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



www.alberthagenaars.nl

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



www.alberthagenaars.nl

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