CREATOR

The real poet is a creator, he himself produces what we call the poetic, which he doesn’t express in the poem, but writes right through the poem. So, the poem is not the sediment of a poetic experience, but the poetic experience is the poem’s result.

Nic van Bruggen
From: 'Portret van een jonge man als een dichter', De Periscoop, jrg. XII, no. 9-10, 1962.
Sent by Bert Bevers




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

Critical reviews on modern Dutch poetry


www.alberthagenaars.nl

KINGDOM

As poetry becomes “sadly peripheral,” hundreds and hundreds of jobs for poets open up…. In numerous ways, these many jobs for “poetry-writing teachers” conceal from our poets themselves the situation we find ourselves in…. Instead of readers we have undiscerning and potentially idolatrous undergraduates; each campus is like a little kingdom.

Brad Leithauser




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

Critical reviews on modern Dutch poetry


www.alberthagenaars.nl

RIVER (2)

Of all the rivers in the Netherlands the IJssel is the most poetic one.

Aart van Zoest




Fair river! in thy bright, clear flow
Of crystal, wandering water,
Thou art an emblem of the glow
Of beauty- the unhidden heart-

Edgar Allen Poe
From: To the river




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

Critical reviews on modern Dutch poetry


www.alberthagenaars.nl

WEIGHT

The poem doesn’t know anything, proclaims nothing, preaches nothing and teaches nothing. It can’t be used for any useful purpose whatsoever, it’s doesn’t serve to embellish life, it gives no worldly wisdom. It is good for nothing, it has worth in itself. It doesn’t replace anything, it doesn’t inform. The poem is in a state of zero gravity and yet carries weight. It is nothing and nevertheless entails all..

Leo Herberghs
From: 'De dichter en het woord'
Sent by Bert Bevers




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

Critical reviews on modern Dutch poetry


www.alberthagenaars.nl

FACT

My favourite poems don't show the facts but the possibilities.

Ellen Deckwitz





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

Critical reviews on modern Dutch poetry


www.alberthagenaars.nl

HAPPINESS

Writing poetry is happiness in acting and being. Writing poetry is a form of happiness.

Peer van Meer




Poetry always is an act of despair, although it is the desperate act of happiness. Poetry is also the most unusual of the usual things, as long as it respects them. If one only would have more respect for both poetry and the usual things, poetry on the contrary would then be the most common of the uncommon things...

Bertus Aafjes





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

Critical reviews on modern Dutch poetry


www.alberthagenaars.nl

LAZINESS

I am confident it is often sheer laziness when a poet refrains from writing because he is not ‘in the mood’. Until he begins he can hardly know whether he is in the mood or not. It is reluctance to the manual labor of recording one’s thoughts; perhaps to the mental labor of setting them in order.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow


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

Critical reviews on modern Dutch poetry


www.alberthagenaars.nl

TRAP

A good poem has to slam shut like a mousetrap. A poem must be sealed.

Paul Snoek


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

Critical reviews on modern Dutch poetry


www.alberthagenaars.nl

REASON

Therefore is a word the poet must not know.

André Gide





Also see:
Frozen Poets - Sculptures, graves and other traces of poets

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

Critical reviews on modern Dutch poetry


www.alberthagenaars.nl

JOY

Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary.

Khalil Gibran





Also see:
Frozen Poets - Sculptures, graves and other traces of poets

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

Critical reviews on modern Dutch poetry


www.alberthagenaars.nl

HANDSHAKE

Only true hands write true poems. I don't see a difference between handshakes and poems.

Paul Celan





Also see:
Frozen Poets - Sculptures, graves and other traces of poets

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

Critical reviews on modern Dutch poetry


www.alberthagenaars.nl

ALEPH

Only the poem is an Aleph, a place where things don’t jostle one another for a moment but where they are reconciled with each other and the ALL.

Peer van Meer





Also see:
Frozen Poets - Sculptures, graves and other traces of poets

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

Critical reviews on modern Dutch poetry


www.alberthagenaars.nl

DIAMOND

Poetry is not dynamite, but diamond.

H. Marsman





Also see:
Frozen Poets - Sculptures, graves and other traces of poets

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

Critical reviews on modern Dutch poetry


www.alberthagenaars.nl

KNIFE

I can offer you only: this world like a knife.

John Berryman





Also see:
Frozen Poets - Sculptures, graves and other traces of poets

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

Critical reviews on modern Dutch poetry


www.alberthagenaars.nl

HORROR

Such was a poet and shall be and is -who'll solve the depths of horror to defend a sunbeam's architecture with his life: and carve immortal jungles of despair to hold a mountain's heartbeat in his hand.

E.E. Cummings





Also see:
Frozen Poets - Sculptures, graves and other traces of poets

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

Critical reviews on modern Dutch poetry


www.alberthagenaars.nl

BIRTH (2)

The poet is born again and again in the poem he gave birth to himself.

Peer van Meer



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





Also see:
Frozen Poets - Sculptures, graves and other traces of poets

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

Critical reviews on modern Dutch poetry


www.alberthagenaars.nl

GRAMMAR

I demand that my books be judged with utmost severity, by knowledgeable people who know the rules of grammar and logic, and who will seek beneath the footsteps of my commas the lice of my thought in the head of my style.

Louis Aragon





Also see:
Frozen Poets - Sculptures, graves and other traces of poets

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

Critical reviews on modern Dutch poetry


www.alberthagenaars.nl

DICTATING

When we are writing poetry / there's no calculating / The poem dictates.

Hilda de Windt Ayoubi





Also see:
Frozen Poets - Sculptures, graves and other traces of poets

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

Critical reviews on modern Dutch poetry


www.alberthagenaars.nl