MAARTEN EMBRECHTS

Poetry isn’t a profession / It’s not knitting // It might be a mistress




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



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RICHARD HUGO

Often, a place that starts a poem for me is one I have only glimpsed while passing through. It should make impression enough that I can see things in the town-the water tower, the bank, the last movie announced on the marquee before the theater shut down for good, the closed hotel-long after I've left. Sometimes these are imagined things I find if I go back, but real or imagined, they act as a set of stable knowns that sit outside the poem. They and the town serve as a base of operations for the poem. Sometimes they serve as a stage setting. I would never try to locate a serious poem in a place where physical evidence suggests that the people there find it relatively easy to accept themselves-say the new Hilton. The poet's relation to the triggering subject should never be as strong as (must be weaker than) his relation to his words. The words should not serve the subject. The subject should serve the words. This may mean violating the facts. For example, if the poem needs the word "black" at some point and the grain elevator is yellow, the grain elevator may have to be black in the poem. You owe reality nothing and the truth about your feelings everything.




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

WILLY SPILLEBEEN

I've actually always wanted to write the perfect poem, but I realized pretty quickly that I always had to start over, and maybe that's why I've written quite a lot of poetry.




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

VICTOR HUGO

When I say I, I am talking about all of you, unhappy ones.




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

JOSE DE POORTERE (2)

A poet shouldn't flatter through familiarity. Aristotle already knew that the poetic must have something inexplicable, something opaque.




Most readers don't want to be 'torn away' from their familiar feelings; they want to dream about what they haven't achieved themselves yet. The mystery doesn't interest them.



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

WILLEM KLOOS

Poetry is the most individual expression of the most individual emotion.




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

HENDRIK DE VRIES

What turns a verse into a poem is precisely the sense of inner necessity with which intuition unfolds, in sharp contrast to the deliberate intent with which one undertakes an experiment.




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

HERMAN GORTER

I wanted to strike the brightest light out of the language – because deep in the heart of the language lives a white light.




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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

MAX JACOB

Ideas have nothing to do with poetry, it's the inexpressible that matters.




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

RENAAT RAMON (2)

Bibliophile editions are the luxurious coffins of poetry.




Honesty is the first requirement for a writer. All literature, not only the so-called confessional literature and the Ich-lyric, is autobiographical. Whether wanted or unwanted, conscious or unconscious, direct or concealed. Mostly concealed because the naked truth is short and seldom engaging.




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

LUT DE BLOCK (3)

Writing a poem is like putting together a Rubrick's cube. You have all the colors—words and images—but you have to get them in the right place. And there is only one possibility. After a long time of tinkering, you find the solution, you have the aha-moment. That's it. But with a poem, it sometimes takes months before you find that small word that suddenly makes the poem harmonious. Finished. Not in the sense of a perfect poem, but of a successful attempt. Each poem is an attempt to express something accurately.





When I can't get to my feelings, writing is an emergency solution when all other means fail. And that is not easy. Sometimes you are confronted with that helplessness to be able to express yourself. And in addition with the limitations of language. Music is much more direct in that regard. If writing without words were possible, I would still prefer to write poems without words.





Writing often has something to do with a state of unrest. If I cannot write at such moments, I can no longer bear it. Writing then becomes a kind of liberation, a form of self-satisfaction. For poems, that only means the initial spark for a poem. The proverbial 10% inspiration. The perspiration comes later, at more lucid moments when you are more concerned with language than with ideas.





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

PATRICK CORNILLIE (3)

Although I am not 100% in favor of performing, a poem should always be able to be read aloud. It must be melodious. Sound is a bit like the color of the poem and I work hard on it: alliterations, sound repetitions, end rhymes, internal rhymes... They are not there just like that, automatically. Finding the right sound in the right place is very labor-intensive. A poem is made, shaved, polished. Poetry is handmade; it takes a lot of time. Sometimes sounds are also chosen because of their emotional value. An 'o' sound, for example, can express monotony or melancholy.




Only poetry can put a stop to reality, capture things. There is no way to get a grip on reality. Therefore, a poet must create that himself. Sometimes I have the impression that I am always late everywhere, always chasing after reality. Only afterwards do you realize: this and that has happened. If you write something down, you may get a better handle on it.




Flemish is much richer than the standard language. It is also the task of the poet to create neologisms, to be creative with language, to color the language, for example by tearing words from their context, deforming fixed expressions for their own use. A poet must be a bit of an alchemist.





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

TOM VAN DEEL

In the long run, you realize that poetry cannot simply be the writing down of memories in verse lines. Poetry is much more a matter of depicting, in a concentrated way, deeper things.




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

JAN ELBURG

Comprehensibility of poetry is not everything, but intelligibility is.




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

SALVATORE QUASIMODO

There’s a reason poets often say, ‘Poetry saved my life,’ for often the blank page is the only one listening to the soul’s suffering, the only one registering the story completely, the only one receiving all softly and without condemnation.




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

RENÉ CHAR

The poem is the fulfillment of love, of love's desire that remained desire.




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

LEO HERBERGHS (3)

The poet must address the unknown. Almost everything is the unknown. What we know, we do not know. And he must magnify the mystery rather than diminish it. And even the simplest poem adds something to the unknown. The poem is the poet's religion.




Someone who writes a poem is the master of his life, just like the person who reads it. The poet has found words that illuminate his or her existence. He or she has created a work of linguistic art from feelings and experiences.




When a child learns to write verses, they are often incredibly original. The child has a fresh approach to language. The lines flow playfully from the pen. It is the words that transport the child to the world of poetry. The words make the child a poet. Language gives the child access to experiences and feelings unknown outside of the poem.





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

JOY HARJO

The genesis of a poem for me is usually a cluster of words. The only good metaphor I can think of is a scientific one: dipping a thread into a supersaturated solution to induce crystal formation. I don’t think I solve problems in my poetry; I think I uncover the problems.




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

FRANÇOIS-JOACHIM DE PIERRE DE BERNIS

It is enough to think to be a man of wit; but one must imagine to be a poet.




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

ANNE SEXTON

One of my secret instructions to myself as a poet is: Whatever you do, don’t be boring.




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