P/P | r2c | August: "Dance in Stone" and the Poetry of Relationship

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"Beautiful is gold, most beautiful of all metals. Beautiful is alabaster and the airy crystals; Beautiful is light, when the sun is about to set,... Beautiful is Peace, most beautiful thing on Earth!—" from Peace, a poem by Jacobus Revius (1586-1658) This week, an image from the Neon Graffiti collection called, Dance in Stone. Also: seven new translations of Lowland poems. rss: Twitter r2c_dutchpoetry

The Poetry of Relationship

The late Indian philosopher and spiritual teacher, Jiddu Krishnamurti, often
spoke of life as a movement of relationship. With this he meant relationship
with others, within ourselves and with the earth itself. Within this simple yet
powerful way of looking, one can easily see that this movement might
be characterized in any number of different states, varying from relative
order and harmony to deeply entrenched conflict.


Relationship, of course, has also been a perennial theme of the poetries
of all world cultures. This is not surprising, in that we can see as we begin
to ponder the world around us in this way that, indeed, to be is to be
related. It's an interesting theme to pursue in verse, especially in
translation, for we might perhaps learn from cultural viewpoints different
from our own.


The first three poems of our Dutch septet deal with the timeless theme
of intimate relationship. (Notice that in all three poems the beloved
addressed is not actually present, but rather is assumed, which we easily
do without giving it a single thought.) In Five-year Plan—the title is a light-
hearted reference to Lowland socialist governments penchant for organizing
the chaos of the world in neat units of five—the poet gives us a charming
sequence of contraries while introducing the underlying thought (or hope)
that a marriage of opposites is evidently possible. With Kissing, we have a
quiet intermezzo of bliss. This is followed by the lament in Immortelles III
(or World-everlasting) for what seems to be the loss of a beloved, which is
beautifully left open with the question of "what is the source of
these tears?"


Judith Herzberg's poem, Winter Bethulia (see note below *) is a haunting
description of a surreal world, both here-and-now in its natural imagery,
yet taking us back to an ancient biblical past. Here, the poet is perhaps
going back in time into the depths of the psyche to purify a personal
relationship with her own name.


With Two People through the Mist we have another surreal landscape,
but this time finally with two real, actual people walking through it.
(Notice how in relationship we are always dealing somehow with the
unity of two.) Again, there is talk of souls, and how they seem to merge
when there is love.


The next duo of strange little thought-poems is by P.A. de Génestet.
Here we have the poet publicly trying to make sense of his own thinking,
in which there is a thorny conflict between the relationship of
not two people, but 'two minds'. (Notice that he doesn't resolve
the contradiction, but simply—as most of us do—opts to live with
rationality and religious belief as uneasy bedfellows in the same house.)


I couldn't resist ending this new set of Dutch translations with the
wonderful Elizabethan grace of style of Jacobus Revius. With Peace, we
come to that place in relationship where evidently all the friction momentarily
stops and the two and the many move, like an ensemble
of reeds in quietly flowing water, simply as one:

See also: new

"Straight roads, Slow rivers, Deep clay."

A collection of contemporary Dutch poetry in English translation, with commentary and photographs by Cliff Crego

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