Friday, March 8, 2024

RESENTMENT



It is only in the youth of a poet that the influence of another poet can be beneficial and productive without cornering his independence from that subordination in which this first fresh air of admiration is corrupted by surpressed resentment."

Adriaan Roland Holst
From a speech for fellow poet Gerrit Achterberg





www.alberthagenaars.nl


Also see:
Dutch poetry in Indonesian language, translated by Siti Wahyuningsih and Albert Hagenaars

Critical reviews on modern Dutch poetry





Thursday, February 29, 2024

REJECTION



The majority rely on science the most. But there are philosophers who maintain that speculative philosophy, as practiced by Spinoza, Leibniz, Kant, Schelling, and Hegel, and which I shall call Hegelian after its most characteristic and most celebrated representative today, is above everything, even above poetry, so that the Hegelian philosopher is the most perfect man, and his work the highest human function. While there are poets who think that it is not the Hegelian philosopher, nor the scholar, but the poet who is the most complete man, and poetry may claim a higher rank then philosophy or science. If by ‘poet’ one means anyone who writes a rhyme, a novel, or a play, and by poetry all fictional literature, it certainly sounds ridiculous to want to give poetry the highest rank. But that Goethe had a right to reject the systematic language of his philosophical contemporaries, and that the utterances of Homer, Aeschylus, Dante, Shakespeare, Shelley, have greater value to humanity than those of Kant and Hegel, is an entirely different and very tenable opinion.

Frederik van Eeden
From: Poëzie, Wijsbegeerte en Mathesis





www.alberthagenaars.nl


Also see:
Dutch poetry in Indonesian language, translated by Siti Wahyuningsih and Albert Hagenaars

Critical reviews on modern Dutch poetry





Saturday, February 17, 2024

RECITING



Reciting poems is quite pointless. I know how it goes for myself as a spectator: I always only get a few impressions, which are mainly due to the performance. I've seen people recite crappy poems in a beautiful way, and beautiful poems in a crappy way. The charm of the presentation is therefore much more important than what you have to say.

G.M. Berelaf
BC, March 2005





www.alberthagenaars.nl


Also see:
Dutch poetry in Indonesian language, translated by Siti Wahyuningsih and Albert Hagenaars

Critical reviews on modern Dutch poetry





Wednesday, January 31, 2024

EQUALITY



The Dutch poet Gerrit Komrij, himself a seasoned translator, once remarked "Keep away from translating if you’re not a poet". He is absolutely right. Translating poetry means creating poetry. And in that sense the poet and translator are equals.

John Irons





www.alberthagenaars.nl


Also see:
Dutch poetry in Indonesian language, translated by Siti Wahyuningsih and Albert Hagenaars

Critical reviews on modern Dutch poetry





Thursday, November 30, 2023

GRATITUDE (2)



In literature, I was successively taken with Rimbaud, with Jarry, with Apollinaire, with Nouveau, with Lautréamont, but it is Jacques Vaché to whom I owe the most.

André Breton





Modern poetry is lonely and aloof, self-contained. She doesn't owe gratitude to anyone.

Jan de Roek




www.alberthagenaars.nl


Also see:
Dutch poetry in Indonesian language, translated by Siti Wahyuningsih and Albert Hagenaars

Critical reviews on modern Dutch poetry




.

Tuesday, October 17, 2023

MOUNTAIN



A mountain always has style. We have to conquer style. But that mountain has it by its nature. Style. And you can't change that. That's complete, isn't it? That's what I'm trying to do. That such a poem, the feeling, gives the impression that not one word can follow anymore now.

Maurice Gilliams





www.alberthagenaars.nl


Also see:
Dutch poetry in Indonesian language, translated by Siti Wahyuningsih and Albert Hagenaars

Critical reviews on modern Dutch poetry