Month: november 2017

#Metoo
De hype is nu zo ongeveer opgehouden, neem ik aan, dus het is een uitstekend moment om verslag uit te brengen van mijn onverwerkte traumata en de psychische kwetsuren die ik vijftien lange maanden heb verzwegen. Ik ben het afgelopen jaar meervoudig in mijn mond verkracht. Een zwerende, ontstoken kies heeft me verstoken van wat ...
Wie heeft de stoutste droom?
Ik droomde dat Tariq Ramadan zich met een enorme voorbinddildo prepareerde om Jelle Brandt Corstius te lijf te gaan en hem jarenlange trauma's te bezorgen. Hij waande zich alleen met zijn geilheid, want hem ontgingen de priemende en alziende ogen van Charlotte Mutsaers, die de scène gadesloeg met een camera in de aanslag, in de ...
Reading: I never sought the glory by Antonio Machado
The Spanish poet Antonio Machado (1875-1939) is among the most important of the twentieth century. I read a short poem entitled 'I never sought the glory' in a translation by Katie King: I Never Sought the Glory I never sought the glory nor to leave in memory of men my song; I love subtle worlds, ...
Reading: Yet to die. Unalone still by Osip Mandelstam
Here is a pretty translation I found of a poem by Osip Mandelstam (1891 - 1938), one of Russia's acclaimed anti-formalist (Acmeist) poets along with Akhmatova, Pasternak, Tsvetaeva. This was written in 1937: Yet to die. Unalone still. For now your pauper-friend is with you. Together you delight in the grandeur of the plains, And ...
Reading: In the Greenhouse by Eugenio Montale
Eugenio Montale (1896-1981) is considered the greatest Italian poet since Leopardi. He won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1975. I read In the Greenhouse in a translation by Charles Wright. Here is an alternative translation (and seven other poems for good measure). In the Greenhouse The lemon bushes overflowed with the patter of mole paws, the scythe ...
Reading: The Just by Jorge Luis Borges
Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) must be anthologized or else... I have mixed feelings about the co-founder of postmodernist literature, who was praised, canonized and catapulted into the realm of immortality. I find his aleph a funny story and his experimental prose (eg 'Borges and I') were innovative at the time, but there is not much of the ...
Reading: It’s this way by Nazim Hikmet
Of the first modern Turkish poet Nâzim Hikmet (1902-1963) I enjoy the longer pieces 'On Living' or 'Some advice to those who will serve time in prison', but here I want to read a short poem translated by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk: It's this way I stand in the advancing light, my hands hungry, ...