kamiel79

Reading: Kanheri Cave by Dom Moraes

Dom Moraes (b. 1938-2004) was an Indian poet, widely regarded as foundational figure in Indian English literature. He was Catholic and struggled with alcoholism. I read Kanheri cave, I think it gives a good impression of the man's writing: Kanheri cave Over these blunted, these tormented hills, Hawks hail and wheel, toboggan down the sky. ...

Reading: Turns by Tony Harrison

Britain's leading theater and television poet is Tony Harrison (b. 1937), who is celebrated of the twentieth century's true working class poet. He is a translator, director, playwright who says that all is implied in the job description: poet. I read 'Turn' about his passed father, where the class consciousness becomes visible: Turn I thought ...

Het echte leven

Toen ik een week geleden op Schiphol arriveerde na een lange vlucht van vier films, bekroop me een gevoel van milde nostalgie en opgewonden herkenning. Ik hoorde weer mijn moedertaal; ik zou met nagenoeg alle mensen in de aankomsthal een gesprek kunnen aanknopen en genieten van die heerlijke illusie dat de subtiele kwinkslagen die ik ...

Poem in which…

Reading: Dawn revisited by Rita Dove

Rita Dove (b. 1952) was the youngest Poet Laureate in the nineties and well-known to the American public. She has written a lot of longer, mythology-inspired stuff, but for our bric-a-brac anthology I read a shorter verse: Dawn revisited Imagine you wake up with a second chance: The blue jay hawks his pretty wares and ...

Reading: The Way Things Work by Jorie Graham

Jorie Graham (b. 1950) is another famous North American poet with a unique style. Pulitzer Prize 1996. Here is The way things work: The way things work is by admitting or opening away. This is the simplest form of current: Blue moving through blue; blue through purple; the objects of desire opening upon themselves without ...

Philosophy doesn’t cut it

Philosophy doesn't cut it - the letters have all been combined in all possible ways Perhaps the love of wisdom is something for wet animals, the turtle, the frog, the earthworm? Cut in two, the earthworm continues to be. What is being? What wisdom can we aspire to, apart from not being cut in two?

Reading: Outbound by Greg Williamson

Greg Williamson (b. 1964) is known for his 'double exposure', a technique where poems can be read in multiple ways. I approach his verse without any theoretical pre-study though, the same way I would approach life. The following poem is beautifully crafted, it holds the lyricism of yore in a floating frame of free existentialist ...

An artist is a sort of emotional or spiritual historian [whose] role is to make you realize the doom and glory of knowing who you are and what you are - James Baldwin