kamiel79

Dan komen de miertjes!

Hoe en wanneer moet je je kind voorlichten over de tijdelijkheid van ons bestaan? Zolang je voor het ouderschap nog geen diploma nodig hebt en er geen verplichte handboeken zijn moet iedere ouder dat voor zichzelf uitmaken. Nog staat er geen straf op wanneer we ons kroost te vroeg bekend maken met de verschijnselen van ...

For though I'm small, I know many things, and my body is an endless eye through which, unfortunately, I see everything. - Gloria Fuentes

Reading: I hear that the axe has flowered by Paul Celan

Today, let's dive into a mysterious poem by the great Paul Celan, in a translation by Michael Hamburger. I hear that the axe has flowered I hear that the axe has flowered, I hear that the place can't be named, I hear that the bread which looks at him heals the hanged man, the bread ...

Reading: Female author by Sylvia Plath

An anthology has to have some Plath in it, or so they say. This one convinced me by its metaphorical precision. I would have liked it even if I didn't know the author was Sylvia Plath (1932-1963). All day she plays at chess with the bones of the world: Favored (while suddenly the rains begin ...

Poetry

Poetry is always celebration or its opposite. Making blackness the word for everything: A symbol, a sound, To fill us and to fill the tombs in our midst.

Reading: St. Sava’s Journey by Vasko Popa

The following poem by Serbian poet Vasko Popa (1922-1991) in the translation of Anne Paddington, did impress me. St. Sava's Journey He journeys over the dark land With his staff he cuts The dark beyond him into four He flings thick gloves Changed into immense cats At the grey army of mice Amid the storm ...

Reading: Meeting by Marina Tsvetsaeva

Marina Tsvetsaeva (1892-1941) I read Meeting in an English translation by Ilya Shambat who prepared it for the 110th anniversary of her birth in 2002. Meeting Evening dimmed, like ourselves charmed With this first warmth of the spring. Stirring alive, Arbat was alarmed; With sympathetic tenderness, the kind Gale touched us with a tired wing. ...

Reading: Verwandlung by Georg Trakl

Today I read a poem by my famous German expressionist, Georg Trakl (1887-1914). I couldn't find a translation of die Verwandlung online, so I created one myself. There is a website where you can contribute poetry translations, and I added this one. This is what the great German, who died at 27 (sounds familiar) from ...

A GARDEN

In my mind I have created a garden populated with insects who don't bite and birds who don't shit on my paper when I write there is a lily pond, with frogs who know Bach However, they keep quiet. This is my refuge where nothing pierces through the surface every ripple is merely the smile ...