I
Wanneer ‘n geel of rooi kaart in sokker uitgedeel word, sien ‘n mens die verbasing, skok, ongeloof, woede op die gesig van die speler. Maar die skeidsregter het die oortreding gesien. En dan speel die kamera, stadig in slow motion, alles uit.
In die digkuns is digters dikwels ongelukkig oor ‘n resensie wat nie behaag nie. Op Facebook word die resensent dan verdag gemaak. Alle digters leer uit streng en objektiewe resensies. En selfs uit subjektiewe reaksies.
Jy mag reageer, maar helaas is só ‘n reaksie of terugpraat selde lonend. Antwoord eerder soos Elisabeth Eybers of T.T. Cloete met ‘n gedig. Anders skop jy die bal in jou eie doelhok in.
Elisabeth Eybers se “Dagbladresensent” lui as volg:
Waar hy noukeurig aankruip knars die oes
voor die onwrikbre ywer van die vraat
wat ál wat groen en glinsterend is verwoes
en slegs ‘n vaal uitwerpsel agterlaat.
T.T. Cloete se satiriese gedig “Die kritikus” klink so:
ek fanie vanderbag
is die maatstaf
al wie groter as ek is lag
ek tot formaat af
gee my ‘n storie
wat vlot lees skryf net vir my soort
en vir mý wat niks anders wil hoor nie
soos dit hoort
alle skrywers met pryse
en eregrade
al die wyse
literatore en rade
almal hoor hier is dwaas
vra my fanie vanderbag
koerantskrywer graphaas
ek het smaak met gesag
ek weet van klein en van groot
weet ek van eg en oneg
van wie vir kuns of brood
skryf wat goed is wat sleg
luister na my ek groot bee ek,
daar moet tog goeie boeke wees
sê ek fanie vanderbag groot gee ek
soos van “Die skoenmaker en sy lees”
A.P. Grové gebruik dit as ‘n voorbeeld in Woord en wonder (1986 uitgawe) om die grootdoenerige, selftevrede kritikus hekelend aan die kaak te stel. Beide Cloete en Grové het vir dagblaaie geskryf, maar altyd met werklike gesag. En ‘n gedig is soos Harold Bloom dit stel word: “verse criticism”.
http://joanhambidge.blogspot.com/2020/02/polemies-voetnoot-of-duisendpoot_10.html Besoek 23 Januarie 2024
II
In Hamlet staan die volgende opgeteken:
Do you see yonder cloud that’s almost in shape of a camel?
Polonius: By the mass, and ‘tis like a camel, indeed.
Hamlet: Methinks it is like a weasel.
Polonius: It is backed like a weasel.
Hamlet: Or like a whale?
Polonius: Very like a whale.”
En so borduur Ogden Nash voort op hierdie gedagte in sy klassieke gedig:
Very like a whale
One thing that literature would be greatly the better for
Would be a more restricted employment by the authors of simile and
metaphor.
Authors of all races, be they Greeks, Romans, Teutons or Celts,
Can’t seem just to say that anything is the thing it is but have to
go out of their way to say that it is like something else.
What does it mean when we are told
That that Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold?
In the first place, George Gordon Byron had enough experience
To know that it probably wasn’t just one Assyrian, it was a lot of
Assyrians.
However, as too many arguments are apt to induce apoplexy and
thus hinder longevity.
We’ll let it pass as one Assyrian for the sake of brevity.
Now then, this particular Assyrian, the one whose cohorts were
gleaming in purple and gold,
Just what does the poet mean when he says he came down like a
wolf on the fold?
In heaven and earth more than is dreamed of in our philosophy
there are great many things.
But I don’t imagine that among them there is a wolf with purple
and gold cohorts or purple and gold anythings.
No, no, Lord Byron, before I’ll believe that this Assyrian was
actually like a wolf I must have some kind of proof;
Did he run on all fours and did he have a hairy tail and a big red
mouth and big white teeth and did he say Woof Woof?
Frankly I think it is very unlikely, and all you were entitled to say,
at the very most,
Was that the Assyrian cohorts came down like a lot of Assyrian
cohorts about to destroy the Hebrew host.
But that wasn’t fancy enough for Lord Byron, oh dear me no, he
had to invent a lot of figures of speech and then interpolate them,
With the result that whenever you mention Old Testament soldiers
to people they say Oh yes, they’re the ones that a lot of
wolves dressed up in gold and purple ate them.
That’s the kind of thing that’s being done all the time by poets,
from Homer to Tennyson;
They’re always comparing ladies to lilies and veal to venison,
And they always say things like that the snow is a white blanket
after a winter storm.
Oh it is, is it, all right then, you sleep under a six-inch blanket of
snow and I’ll sleep under a half-inch blanket of unpoetical
blanket material and we’ll see which one keeps warm,
And after that maybe you’ll begin to comprehend dimly
What I mean by too much metaphor and simile.
https://allpoetry.com/Very-Like-a-Whale Besoek 22 Januarie 2025
Nash (1902 – 1971), ‘n Amerikaanse digter, was bekend vir sy satires en besondere hantering van rymskemas.
They’re always comparing ladies to lilies and veal to venison,
And they always say things like that the snow is a white blanket
after a winter storm.
Oh it is, is it, all right then, you sleep under a six-inch blanket of
snow and I’ll sleep under a half-inch blanket of unpoetical
blanket material and we’ll see which one keeps warm,
And after that maybe you’ll begin to comprehend dimly
What I mean by too much metaphor and simile.
As die digter slaap onder ‘n “half-inch blanket of unpoetical / blanket material” gaan hy die wind van voor kry. Te veel opgeplakte beelde of hinderlike personifikasie steur die gedig. ‘n Goeie digter steek tegnieke weg. En soek na vars beelde.
Hierom kan ‘n mens by herhaling die groot digters in alle tale herbesoek.
Die digkuns van Robin Robertson bewys dit. En in Afrikaans het S.J. Pretorius eweneens gedig oor die spel tussen inspirasie en die uiteindelike gedig.
Die digkuns is ‘n lang reis. Jy kom helaas nooit aan nie; jy is voortdurend aan die beweeg op die Buick van ‘n sinekdogee of Boeing oor ‘n druppel see, om Pretorius se “Die Bietjie wat Ek vra …” aan te pas.
Joan Hambidge
23 Januarie 2025
Bronne:
Grové, A.P. 1986. (vierde druk). Woord en wonder. Pretoria: Nasou.
Pretorius, S.J. 1969. Argekrobaat. Kaapstad: Human & Rousseau.
Robertson, Robin. 2014. Sailing the Forest. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Écorché
As skilders spiere moet ontbloot
om ‘n naakte model presies te skets,
word digters nou versoek: onthalsing.
Die kartografie van my psige voos,
via S.J. Pretorius se Argekrobaat,
sit in ‘n hittegolf vol beproewings.
‘n Somervirus beheer met Imodium
om die siektetoestand hok te slaan,
‘n teodoliet sonder mirakel of muse.
‘n Onvoltooide vers – datumloos –
lui: “gedigte is soos mummies waarin
die digter lewe probeer blaas …”
Ek tel ‘n skerpmaker van die tafel op,
draai papierdun skifsels om en om …
In die asbak ‘n sigaret mimeties uitgedoof.
Sinergeties word hierdie siekteopdrifsels,
danksy ‘n huisapteek en potlood skerp
in hierdie hittehel, ‘n tydelike verlossing.
© Joan Hambidge