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