THEOLOGY

The theologian uses the words, with a poet it is the other way around: the words use the poet.

Guillaume van der Graft (pen name of Willem Barnard)
From an interview in the Flemish magazine Knack





www.alberthagenaars.nl


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

Critical reviews on modern Dutch poetry

CATHEDRAL

For me, a poem is an image in itself, just like those medieval cathedrals that formed an image of what it would be like in heaven. The idea behind it was that if we do our best, we might be able to make something just as beautiful as later in heaven and moreover, that structure can help us to get there, in that real heaven.

Willem Wilmink





www.alberthagenaars.nl


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

Critical reviews on modern Dutch poetry

AFFIRMATION

I believe that every poem I write is an affirmation of my supreme freedom, despite my attachment to my body, society, the environment, my friends... Poetry has nothing to do with reality; it is, as Artaud said, working in eternity.

Leopold M. Van den Brande
De Nieuwe Gazet, 08-01-1972



www.alberthagenaars.nl


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

Critical reviews on modern Dutch poetry

EXPERTISE

Everything requires expertise: profession, politics, education, even love. But there is an audience that turns away disturbed or conceited when a poem cannot be read and understood at first glance. For these people, poetry must be as flat as their own souls.

Adriaan Morriën




www.alberthagenaars.nl


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

Critical reviews on modern Dutch poetry

CELL

The form in poetry is not a cell or an ornament: it simply is the right and colourful, visible appearance.

Vicente Aleixandre




www.alberthagenaars.nl


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

Critical reviews on modern Dutch poetry

LABYRINTH

Poetry. What to me is a system, a world palace, a hierarchy, a labyrinth in which I know my way, must for most people be nothing more than a random sound, fibres of a strange world.

Cees Nooteboom, in 'De danser en de monnik'




www.alberthagenaars.nl


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

Critical reviews on modern Dutch poetry

INDIVIDUAL

A poem always says something different from what the individual parts actually want to say.

Wim Wenders, during an interview about 'Der Himmel über Berlin'




www.alberthagenaars.nl


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

Critical reviews on modern Dutch poetry

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