P/P | r2c | .June: The Poetry of Place I

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High Barn, Bringing in the Goats "And when summer had once again returned
we sat together drinking once more at the river.
His old arms could still move, to there, the world of
that slow, eternal life of farm animals.
..."

from Among Farm Animals, a poem
by Rutger Kopland 


This week, an image of Bringing in the
Goats
at a small homestead high in the
Eurpoean Alps. Also: six new translations
of Dutch lowland poems.

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The guest poems for this week are new English translations from the work of a sextet
of contemporary Dutch poets—
Hendrik Marsman, Peter Berger, Remco Campert,
Judith Herzberg, Ingmar Heytze
and Rutger Kopland.


The Poetry of Place

All six poems presented this week address different aspects or qualities of space and place.
Hendrik Marsman's poem, Memories of Holland, speaks from the perspective of someone
in a distant country remembering loved and missed features of the Dutch
landscape.

Peter Berger, in Trajectory, invites us to sit beside him on a train while traversing the
countryside. It should be noted here, for those readers who have never had the opportunity
to visit Holland and Northern Europe, that trains, unlike North America, are an
often-used and familiar part of Dutch life.

The charming piece by
Remco Campert breaks out of this more lyrical, descriptive mode
and speaks to us more about a hypothetical landscape, one of
Resistance. This is resistance
in the sense it was used in Europe during and after World War Two. In other words, Campert,
I think, has something very profound in mind—less in vogue perhaps these days—of
somekind of a radical new beginning in thought and society. In the translation, I have left
the sparse grammar and punctuation just as one finds them in the Dutch original, as it moves
through a sequence of striking images, going from storm to spring to match to a single
question
passed on to the reader.

With
Judith Herzberg's little piece, Sounds of the City, we leave the lush greens and flowing
channels of the idyllic Dutch countryside and are thrust back into town. It's hot. The windows
are probably open. (No airconditioning!) And we're in a small apartment in a big city, a city,
say, like Amsterdam. Here the poet, alone perhaps and wishing herself somewhere else,
contemplates the sounds, the noises which surround her in a new way.

So does
Ingmar Heytze in her matter-of-fact meditation, Night Work. But now, instead
of the sounds of a vast cityscape, we are invited into a very intimate environment—one's
private place or the poet's home.


Among farm animals
by Rutger Kopland rounds off the sextet of translations; it takes us
back into the Dutch countryside with an evening composition, one which sounds as if it
could have been written under a large tree on the banks of the river which he describes:





Herinnering aan Holland

Denkend aan Holland
zie ik breede rivieren
traag door oneindig
laagland gaan,
rijen ondenkbaar
ijle populieren
als hooge pluimen
aan den einder staan;
en in de geweldige
ruimte verzonken
de boerderijen
verspreid door het land,
boomgroepen, dorpen,
geknotte torens,
kerken en olmen
in een grootsch verband.
de lucht hangt er laag
en de zon wordt er langzaam
in grijze veelkleurige
dampen gesmoord,
en in alle gewesten
wordt de stem van het water
met zijn eeuwige rampen
gevreesd en gehoord.

Hendrik Marsman
Memories of Holland

Thinking about Holland,
I see broad rivers
moving slowly through
endless lowlands.
rows of unthinkably
thin poplars
standing as high plumes
one above the other;
and sunken within
wonderful space,
farm houses
scattered throughout the land,
clusters of trees, villages,
cropped towers,
churches and elms
in one great association.
the air hangs low
and the sun is slowly
muffled in a gray
mottled fog,
and in the many provinces
the voice of the water
with its eternal calamities
is feared and heard.





Trajekt

Ik kijk vanuit de trein
over polders. Het dagelijks trajekt
zweeft zonder horizon in de mist:
een land van eksters.

op het grasland staan verstrooid
wat koeien en losse schapen
bewegingloos alsof ze slapen
in de vochtige atmosfeer.
het wordt dus herfst.
het wordt het vertrouwde weer.

op een kladje schrijf ik
na maanden stilte
de bijpassende woorden neer
rustig, niet onaangenaam verdrietig,
niet ongeroutineerd.

Peter Berger

uit:
De twee seizoenen van liefde (1976))
Trajectory

I look out of the train
across the polders. The daily trajectory
is suspended without horizon in the mist:
a land of magpies.

in the pastures cows stand
scattered about with a few sheep
motionless as if they slept
in the moist air.
it's turning to fall.
it's turning to the same old weather.

I write down in a notebook
after months of silence
the appropriate words,
peacefully, not unpleasantly sad,
not without routine.



from
The Second Season of Love (1976)





Verzet begint niet met grote woorden

Verzet begint niet met grote woorden
maar met kleine daden

zoals storm met zacht geritsel in de tuin
of de kat die de kolder in zijn kop krijgt

zoals brede rivieren
met een kleine bron
verscholen in het woud

zoals een vuurzee
met dezelfde lucifer
die een sigaret aansteekt

zoals liefde met een blik
een aanraking iets dat je opvalt in een stem

jezelf een vraag stellen
daarmee begint verzet

en dan die vraag aan een ander stellen

Remco Campert
(1929)

Resistance doesn't begin with big words

Resistance doesn't begin with big words
but with small deeds

like a storm with a soft rattling in the garden
or a cat that gets a bit mad in the head

like wide rivers
with a small spring
hidden away in a forest

like a sea of fire
with the same wooden match
that lights a cigarette

like love with but one look
a touching of something you notice in a voice

asking yourself a question
with this begins resistance

and then asking another this question





Stadsgeluiden

Stadsgeluiden in de warme nacht
hebben, als op een schilderij, een achtergrond.
Een vliegtuig ronkt tegen een fond van auto's
een bromfiets schiet luidruchtig links omlaag.
Ik hoor het graag, het doet mij denken aan
22 juni 1964, dat is vanavond.

Judith Herzberg,
uit: Beemdgras (1968)
Sounds of the City

Sounds of the city on a warm night
have, as in a painting, a background.
An airplane roars against a substratum of cars,
a motorbike shoots clamorously down to the left.
I like to hear it, it makes me think of
the 22nd of June 1964, which is this evening.


from Meadow Grass





Nachtwerk

De wekker tikt. De boiler ruist.
De ijskast rommelt af en aan.
De regen trommelt op het raam.
Het duister heeft ons in zijn macht.

De slaap geeft hart en adem over
aan het ritme van de nacht.
De geest hangt stil te drogen
aan zijn zilverwitte lijnen.

De ochtend keert de rollen om.
De douchekop ruist. De ketel fluit.
De koffie loopt. Het donker
trekt zich terug in de gordijnen

en wacht, en wacht, maar wacht maar,
wacht.

Ingmar Heytze
(1970)

Night Work

The alarm ticks. The boiler rustles.
The refrigerator shakes on and off.
The rain beats against the window.
The darkness has us in its power.

Sleep gives the heart and breath over
to the rhythm of the night.
The soul hangs quietly to dry
on its lines of silverwhite.

Morning reverses the roles.
The shower rustles. The kettle whistles.
The coffee drips. The darkness
retreats into the curtains

and waits, and waits, but waits and,
waits.





Onder het vee

En toen de zomer dan toch weer was teruggekeerd
en wij dus weer zaten te drinken bij de rivier.

Zijn oude armen bewogen nog, naar daar, die wereld
dat langzame, eeuwige leven van vee in de verte.

Ieder mens zou een dier moeten zijn, moeten sterven
in de herfst, en in de lente weer worden geboren.

Of, ieder mens zou een rivier moeten zijn, komen
zonder verlangen te blijven, gaan zonder heimwee.

Zo zaten we dus weer te drinken daar, tegen de tijd,
oude verhalen, oude jenever, maar de zon ging wel onder.

En hij sliep in. Omdat de wereld insliep. Zwart
zat hij bij de rivier, zwart gat in het uitzicht.

Rutger Kopland,

uit:
Geduldig Gereedschap (1993)
Among farm animals

And when summer had once again returned
we sat together drinking once more at the river.

His old arms could still move, to there, the world of
that slow, eternal life of farm animals in the distance.

Every human should have to be an animal, should die
in the fall, and be born again in the spring.

Or, every human should have to be a river, come
to be without desire, depart without homesickness.

So we sat there drinking again, against time's flow,
old stories, old gin, but the sun still went down.

And fell asleep. Because the world fell asleep. It
sat black by the river, black hole in the horizon.

(all tr. Cliff Crego)

from
Patient Tools (1993)









| See also a selection of recent Picture/Poem "Rilke in translation" features at the Rilke Archive.

See also another website
by Cliff Crego:
The Poetry of
Rainer Maria Rilke
A presentation of 80 of the
best poems of Rilke in
both German and
new English translations
:
biography, links, posters


| # listen to other recordings in English and German of eight poems from
The Book of Images
at The Rilke Download Page (# Includes instructions)
|
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Photograph/Texts of Translations © 2000 Cliff Crego
(created
VI.4..20000 updated XII.17.2016) Comments to crego@picture-poems.com