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

TRIAL

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




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GRATITUDE (2)

In literature, I was successively taken with Rimbaud, with Jarry, with Apollinaire, with Nouveau, with Lautréamont, but it is Jacques Vaché to whom I owe the most.

André Breton





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

Jan de Roek




www.alberthagenaars.nl


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

Critical reviews on modern Dutch poetry




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MOUNTAIN

A mountain always has style. We have to conquer style. But that mountain has it by its nature. Style. And you can't change that. That's complete, isn't it? That's what I'm trying to do. That such a poem, the feeling, gives the impression that not one word can follow anymore now.

Maurice Gilliams





www.alberthagenaars.nl


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

Critical reviews on modern Dutch poetry

MUSE

Being a poet is, I think, something more than writing, and publishing, verses. Being a poet is more than an appointment and even a fight with the Muse. (…) Being a poet is a style and a content of life.

Herman van den Bergh





www.alberthagenaars.nl


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

Critical reviews on modern Dutch poetry

ACHIEVEMENT

I don't imagine anything about everything I've done as a poet. But the fact that I am the only one in my century who knows the right thing in the complicated science of color theory is something which makes me proud.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe





www.alberthagenaars.nl


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

Critical reviews on modern Dutch poetry





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MEANING (3)

Anyone who asks about the meaning of a poem wants to know more about it than the poet himself. The meaning of a poem is the poem itself and can only be the poem itself.

Georges Perros





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





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


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

Critical reviews on modern Dutch poetry