone raaisel, diep begrawe in ys. So twee en ’n bietjie dekades later grawe ek steeds in die sneeu rond, maar met die volgende besef: ek wil net in stilte na hierdie gedig luister; ek wil dit nooit ontsyfer nie. Stevens se gedig vra na ’n tipe binnereis, ’n meditasie-‘oor’. Veral die laaste strofe vra van die leser om met aandagtigheid die pousering te eerbiedig; elke asemteug na elke komma. Charl Cilliers, jy het ook hierdie gedig op jou status gedeel en weet goed dat my hart hierin begrawe lê. Ook ’n verdere uitdaging vir fb-vriende wat van speurwerk hou: in watter Rika Cilliers-gedig sal jy hierdie Stevens-motto vind? En, watter spesifieke gedeelte haal sy aan? Flinkdink vir die poësieliefhebber”.

The Snow Man

One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is there and the nothing that is.

-Wallace Stevens

“Hiermee nomineer ek die volgende fb-vriende om vir vier dae, elke dag ’n gedig te deel wat jou ontroer, of waarsonder jy nie kan klaarkom nie. En elke dag, kan jy, as jy wil, ’n paar mense nooi om dieselfde te doen. Weer eens: as jy stomfloumoeg is, of reeds genomineer is, ignoreer die nominasie. Geen druk, of verpligting nie. Goed, hier volg ’n paar name : Louis Jansen Van Vuuren,Carien Smith, en Susan Smith.Izak Du Plessis: as jy so ’n tydjie kan afknyp tussen al jou onderhoude en reise na interessante dorpies. Ag, ek weet julle is almal oorlaai, maar sien dit as ’n toilet- of smoke break so tussen al die opeenhopings van elke dag. Dankie ook vir almal wat die uitdaging gister aanvaar het: ek het reeds soveel nuwe gedigte leer ken”. http://www.wallacestevensbiography.com/wallace-stevens-reading-his-poetry.htm. Hierdie skakel neem die leser direk na ’n voorlesing van Wallace Stevens van “The Snow Man”.

Dus: vir die nuuskierige poësie-vraat: (1) in watter Rika Cilliers-gedig (Vlier:1989) haal sy Wallace Stevens aan as motto, en (2) watter gedeelte van “The Snow Man” word as motto gebruik? Ek hoor graag van Versindaba-lesers.

Vir Dag 1 se uitdaging deel Heilna du Plooy, bekende literator, digter, literêre vertaler en skilder ’n gedig van Les Murray, die Australiese digter wat sy in Afrikaans vertaal het:

Child logic

The smallest girl
in the wild kid’s gang
submitted her finger
to his tomahawk idea –

It hurt bad, dropping off.
He knew he’d gone too far
and ran, herding the others.
Later on, he’d maim her brother.

She stayed in the bush
till sundown, wrote
in blood on the logs, and
gripped her gapped hand, afraid

what her parents would say
to waste of a finger.
Carelessness. Mad kids.
She had done wrong some way.

Kinderlogika

Die kleinste dogtertjie
in die bende wilde kinders
het haar vingertjie onderwerp
aan sy kapmesspeletjies –

Dit was baie seer, die vinger morsaf.
Hy het geweet hy het te ver gegaan
en weggehol, die ander almal agterna.
Later het hy haar broer ook afgeknou.

Heeldag bly sy in die veld,
tot sononder toe, skryf
in bloed op stompe hout, en hou
die verminkte handjie vas, bang

vir wat haar ouers gaan sê
oor ’n afgekapte vinger.
Onverskilligheid. Stoute kinders.
Sy moes iets verkeerds gedoen het.

Dag twee: “XII. Here’s Our Clean Business Now Let’s Go Down the Hall to the Black Room Where I Make My Real Money”:

You want to see how things were going from the husband’s point of view—
let’s go round the back,
there stands the wife
gripping herself at the elbows and facing the husband.
Not tears he is saying, not tears again. But still they fall.
She is watching him.
I’m sorry he says. Do you believe me.
Watching.
I never wanted to harm you.
Watching.
This is banal. It’s like Beckett. Say something!
I believe

your taxi is here she said.
He looked down at the street. She was right. It stung him,
the pathos of her keen hearing.
There she stood a person with particular traits,
a certain heart, life beating on its way in her.
He signals to the driver, five minutes.
Now her tears have stopped.
What will she do after I go? he wonders. Her evening. It closed his breath.
Her strange evening.
Well he said.
Do you know she began.
What.

If I could kill you I would then have to make another exactly like you.
Why.
To tell it to.
Perfection rested on them for a moment like calm on a lake.
Pain rested.
Beauty does not rest.
The husband touched his wife’s temple
and turned
and ran
down
the
stairs.

– Anne Carson, The Beauty of the Husband: a fictional essay in 29 tangos.

Vir Dag 3 skryf Heilna: “Hier is my derde gedig. Ek het honderde Afrikaanse gedigte op die punte van my vingers, maar daar is gedigte in ander tale wat miskien minder bekend is en wat net eenvoudig oorrompelend is. My eerste bydrae was van Australiese oorsprong, die tweede een van die Skotse Carol Anne Duffy (tans Poet Laureate in die VK) en vandag s’n van die Amerikaanse groot gees, Wallace Stevens.

As ek met my internasionale versreis klaar is, sal ek sommer vir die lekker met Afrikaanse gedigte verder gaan. (Terloops, Stevens het regtig “bucks” geskryf al dink mens die meervoud is gewoon “buck”.)”

Earthy Anecdote

Every time the bucks went clattering
Over Oklahoma
A firecat bristled in the way.

Wherever they went,
They went clattering,
Until they swerved
In a swift, circular line
To the right,
Because of the firecat.

Or until they swerved
In a swift, circular line
To the left,
Because of the firecat.

The bucks clattered.
The firecat went leaping,
To the right, to the left,
And
Bristled in the way.

Later, the firecat closed his bright eyes
And slept.

Dag 4: “In hierdie gedig van die enigmatiese Emily Dickinson is ’n mens nie seker of die slot van die gedig op aanvaarding of gelatenheid of oorgawe dui nie. Nogtans was dit een van daardie gedigte wat ek na ’n enkele lesing nie weer vergeet het nie”:

After great pain

After great pain, a formal feeling comes –
The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs –
The stiff Heart questions was it He, that bore
And Yesterday, or Centuries before?

The Feet, mechanical go round –
Of Ground, or Air, or Ought –
A Wooden way
Regardless grown,
A Quartz contentment, like a stone –

This is the Hour of Lead –
Remembered if outlived,
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow –
First – Chill – then Stupor – then the letting go –

Louis Jansen van Vuuren, kunstenaar, mede-eienaar van La Creuzette, ’n chateau in Frankryk se Limousin-streek met die mooiste roostuin in Frankryk (hy verskyn ook in Marita van der Vyfer se Marita Kook-DVD wat op Somerkos in Provence gebaseer is), digter asook samesteller van Portretteer, het ook heerlik saam met die poësiebrander gerol. Hier is sy vier dae:

Dag 1:

Smoke

My father kept a stove
with dog’s legs
on a pink hearthstone.

One morning he climbed down the icy stairs
and spread his palms
on the blood-warm metal flanks.

He cranked open the iron doors,
like a black bank safe’s
but found no heat and ash heaped in its place.

He cracked grey whittled coals
released brief blue flames,
and knocked downy soot through the bars of the grate.

The ash-pan, softly loaded
and almost as wide as a doorway,
he carried like dynamite through the dark house,

his bright face blown with smuts.
At the back door
he slid the ash into a tin dustbin,

then snapped sticks,
crumpled newspaper,
struck a match

and dipped it between the kindling.
Smoke unrolled, flames spread,
the rush of the stove eating air started up,

and my father would shake on rocks
from an old coal hod
and swing the doors shut.

But this time
he took a book, broke its spine
and slung that instead:

his diaries
year by year
purred as their pages burned,

their leather boards shifted, popped
and fell apart.
Soon I would arrive,

pulled from under my mother’s heart,
and grow to watch my father
break the charred crossbeam of a bird from the flue,

wondering if I too
had hung in darkness and smoke,
looking up at the light let down her throat
whenever my mother sang or spoke.

-Jacob Polley. 2003. The Brink. (Picador).

Dag 2:

What’s Broken

The slate black sky. The middle step
of the back porch. And long ago

my mother’s necklace, the beads
rolling north and south. Broken

the rose stem, water into drops, glass
knobs on the bedroom door. Last summer’s

pot of parsley and mint, white roots
shooting like streamers through the cracks.

Years ago the cat’s tail, the bird bath,
the car hood’s rusted latch. Broken

little finger on my right hand at birth—
I was pulled out too fast. What hasn’t

been rent, divided, split? Broken
the days into nights, the night sky

into stars, the stars into patterns
I make up as I trace them

with a broken-off blade
of grass. Possible, unthinkable,

the cricket’s tiny back as I lie
on the lawn in the dark, my heart

a blue cup fallen from someone’s hands.

– Dorianne Laux. 2007. Facts About The Moon.

Dag 3:

Mes

Jy het die hef in die hand,
ek het die lem;
die vingers wat op die grond beland
is myne as ek rem.

Sheila Cussons. Plektrum. 1970

Dag 4:

Elegy for the living

We wash up side by side
to find each other

in the speakable world,
and, lulled into sense,

inhabit our landscape;
the curve

of that chair draped
with your shirt;

my glass of water
seeded overnight with air.

After this bed
there’ll be another,

so we’ll roll
and keep rolling

until one of us
will roll alone and try to roll

the other back — a trick
no one’s yet pulled off —

and it’ll be
as if I dreamed you, dear,

as if I dreamed this bed,
our touching limbs,

this room, the tree outside alive
with new wet light.

Not now. Not yet.

-Katryn Simmonds. 2013. The Visitations .

Fred Barnard, gedugte taalpraktisyn en advokaat (laasgenoemde, ‘n beroep wat hy vir die liefde vir taal vaarwel geroep het), deel die volgende verse:

Dag 1:  “The snake” deur  DH Lawrence

Dag 2:

When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer

When I heard the learn’d astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

-Walt Whitman

Dag 3:
Broeikas

ek het vir my ‘n kamera gekoop
en die son afgeneem
die son hang nou van my plafon
ek maak die gordyne nooit meer oop nie

teen ‘n muur is nou my tuin
die bome is selfs groener die lug blouer
dis altyd lente hier by my
ek maak die gordyne nooit meer oop nie

jy het nooit weggegaan nie
want jy’s lewensgroot in elke kamer
jy glimlag en jy’s lief vir my
ek maak die deure nooit weer oop nie

-Stephan Bouwer

Marie Bredenkamp het Fred se Dag 3 gelees en ’n foto van Stephan Bouwer as kommentaar gepos wat “many moons ago” geneem is toe sy hom as spreker na die Durbanse Vroueklub genooi het:

*

Aanstons volg Deel 4 van Facebook en Die Groot Poësiebrander…

Bibliografie

Snelling, J. 2000. Buddhism: An Introductory Guide to the Buddhist Tradition. Shaftesbury, Dorset: Element.