Welcome to Dutch poetry - May 2003

 
Thursday 1 May 2003

Arjen Duinker is the new Dutch 'Poet of the Quarter'. He has eight collections of poetry to his name, and an array of prizes, including the prestigious Jan Campert Prize in 2001 for The History of an Enumeration. Duinker is far more concerned with reality than with abstractions. His poetry is very much about the reality of things as separate, self-contained entities, about flowers, stones, mountains, wind and water. In 'User's Guide' he describes his own work.

I find an apple
Nicer than an orange.

There are possible advantages and disadvantages to this poem. I’ll name a few.The poem is short and can be remembered. It isn’t long. It reminds us of good times. It offers room for improvement. It is a matter-of-fact statement. It informs us that someone finds an apple nicer than an orange. It can fulfil a wish. It gives off a smell unintentionally. It relies heavily upon the word ‘an’. It is colourless. It’s conjured out of someone’s hat. It is a flat surface. It could have been in the past tense. It’s something for the future. It achieves some sort of atonement.
This is a poem that can be remembered, but also forgotten. It doesn’t scan and it does. It is surprising for all the wrong reasons. It’s a striking image. It isn’t, fortunately, an image in any way. It’s self-assured. It makes an old-fashioned impression. It makes the title true and untrue. It’s only a poem.This is a poem that can make our blood run faster. It doesn’t display all the consonants and vowels in the alphabet. It points us towards an unknown apple and an unknown orange. It raises a question. It is rooted in every one of us. It can be placed on the sidewall of a building or on a T-shirt. It might be self-assured, yet it is not oppressive. It uses well-known words. It is biased. It gives access to another poem. It limits the number of readings and can be read in different ways. It prompts one to breathe.
This is a poem that is an apple. It is an orange. It makes a certain change to the page. It’s a bathtub full of luxurious foam. It is a wasp banging its head against a lamppost. It’s a rickety little car that the driver and passengers have abandoned on the motorway from one big city to the next. It looks like a scarecrow without any buttons on its coat. It’s a balcony with a table and a transistor radio. It reminds one of three corners penalty. It is an extra. It is the sequence of some dance steps to music in somebody else’s head. It is comparable.
This is a poem that is rather calm. It is perhaps unhappy with its title. It could become irritating. It could provoke a laugh. It relates to graphs, charts and language. It is probably not quite the same as a yellow wagtail. It wouldn’t go amiss in certain speeches. It is the effect of something. It doesn’t pose any questions. It can be printed out in smaller or larger script. It cannot read for itself. It misses all kinds of characteristics. It can be replaced.

One day, it was 1986, I was slowly cycling home. I was sort of singing to myself the beginning of Monteverdi’s ‘Il Combattimento’, words by Torquato Tasso (cited from the text included with the album):

Tancredi, che Clorinda un uomo stima
Vuol nel’armi provarla al paragone.
Va girando colei l’alpestre cima
Verso altra porta, ove d’entrar dispone.
Seque egli impetuoso; onde, assai prima
Che giunga, in guisa avvien che d’armi suone,
Ch’ella si volge, e grida…

And meanwhile I passed a shop. A girl of about sixteen or seventeen got onto a moped. The street was covered by snow that had frosted over. A hundred metres further up after a slight bend there was a narrow cycling path. At the bend the girl was suddenly riding beside me. Getting onto the cycling path she gave me a nudge with her elbow, I tried to do something clever, but slipped, bike and all. The girl slowed down, and called out while she looked back: ‘that’s for your stupid singing!’ and went off again.
Was I singing stupidly? Not clear or audible enough? Was I singing louder than I thought, or more obtrusively? Was it my halting way of singing that irritated the girl? The simple fact I was singing? Was it the words? With their tendency towards meaninglessness?

Interesting articles
About Duinker and his work