DEFINITION

More than ever before poetry offers meaning, because it is not troubled by vague definitions about social relevance or calculable efficiency. Poetry is imagination and the world never has enough of that.

Koen Van Bockstal



www.alberthagenaars.nl

LIE

One can't convert a lie into a good poem, there's something in the form that will make it impossible. Where, except in poetry, one can read a text and feel that one has to do with life and the world as they really are? In a world in which so many lies are spread by so many media about other countries and cultures, in which states are ruled by ideologies that enforce the population a structure of lies, reading poetry from another country or another time, is an important antidotum. It is balm to the reader, a moment of beauty and having clear sight.

Margitt Lehbert



www.alberthagenaars.nl

DYLAN THOMAS

No poet can live wholly in his poetry, or by it - yet the already apparent discrepancy in Dylan's life between the disciplines of art and the consolations of liquor, barroom garrulity, encounters with strangers and endless questing for meaningless experience, confounded and alarmed me.

John Malcom Brinnin



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DIALOGUE

I hardly read poetry. I'm more interested in theatre, since theatre creates a direct dialogue, a connection, even while being read, between space, percentages and the word.

Hugues C. Pernath



www.alberthagenaars.nl

READER

One can't write for all readers. A poet cannot write for people who don't like poetry.

Nathalie Sarraute



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GOD (2)

Only a poet could come up with a query sheet for God.

Stanisław Jerzy Lec





I have begged God to spare me the trial of poetry. It's a terrible burden, worse than I let on.

Hubert Van Herreweghen




www.alberthagenaars.nl




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

Critical reviews on modern Dutch poetry

FAULT

Bad women poets are better characters, they seldom get drunk, go to prison...shoot the pianist. Their faults are soulfulness and banality... Bad men poets are more knowing; often they achieve fame as poets by stopping writing and going on committees.

Stevie Smith



www.alberthagenaars.nl

SOURCE

Difficult words don't exist, as long as the poet's sources are pure.

Ad Zuiderent



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DIVERSITY

When power narrows the areas of man's concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of his existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses.

President J.F. Kennedy



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COMPLEXITY

One should never forget that the complexity, the lamination ad the chaotic character of poetry don't allow to be explained in a rational way.

Hugo Brems



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ALOOF

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

Jan de Roek



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RECURRENCE

Poetry differs in this respect from logic, that it is not subject to the active powers of the mind and that its birth and recurrence have no necessary connection with the consciousness or will.

Percey Bysshe Shelley



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PURPOSE

With me poetry has not been a purpose but a passion.

Edgar Allen Poe



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ADEQUATE

The poet knows that he speaks adequately then only when he speaks somewhat wildly or with the flower of the mind.

Ralph Waldo Emerson



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CENTAUR

Poetry is a centaur.

Ezra Pound



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CHAOS

Poetry is a language that matches me. For if you're a little watchful, if you feel the need for an overall picture because it's always a chaos in your head, a poem can be quite nice. For with a poem you can keep an eye on all sides at the same time.

Ester Naomi Perquin



www.alberthagenaars.nl

GRAIN

Writing poetry is producing a single leaf of all the woods on earth, producing a single ear of corn of all the grain fields on earth.

Herman van den Bergh



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HUMS

But it isn’t easy," said Pooh. "Because Poetry and Hums aren’t things which you get, they’re things which get you. And all you can do is to go where they can find you.”

A.A. Milne (in The House At Pooh Corner)
Sent by Bert Bevers



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HERO

Poets and heroes are of the same race, the latter do what the former conceive.

Alphonse de Lamartine



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HOMESICKNESS

A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness.

Robert Frost


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PAINTING

Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen.

Leonardo da Vinci



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SCIENCE (3)

There's real poetry in the real world. Science is the poetry of reality.

Richard Dawkins



Poetry is a sort of inspired mathematics, which gives us equations, not for abstract figures, triangles, squares, and the like, but for the human emotions. If one has a mind which inclines to magic rather than science, one will prefer to speak of these equations as spells or incantations; it sounds more arcane, mysterious, recondite.

Ezra Pound



In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by all, something that no one ever knew before. In poetry it is the opposite.

Paul Dirac



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ENVY

With a few flowers in my garden, half a dozen pictures and some poetry books, I live without envy.

Lope de Vega



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SELECTION

Poets don't survive the centuries thanks to their collected works in six volumes but because of what seeps through from these books in all kinds of anthologies. Unfortunately, most of this selection process is left to people who arent'good for anything else and, on second thoughts, even can't handle this noble art.

Bart Govaert



www.alberthagenaars.nl

SONNET

My sonnets would lose part of their charm when being explained.

Gérard de Nerval



www.alberthagenaars.nl