Die week in woorde
Verlede week het ek ’n paar groot vrae soos vet reënwolke in die lug laat hang met die hoop dat daar hierdie week antwoorde daaruit sou reën. Intussen het daar baie water en baie bloed in die see geloop, maar min antwoorde.
Ek was by ’n vreugdevolle bruilof waar gedigte ingespan is om die bruidspaar geluk te wens en te bemoedig. En op die einste trou-Saterdag het ons ook die nuus gehoor van die aaklige skoolskietery in Amerika die vorige dag – en ek het weer gedink aan my teorie dat verse gebore word waar daar nie woorde is om te sê hoe mens oor iets voel nie.
In plaas van antwoorde, dus, hierdie week eerder padkos (pitkos?) vir die vakansie. In my oplees om antwoorde te soek vir my eie semi-retoriese vrae, het op ’n klomp mense se interessante en uiteenlopende opinies oor poësie in die algemeen en die rol van die digter afgekom. Neem en eet saam met my, dan kom ons volgende jaar met vol mae bymekaar om verder te praat oor poësie.
Oor poësie:
Poetry is what it is, a fairly insignificant diversion. But, then, I think fairly insignificant diversions are what make us human and not woodchucks. We get to do things that have no other purpose but to make our lives more beautiful. – Julie Carter
Poetry is, at bottom, a criticism of life. – Matthew Arnold
Poetry is what in a poem makes you laugh, cry, prickle, be silent, makes your toe nails twinkle, makes you want to do this or that or nothing, makes you know that you are alone in the unknown world, that your bliss and suffering is forever shared and forever all your own. – Dylan Thomas
Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality. But, of course, only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from these things. – TS Eliot
Well, write poetry, for God's sake, it's the only thing that matters. – e e cummings
Oor digters:
Poets are the hierophants of an unapprehended inspiration; the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present; the words which express what they understand not; the trumpets which sing to battle, and feel not what they inspire; the influence which is moved not, but moves. Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world. – Percy Bysshe Shelley (A Defence of Poetry)
A good poet is someone who manages, in a lifetime of standing out in thunderstorms, to be struck by lightening five or six times; a dozen or two dozen times and he is great. – Randall Jarrell
Oor digbundels:
Publishing a volume of verse is like dropping a rose-petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo. – Don Marquis
Oor die skryfproses:
I have never started a poem yet whose end I knew. Writing a poem is discovering. – Robert Frost
Oor lesers:
Most people ignore most poetry because most poetry ignores most people. – Adrian Mitchell
Spesiaal vir die vakansie
Ek het besluit om ’n versamelblad te maak met al die poësie wat op LitNet gepubliseer is in 2012. Klik hier om die blad te besoek, en boekmerk hom sommer as jy gereeld wil terugkeer om jou in die poësie te verlekker.