Joan Hambidge. George Steiner en Gerrit Kouwenaar

 

I

In die aangrypende huldeblyk vir Steiner in The Guardian (5.02.2020) skryf Eric Homberger die volgende:

 

Steiner collected what he called his “working papers” of the 1970s in On Difficulty (1978), in which he explored two prophetic themes: the decline of privacy, and with it the emergence of new and threatening expectations of public exposure and utterance, and the changing status of the act of reading. That there was a decline in the “habits of solitary, exclusive reading” he felt was unmistakable, and perhaps inevitable. “What we must try to see to,” he wrote, “is that those who want to learn to read fully can do so and that they be allowed the critical space and freedom from competing noise in which to practice their passion.”

 

En so ontvang hierdie leser ‘n e-pos oor die vorige rubriek oor Steiner die volgende gedig van Kouwenaar wat in gesprek tree met Archibald MacLeish se gedig:

 

HET MEESTERWERK: LICHTROSE MAAN, VOL

 

Voor het eerst sinds jaren hangt de maan
weer als een vrucht in de lucht

waar was men al die tijd
en wat deed men elders en beter

deze nacht de kunst ontaarden
en liggen op grond is voldoende

dus als een blinde met één dove hand
aan het hongerig uitgevierd zintuig

verslindt men de krekels de nachtwind de wereld, dit
is niet te verzinnen, geen zin, alles

zit fit in zijn schil onder de lichtrose maan, vol
ledig volmaakte oneetbare perzik –

Gerrit Kouwenaar

 

Vertaling van Lloyd Haft:

 

The Masterpiece: Light Pink Moon, Full

For the first time in years the moon’s hung
again like a fruit in the air

where was one all that while
and what did one do elsewhere and better

this night to etherealize art
and lie on ground is sufficient

thus as if blind with one deaf hand
on the hungrily paid-out senses

one devours the crickets the night wind the world, this
can’t be fancied, no notion, all’s

fit in its skin beneath the light rose moon, full
formed absolute inedible peach –

 

© Translation: 2009, Lloyd Haft

https://www.poetryinternational.com/en/poets-poems/poems/poem/103-16757_THE-MASTERPIECE-LIGHT-PINK-MOON-FULL Besoek 18 Januarie 2026

 

II

Wium van Zyl, digter van die onlangs verskene en uitstekende Poëme en vertaler, het die gedig aangestuur. Daar is bepaald ‘n gesprek tussen MacLeish en Kouwenaar.

Die gedig van Kouwenaar ken die uwe uit my studentejare.

Is dit ‘n ars poetica? ‘n Blinde met ‘n dowe hand?

Die maan word ‘n perske en uiteindelik ‘n gedig. Hierdie gedig wat ons nou lees.

Wat beteken uitgevierd?

Volgens die vertaling uit Nederlands:

Uitgevierd” is a less common Dutch word often meaning “stretched,” “played out,” or “starved” in this poetic context.

 

Die digkuns werk met sinestesia en Kouwenaar lewer hier kommentaar op lesers wat die gedig wil afbring aarde toe. Steiner verwys na Wallace Stevens se beroemde gedig “Anecdote of the jar” en meen “to transpose, to paraphrase into correctness, is to relinquish both the motion and the meaning of the poem’s meaning” (On difficulty: 1978, 39).

Hier is Stevens se gedig:

 

Anecdote of the jar

 

I placed a jar in Tennessee,

And round it was, upon a hill.

It made the slovenly wilderness

Surround that hill.

 

The wilderness rose up to it,

And sprawled around, no longer wild.

The jar was round upon the ground

And tall and of a port in air.

 

It took dominion everywhere.

The jar was gray and bare.

It did not give of bird or bush,

Like nothing else in Tennessee.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/14575/anecdote-of-the-jar  Besoek 18 Januarie 2026

 

Steiner verwys na die “detached centrality” van hierdie gedig. Die dislokasie van woord en grammatika.

‘n Gedig skep sy eie reëls en kan dus nooit volledig verstaan word nie. Daar is verskeie assosiasies wat die leser moet maak. (‘n Gedig is so onskuldig soos ‘n eier, aldus Theunis Engelbrecht in 1982 of Die maan is ‘n misverstand aldus Danie Marais in 2009.)

Dit is dan ook in Kouwenaar se gedig ‘n ars poetica en kritiek op diegene wat dink ‘n gedig is volledig begrypbaar. Dieselfde geld vir Stevens.

By Kouwenaar: die maan en die perse word één. Binne-fantasie en buite-wêreld word versoen.

Joan Hambidge

Kaapstad

19 Januarie 2026

 

 

Oor Gerrit Kouwenaar:

“I cut the throat of a word,” according to the opening poem in autopsie/anoniem (autopsy/anonymous, 1965, included in Gedichten 1948-1978 [Poems 1948-1978′]).

Gerrit Kouwenaar

(The Netherlands, 1923 – 2014)

© Pieter Vandermeer

 

Biography

Gerrit Kouwenaar was first published in clandestine publications during World War II. After the war he earned a living as a translator (a.o. Sartre, Dürrenmatt and Brecht) and journalist. Together with a.o. Lucebert and Hugo Claus he was a leading member of the 50s Movement and edited the influential anthology Vijf 5tigers. His volumes een geur van verbrande veren (a smell of burnt feathers, 1991) and de tijd staat open (time is wide open, 1996) have won him universal critical acclaim as well as the important VSB Poetry Prize.

Kouwenaar’s poetry is usually described as a kind of murder. In his poems Kouwenaar tries to cancel the denotative character of words. “I cut the throat of a word,” according to the opening poem in autopsie/anoniem (autopsy/anonymous, 1965, included in Gedichten 1948-1978 [Poems 1948-1978′]). Cancelling the denotative character of words is an attempt to jettison the reality which is formed in and through the words that refer to it. It allows a poem to turn in on itself, becoming a thing among things, becoming reality itself. As such the poem no longer belongs to the poet who can no longer use it as a vehicle for his thoughts and emotions (“this / is no longer your property, master”, Kouwenaar tells himself). The poet and the poem’s inspiration disappear behind the poem, it supplants them. Even time, with its constant passing, the only reality in our everyday lives and something which can only lead to one thing for those who, like Kouwenaar, are simple heathens: even time is brought to a standstill within the poem. This makes the poem a time-and-place-dependent eternity.

Writing poetry is thus an extremely paradoxical activity for Kouwenaar: it is “murder” (bringing things to a halt) in order to escape from death (total standstill); it is a settling of accounts with one’s own transience in order to attain an eternity in which one escapes from one’s own mortality. It is, as Kouwenaar himself described it, “the osmosis of eternity and impermanence”, “something that holds its ground on the edge of loss”. The result is poetry which deals above all with the possibilities and impossibilities of poetry itself. Poetry in which an attempt is made “to put silence to music/ but keep the name silent”.

In Kouwenaar’s early poetry death is a poetic concept but in the volumes that have appeared since the collected poems in 1982 – het blindst van de vlek (the blindest of the spot, 1982), het ogenblik: terwijl (the moment: while, 1987), een geur van verbrande veren (a smell of burnt feathers, 1991), de tijd staat open (time is wide open, 1996) – a gradual change is apparent. For the poet the killed, eternal reality of the poem seems to display more and more similarities with his own biological death. “The word is dead, it must be writ,” writes Kouwenaar now, in the realisation that writing as action, as deed, is the only thing that can offer solace in the face of the suddenly menacing standstill and eternity of the word that has been written and is fixed forever in his letters.

Despite the heaviness of this theme, the tone of Kouwenaar’s poetry is still generally cheerful and militant. Delicious meals are enjoyed and glasses are raised. He might have finished the roast game of the main course, but he is still enjoying the ripe word melon, and he still concludes these poems by pouring himself a glass of the water of life and observing: “here in my dusk the old full life still shoots sparks/ and postponed flesh bickers with the mind”.

© Erik Menkveld

https://www.poetryinternational.com/en/poets-poems/poets/poet/102-4009_Kouwenaar  Besoek 18 Januarie 2025

 

Digbundels:

Achter een woord, U.M. Holland, Amsterdam, 1953
Hand o.a, U.M. Holland, Amsterdam, 1956
De Ondoordringbare Landkaart, A.A.M. Stols, Den Haag, 1957
Het Gebruik van Woorden, J. Heijnis, Zaandijk, 1958
De stem op de 3e etage, Querido, Amsterdam, 1960
Zonder Namen, Querido, Amsterdam, 1962
Landschappen en andere gebeurtenissen, Querido, Amsterdam, 1974
Volledig volmaakte oneetbare perzik, Querido, Amsterdam, 1978
Gedichten 1948 – 1978, Querido, Amsterdam, 1982
Het blindst van de vlek, Querido, Amsterdam, 1982
Het ogenblik: terwijl, Querido, Amsterdam, 1987
Een eter in het najaar, Querido, Amsterdam, 1989
Er is geen elders waar het anders is, Querido, Amsterdam, 1993
De tijd staat open, Querido, Amsterdam, 1996
Helder maar grijzer. Gedichten 1978 – 1996, Querido, Amsterdam, 1998
Totaal witte kamer, Querido, Amsterdam, 2002
Het bezit van een ruïne, Querido, Amsterdam, 2005
Ik heb nooit, Eikeldoorpers, Apeldoorn, 2005
De ochtend, Uitgeverij 69, Hilversum, 2006
Vallende stilte (selected poems), Querido, Amsterdam, 2008