LORD BYRON

What should I have known or written had I been a quiet, mercantile politician or a lord in waiting? A man must travel, and turmoil, or there is no existence.



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RAYMOND QUENEAU

Poetry can say it's raining when actually the sun is shining and also that it's nice weather when it is raining; poetry says things about phenomena which are not directly perceptible. It's precisely because of this, one is constrained to see things one normally doesn't see.



Sent by Bert Bevers
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ANTON VAN DUINKERKEN (2)

All art is a sacrifice. As soon as selfishness rules, it corrupts the faculties. Only the harmonious poethood is great. Everything disharmonious disrupts the soul. This confronts the human being with his surroundings. The true poet knows what his inspiration is worth, also for others, whether they are listening or not. For him its not about an acknowledgement in the wavering opinion of a contemporary. He finds his certainties within himself. They are realized in his work.


Heaven's prayers and Mary's merged to a far eternity that was speaking to me. From then on I kept hearing poetry's voice as if coming from depths behind our temporariness. It connects the races of mankind. It reveals the essence of our life. It uplifts our eyes above the appearance of things. It allows us to look into the spectacle of salvation itself.



Sent by Bert Bevers
Translation: Albert Hagenaars


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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



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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.



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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.



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MARNIX GIJSEN

One has to protect poetry from the poets, because it is the most precious asset we possess.



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