DUTCH POETRY (2)

Dutch poetry begins in 1950.

Simon Vinkenoog




Dutch world poetry begins in 1950.

Paul Rodenko





www.alberthagenaars.nl


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

Critical reviews on modern Dutch poetry

MEDIUM (2)

As a historian, I am less interested in facts than in the horse and cart, the road, ordinary society. Because the poet is nothing but a medium, he must choose the moments to register things, to give them a form.

Roger M.J. De Neef




What one admires in good poetry, is craftsmanship. Poets don't look at each other for some philosophical meaning they give to life but they look at technical skills. Workmanship of the medium, that is what can be appreciated with others.

Derek Walcott





www.alberthagenaars.nl


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

Critical reviews on modern Dutch poetry

SUBORDINATION

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, in 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

AQUARIUM

In my opinion, an aquarium is a small dark water house. The images that you gain in poetry are the light sources that you plant in that aquarium. In it, a kind of rhythm is brought about by the various schools of fish that slide from one light source to another. That mobility can be compared to the musicality that you try to achieve in a poem. Just like such an aquarium, a poem is a closed whole full of rhythm.

Gwy Mandelinck





www.alberthagenaars.nl


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

Critical reviews on modern Dutch poetry

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

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

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