Monday, April 28, 2014

DYLAN THOMAS (5)

A good poem is a contribution to reality. The world is never the same, once a good poem has been added to it. A good poem helps to change the shape and significance of the universe, helps to extend everyone's knowledge of himself and the world around him..



Whenever the day is dull and the rain is falling and the feet of the heron are battering against my window, and whenever the Garnetts (who are a literary family) or the gannets (who I believe are a bird) are gossiping in the bay, then what do I do but count my beads and then: a volume of American verse edited by Oscar Williams! I suddenly have the death wish, which is what I started with. And then I have to read the poetry again and then I like it. And then it all begins again: the melancholy, gay, euphoric roundabout.



I am man's reply to every question,
His aim and destination.



Deary me I’d rather be a poet anyday and live on guile and beer.



I often covered more than a hundred sheets of paper with drafts, revisions, rewritings, ravings, doodlings & intensely concentrated work to construct a single vers.




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

Sunday, April 27, 2014

GUIDO GEZELLE (3)

No, no heavier cross than the poet's cross.



Sweet, dear Poet Angel, unfold your wings around me...!



Writing poetry is no art, come on, no art, writing poetry is a favour by God, a favour.



www.alberthagenaars.nl

Sunday, April 6, 2014

RENAAT RAMON

Size is the unity one uses to measure relations. And, of course, there's always tension -as well in art as in one's personal life and society- between order and freedom. That's how we stay focused. In order to express this contradiction poetically, nothing is more fit than the two most beautiful figures of speech: symmetry and paradox.



www.alberthagenaars.nl