Hugo
Claus (Belgium / writes in Dutch)
1929-2008
Born
in Bruges in 1929, Claus joined the Dutch Cobra group and founded the
influential periodical Tijd en Mens (Time and Man) with the critic Jan
Walravens and novelist Louis-Paul Boon. In 1955, he published De Oostakkerse
Gedichten (The Oostakker Poems), which represent a high point in
postwar Flemish poetry. The poems vividly draw sexual tensions against the
landscape of Flanders in a primitive, almost crude animal fashion.
A versatile and prolific writer, Claus’s
published work consists of poetry, novels, short stories, numerous plays, film
scenarios, and translations, including Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk Wood. One of
his most important novels, Het Verdriet van Belgie of 1983 (translated
as The Sorrow of Belgium in 1990), concerns a ten-year-old boy growing
up in anti-Semitic West Flanders. Family and friends join Hitler’s Flemish
brigades and the National Socialist Youth Movement, becoming workers in the
German factories. The boy’s mother is mistress and secretary to a Nazi officer,
and his father produces Nazi propaganda. Against these offences, the young boy
must grow up to seek a moral and poetic awakening. Among his other novels are Een
Zachte Vernieling (A Gentle Destruction), Gilles en de nacht (Gilles
in the Night), Belladonna: Scenes uit het leven in de provincie (Belladonna:
Scenes from Provincial Life), De Geruchten (Rumors), and Het
Verlangen (Desire). In 2009 Archipelago Books published his 1962
masterwork, Verwondering (Wonder).
His collected poems are gathered in two
volumes, Gedichten 1948-1993 (1994) and Gedichten 1969-1978
(2004). He has received the Triennial Belgian State Prize three times, twice
for drama and once for poetry. In 1986 he won the State Prize for Dutch
Letters, and in 1986 the Leo J. Krijn prize.
BOOKS
OF POETRY
Kleine
Reeks
(1947); Registreren (1948); Zonder vorm van process (1950); Tancredo
infrasonic (1952); Een huis dat tussen nacht en morgen staat
(Antwerpen/’s-Gravenhage, De Sikken/Daamen NV,1953); De Oostakkerse
gedicthen (1955); Paal in perk (1955); Een geverfde ruiter
(Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij, 1961); Oog om oog (Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij, 1964); Gedichten
1948-1963 (Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij, 1965); Het Everzwijn
(Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij, 1970); Van horen zeggen (Amsterdam: De Bezige
Bij, 1970); Dag, jij (1971); Figuratief (Amsterdam: De Bezige
Bij, 1973); Het Jansenisme (1976); Het Graf van Pernath (1978); De
Wangebeden (1978); Gedichten 1969-1978 (1979); Claustrum: 222
Knittelverzen (Antwerp: Pink Editions and Productions, 1980); Almanak:
366 Knittelverzen (Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij, 1982); Alibi
(Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij, 1985); Mijn honderd gedichten (Amsterdam: De
Bezige Bij, 1986); Sonnetten (1988); De Sporen (Amsterdam: De Bezige
Bij, 1993); Gedichten 1948-1993 (Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij, 1994); Gedichten
1969-1978 (Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij, 2004)
POEMS
IN ENGLISH
Selected
Poems 1953-1973
(Isle of Skye, Scotland: Aquila Poetry, 1986); selection in The PIP
Anthology of World Poetry of the 20th Century Volume 6 / Living Space: Poems of
the Dutch Fiftiers (Los Angeles: Green
Integer, 2005); Greetings: Selected Poems, trans. by John Irons
(Orlando Florida: Harcourt, 2005)
Achter
Tralies
Zaterdag
zondag maandag trage week en weke dagen
Een
stilleven een landschap een portret
De
wenkbrauwen van een vrouw
Die
zich sluiten als ik nadir
Het
landschap waarin blonde kalveren waden
Waar
het weder van erbarmen
In
het Pruisisch blauw der weiden ligt gebrand
Toen
heb ik nog een stilleven geschilderd
Met
onherkenbare wenkbrauwen en een mond als een maan
Met
een spiral als een verlossende trompet
In
het Jersualem van mijn kamer.
(from
Een huis dat tussen nacht en morgen staat, 1953)
Behind
Bars
Saturday
Sunday Monday slow week and weak days
A
still life a landscape a portrait
The
eyebrows of a woman
That
clowe when I draw near
The
landscape where blonde calves are wading
Where
the season of mercy lies burned
Into
the Prussian blue of the fields
It
was then I painted another still life
With
unrecognizable eyebrows and a mouth like a moon
With
a spiral like a redeeming trumpet
In
the Jerusalem of my room.
—Translated
from the Dutch by Paul Brown and Peter Nijmeijer
Een
Kwade Man
Zo
zwart is geen huis
Dat
ik er niet in kan wonen
Mijn
handen niet langs de muren kan strekken
Zo
wit is geen morgen
Dat
ik er niet in ontwaak
Als
in een bed
Zo
waak en woon ik in dit huis
Dat
tussen nacht en morgen staat
En
wandel op zenuwvelden
En
tast met mijn 10 vingernagels
In
elk gelated lijf dat nadert
Terwijl
ik kuise woorden zeg als:
Regen
en wind appel en brood
Dik
en donker bloed der vrouwen
(from
Een huis dat tussen nacht en morgen staat, 1953)
An
Angry Man
No
house is so black
That
I cannot live in it
Cannot
span my hands across its walls
No
morning is so white
That
I cannot wake in it
Like
a bed
Thus
I live and wake in this house
On
the crossroads of night and morning
And
wander over fields of nerve filaments
And
touch with my fingernails 10
At
each resigned abandoned body’s approach
Incantating
chaste words
Like:
rain and wind apple and bread
Clotted
and dark blood of women
—Translated
from the Dutch by Paul Brown and Peter Nijmeijer
Marsua
De
koorts van mijn lied, de landwijn van mijn stem
Lieten
hem deinzend achter, Wolfskeel Apollo,
De
god de zijn knapen verstikte en zwammen,
Botte
messen zong, wolfskeel, grintgezang.
Toen
vlerkte hij op, gesmaad,
En
brak mijn keel.
Ik
werd gebonden aan een boom, gevild werd ik, gepriemd
Tot
het water van zijn langlippige woorden in mijn oren vloeide,
Die
ingeweld begaven.
Zie
mij, gebonden aan de touwen van een geluidloos ruim,
Geveld
en gelijmd aan een koperen geur,
Gepunt,
Gericht,
Gepind
al seen vlinder
In
een vlam van honger, in een moeras van pijn.
De
vingernagels van de wind bereiken mijn ingewanden.
De
naalden van ijzel en zand rijden in mijn huid.
Mij
heft niemand meer genezen.
Doofstom
hangt mijn lied in de hagen.
De
tanden van mijn stem dringen alleen meer tot de maagden
door,
En
wie is maagd nog of maagdelijke bruidegom
In
deze branding?
(Een
bloedkoraal ontstijgt in
Vlokken
mijn hongerlippen.
Ik
vervloek
Het
kaf en het klaver en de horde die op mijn daken
De
vadervlag uithangt—maar gij zijt van steen.
Ik
zing—maar gij zijt van veren en gij staat
Al
seen roerdomp, een seinpaal van de treurnis.
Of
zijt gij een buizerd—dáár—een wiegende buizerd?
Of
in het zuiden, lager, een ster, de gouden Stier?)
Mij
heft niemand meer genezen.
In
mijn kelders is de delfstof der kennis aangebroken.
(from
De Oostakkerse gedichten, 1955)
Marsyas
The
fever of my song, the country wine of my voice
Left
him shrinking back, Wolfthroat Apollo,
The
god who throttled his lads, and sang like fungi,
Blunt
knives, in his wolfthroat, gravel voice.
Then
he whirled up, defamed,
And
broke my throat.
I
was bound to a tree, I was skinned, pierced
Until
the water of his long-lipped words flowed in my ears,
That
violently burst.
Look
at me now, bound by the ropes of a soundless space,
Felled
and glued to a copper scent,
Pointed,
Doomed,
Pinned
like a moth
In
a flame of hunger, in a morass of pain.
The
wind’s fingernails reach into my bowels.
The
needles of frost and sand ride in my skin.
None
now can ever cure me.
My
deaf-mute song hangs in the hedges.
The
teeth of my voice reach only the virgins,
And
who’s still a virgin or a virgin bridegroom
In
these breakers?
(In
clots the blood coral
Rises
from my hunger-lips.
I
damn
The
chaff and the clover and themob striking out
The
father’s colors on my roofs—but you are of stone.
I
sing—but you are of feathers and stand
Like
a bittern, a semaphore of mourning.
What
are you, a buzzard—there—a dandling buzzard?
Or
in the south, lower, a star, a golden Taurus?)
None
now can ever cure me.
In
my cellars the ore of knowledge begins to fracture.
—Translated
from the Dutch by Peter Brown and Peter Nijmeijer
De
regenkoning
De
regenkoning sprak (en gelovig waren mijn oren):
‘Hier
heb ik de vrouw: gevlamde anus,
Borstknop
en navelachtige nachtschade,
Daar
kan geen starveling tegen.’
Toen
brak
Het
rijk der onderhuid aan splinters.
Regeerde
deze Ram uitbundig en verrukt?
Niet
vragen. Luister niet.
Het
verhaal van zijn tanden drong
In
alle vrouwen, dwingend
Als
een zomerregen, een koperen lente, als een vroegtijdig
Ondernaan
in hun liezen begraven doorn.
het
regende zeventig dagen—de nachten waren gegolfd
En
zout. Onthoofde raven vielen.
En
alle daken spleet een oog.
En
sedert woont in mij,
In
mijn ontkroond geraamte,
Een
regenkoning die vlammen wekt.
(from
De Oostakkerse gedichten, 1955)
The
Rain King
The
rain king spoke (my ears as faithful
Chattels
to my liege): “Here we have a woman:
Flamed
anus, breast-bud and navel nightshade
That
no mortal can resist.”
Then
the kingdom
Of
cutis broke apart in shivers.
Was
this Ram’s rule exuberant and rapturous?
Do
not ask. Do not listen.
The
narrative of his teen penetrated
All
women, compelling
As
a summer rain, a copper spring, a thorn
Prematurely
buried at the focus of their groins.
For
seventy days it rained (the nights were undulating,
Salt).
Decapitated ravens plummeted.
The
roofs slit open on the eye.
And
since then lived in me,
In
my abdicated skeleton,
A
rain king awaking flames.
—Translated
from the Dutch by Peter Brown and Peter Nijmeijer
Het
Dier
Het
beest in de weide (van de vlammen gescheiden)
Ziet
hoe op poten de dag aanbreekt
Hoe
met gebaren de zon haar zevenstaart omslaat
En
(in bladgoud, lichtogig en bevend)
Het
verlangt niet meer.
‘s
Nachts begeeft het zacht en dringt weer in het
Woud
waar de koude jager roept.
Zo
veilig, zo tam gaat geen mens
De
wereld binnen.
(from
De Oostakkerse gedichten, 1955)
The
Animal
The
beast in the pasture (separated from the flames)
Sees
how on legs the day breaks
How
gesturing the sun regales its seven-tail
How
(autumn-gold, dew-eyed and trembling)
It
desires nothing more.
At
night it recedes softly and penetrates still
The
forest where the cold hunter calls.
So
safe, so tame, no man
Enters
his world.
—Translated
from the Dutch by Peter Brown and Peter Nijmeijer
De
zee
De
schorre zeilen, de sneeuwende zee met
De
vinkenslag der baren: haar bladeren
En
het doornaveld verlangen: haar golven
Rijden
tegen het land waar de flag der bronst uithangt,
Monsteren
de muren aan,
Lokken
het mos en de mensen, de merries en het zand,
Laten
de stenen als sterrebeelden achter
En
bevrijden—zij, de zee en haar schuimbekkende beesten—
De
mann in alle vrouwen, de tanden in mijn mond.
(from
De Oostakkerse gedichten, 1955)
The
Sea
The
husky sails, the snowing sea with
The
finch-trap of the billows: her leaves
And
the naveled desire: her waves
Ride
up against the land where the flag of rut
Hangs
out, recruit the walls,
Lure
moss and people, mares and sand,
Leave
behind the stones like constellations
And
release—they, the sea and her frothing beasts—
The
moon in all women, the teeth in my mouth.
—Translated
from the Dutch by Peter Brown and Peter Nijmeijer
Geheim
kan
Geheim
kan (en het mes in pijnloos
In
uw dubbelhuid) verscholen in de vreugde
Het
schuwe woord, het klare woord
(een
opening in u gedrongen) er de liefde scheuren.
Wellicht
kent gij geen vrouw meer, jager,
Wanneer
deze verwondering zich voltrekt.
Uw
gave zinnen weerstaan dit niet.
Koorts
bereikt u voortdurend en houdt de koude wonde wakker.
(from
De Oostakkerse gedichten, 1955)
Secret
(And the Knife
Secret
(and the knife is painless
In
the envelope of your skin) deposited in delight:
The
skittish word, a word transparent,
Plunged
and plugged (an opening driven into you)
Could
disembowel love in you wide open.
Is
it that you have lost her, hunter,
In
the execution of surprise? Is it that
Your
bait belies the lure? Yet
The
fever reaches in the execution of the hunt
To
keep the cold wound waking.
—Translated
from the Dutch by Peter Brown and Peter Nijmeijer
Een
vrouw-14
Ik
zou je een lied in dit landschap van woede willen zingen,
Livia,
dat in je zou dringen, je bereiken in je negen openingen,
Blond
en rekbaar, hevig en hard.
Het
zou een boomgaardlied zijn en een zang van de vlakte,
Een
éénmanskoor van schande,
Alsof
mijn stembanden mij ontbonden ontsprongen en je riepen,
Alsof
In
dit landschap dat mij vernedert, in deze huizing die mij schaadt
(Waarin
ik op vier voeten dwaal) wij niet meer ongelijk verschenen
En
onze stemmen sloten.
Ontspring
in loten,
Nader
mij die niet te naken ben,
Wees
mij niet vreemd zoals de aarde,
Vlucht
mij niet (de manke mensen)
Ontmoet
mij, voel mij,
Plooi,
breek, breek,
Wij
zijn de weerwind, de regen der dagen,
Zeg
mij wolken,
Vloei
open woordenloos, word water.
(Ah,
dit licht is koud en drukt zijn hoornen handen
In
ons gezicht dat hapert en zich vouwt)
Ik
zou je een boomgaardlied willen zingen, Livia
Maar
de nacht wordt voleind en vult
Mijn
vlakte steeds dichter dicht—bereiken kan ik je
Niet
dan onvervuld
Want
de keel der mannelijke herten groneit toe bij dageraad.
(from
De Oostakkerse gedichten, 1955)
A
Woman: 14
I’d
like to sing you a song in this landscape of anger,
Livia,
that would penetrate you, reach you in your nine openings,
Blonde
and elastic, violent and hard.
It
would be an orchard song and a canto of the plains,
A
one-man choir of infamy,
As
though my vocal chords discorded rose from me and called you,
As
though
In
this landscape abasing me, in this location impairing me
(Where
I four-footed wander) we appeared no longer singular
And
locked our voices.
Break
out in shoots,
Come
close to me, I who am elusive, unapproachable,
Don’t
think me strange as the earth,
Don’t
run from me (lame humans)
Meet
me, feel me,
Crease
and break, break,
We
are the werewind, the rain of days,
Tell
me clouds,
Flow
open wordlessly, become water.
(Ah,
this light is cold and weights its horned hands
To
our face that falters and folds in on itself)
I’d
like to sing you an orchard song, Livia
But
the night comes to an end and fills
My
plains more tightly tight—I can reach you
Only
unfulfilled
For
the stag’s throat chokes at dawn.
—Translated
from the Dutch by Peter Brown and Peter Nijmeijer
De
maagd
In
rokken van wierook en distels
komt
zij en draagt de kelk naar mij.
Zij
is een aap, zo niet-te-vatten oud en snel tussen haar
kleed,
het geopend tabernakel,
waarin
ter aanbidding glimt de hazelijn van haar buik.
Het
dorp dat bidt bekijkt.
Maar
voor zijn dove lach
sluit
ik met hoog gebaar de orgels af. (Tussen de
vermoeiden
leven eist geen moed.)
Dan
rent zij in de struiken,
nu
schreeuwt zij in het goud, hoe ik haar heiland wezen
zou,
maar det de maand, de maan, maar dat er
merries
redden in haar vel en dat haar vader
haar
noemde naar het galgekruid…
O
basta!
Deze
non gaat te dikwijls naar de cinema!
En
onze liefde hapert.
Hoorbaar
kruipen luizen.
Schamper
tussen de meerderjarige kenners ineens,
ken
ik haar niet meer.
En
in het tienjarig bed, in de dovende slaapzaal
wacht
ik weer op de ijzeren avondval
over
de bladeren.
(from
De geverfde ruiter, 1961)
The
Virgin
She
comes in skirts of incense
And
of thorns to bid me drink from the chalice.
She
so much the monkey, so immeasurably old and fast between her
Garments,
the broached tabernacle, where
For
worship’s sake gleams the hare-line of her belly.
The
village praying, spies.
To
such deaf laughter
I
grandly shut the organ. (Living
Among
the weary requires little courage.)
Then
she darts through the bushes,
Now
she’s screaming in the gold, that I was to be her savior
But
that the month, the moon, but that the
Mares
were riding in her skin, and that her father
Named
her after gallow-herb…
Oh,
nonsense!
This
nun goes to the movies far too often!
And
our love falters.
Audibly
lice creep.
Scornful,
suddenly surrounded by these adult connoisseurs,
I
know her no longer.
And
on the decennial bed, in the quenching dormitory
I
await once more the iron nightfall
Over
the leaves.
—Translated
from the Dutch by Peter Brown and Peter Nijmeijer
N.Y.
1
Over
de rimpels van hef asphalt, in de rook die al seen dooier-
zwam
vannuit de roosters welt
dragen
negerkrijgers tussen hun olielijf een roze zomeravondjurk
als
de vrouw van een senator.
In
het schiereiland van beton, in de bronstige paleizen
--lekbakken
voor de knorrige jets daarboven—
koopt
iedereen de sigaret van de man die denkt,
eet
iedereen het gemalen vlees met nikkelen tanden,
wast
ieder zich in filmsterrenmelk.
Wat
beveiligt mij tegen
deze
kanonnenkoorts?
Een
tekening rond de linkertepel
welsprekend
uitgevoerd door Tattooing Joe,
the
electric Rembrandt.
2
Washington
was een present. Vandaar het monument.
Eerst
me een steek,
dan
in de wind als een tent,
maar
twee keer martiaal, staat hij, een arduinen vent
tussen
malcontentige pakhuizen en venters.
Vanuit
de bevolke zandbak, omrand door
tralies,
ouders en duiven,
heft
af en toe een vader zijn hevig kind
alsof
het stervend was en offert het
aan
Garibaldi die bewolkt bedenkt: ‘Trek ik mijn dolk of laat
ik
hem?’
Gehelmde
troubadours beloeren
het
vijandelijk gebied waar Holley,
die
het soortelijk gewicht van staal heft ontwricht,
pokdalig
verwaten in het groen gegoten werd.
Hardhandig
word teen pater uit de woning
van
Henry James gewalst tussen de schaatsers.
Overal
de zeven alwetende vogels van de dood.
Ik
wou dat ik was
een
laagje lak van wit op wit.
(from
De geverfde ruiter, 1961)
N.Y.
1
Across
the wrinkles of the blacktop, in the smoke that wells
out
of the gratings like a yolky mold
Black
warriors carry between their oiled bodies a pink summer
evening
frock
like
a senator’s wife.
In
this peninsula of concrete, in the lustful palaces
--drip-pans
for the rumbling jets overhead—
everyone
buys the cigarette of the man who thinks,
everyone
eats ground mean with nickel teeth,
everyone
washes in filmstar milk.
What
shall immune me
from
the cannon fever?
A
drawing eloquently executed
round
the left tit of Tattoo Joe,
the
electric Rembrandt.
2
Washington
was a president. Hence the statue.
First
with a three-cornered hat,
then
in the wind like a tent,
but
doubly martial, he stands, a freestone gent
among
the discontentious warehouses and vendors.
Now
and then a father lifts his child
out
of the populous sandbox surrounded by
bars,
parents, pigeons,
as
if it’s about to die and offers it
to
Garibaldi who thunderously thinks:
“Shall
I draw my dagger or let him?”
Helmeted
troubadours bespy
the
enemy territory where Holley,
who
dislocated the specific gravity of steel,
presumptuously
has been cast pockmarked in green.
A
priest is rudely ejected among the skaters
out
of the house of Henry James.
Everywhere
the seven all-knowing birds of death.
I’d
like to be
a
coat of paint white on white.
—Translated
from the Dutch by James S Holmes
De
bewaker spreekt
Huiswaarts
kerned ‘s avonds hoor ik sarrend
de
plof van hun hoeven onophoudelijk. Af en toe
terwijl
ik plas in de sneeuw verwarmen zij zich aan elkaar.
Dan,
na twaalf keer ademhalen
haal
ik de hemelse straal uit het foedraal,
en
richt haar naar de achterblijvers.
Door
de hemel beschermd ga ik mijn weg.
Onze
eigengemaakte kometen met
het
gelukzalig uranium en de kokende kobalt
vergezellen
mij waar ik wandel.
Alle
koperen egels die wij naar de zon hebben geblazen
beschermen
mij op het veld.
Huiswaarts
kerende hoor ik
het
schuiven van hun scharen
als
mijn gevangenen over de ijzeren weiden schaatsen
naar
de bunkers.
Dikwijls
blijven zij achter. Zij dragen zware zielen.
Ik
niet. In mijn eigengereide wenteling
denk
ik aan korsetten en goud en koekjes.
(from
De geverfde ruiter, 1961)
The
Guard Speaks
Turning
homeward at night I incessantly hear
the
nagging plop of their hooves. Now and then
while
I piss in the snow they warm themselves on each other.
Then
after twelve deep breaths
I
pull the celestial ray from its holster
and
point it at the stragglers.
Protected
by heaven I go on my way.
Our
self-made comets with
the
blessed uranium and boiling cobalt
go
with me where’er I walk.
All
the copper hedgehogs we’ve blown toward the sun
protect
me in the field.
Turning
homeward I hear
the
shuffling of their hosts
as
my prisoners skate across the iron pastures
to
the bunkers.
They
often lag behind. They carry burdensome souls.
Not
I. In my inexorable rotation
I
think of corsets and gold and cookies.
—Translated
from the Dutch by James S Holmes
Heer
Everzwijn
15
Hoe
elke morgen de appelaar
vertakt
veranderd is!
Hij
is de boom der kennis niet,
krullend
in zijn schors
rijpend
in zijn huls.
De
appelaar tast naar zijn loof
met
kwetsbare twijgen
tot
de nacht
dat
de woordloze Ram knabbelt aan zijn bast.
20
De
damp op de druiven,
de
dauw, de bron en de stroom.
Een
vrouw die koert: ‘Hier, kom hier, gauw’,
en
achter haar vergrauwt de nacht.
Het
bloed dat op het blad papier was gespat
is
nu geronnen.
Trots?
Een bark in de zachte zee.
Berouw?
Een gareel dat tegen de keien slaat.
Zij?
Een profile in de muur gebrand.
21
De
taal van het vuur?
Geroosterde
klinkers, verschroeide zinnen.
Koken
is een taal. Vanmorgen in bed: de geur van koffie.
In
de zomer van 1944 vernietigde het Amerikaanse 3e leger
in
Normandië de kaasfabrieken—vanwege de geur—
de
geur van lijken, zeiden de soldaten.
In
vroegere tijden, zei Aristoteles, werd alle vlees
geroosterd.
Nu
nog, wijze man,
jij
die zei: ‘Sokrates is bleek’
jij
de zei: ‘De mens brengt mensen voort’
jij
die toen al—via begrip,
oordeel,
en
redenering,
een
oplossing had gevonden
voor
slaven en vondelingen,
nu
nog roostert men vlees,
als
in sprookjes: mensenvlees.
‘s
Morgens: de geur kan koffie, de taal van het vuur.
Een
brandlucht in huis, een volmaakte lauwte.
(from
Heer Everzwijn, 1970)
From
Lord Boar
15
How
each morning the apple tree
has
forked: changed!
It
is not the tree of knowledge,
curling
in its rind,
ripening
in its husk.
With
vulnerable twigs
the
apple tree reaches for its leaves
until
the night
when
the wordless Ram nibbles its bark.
20
The
steam on the grapes
the
dew, the spring and the river.
A
woman, cooing: “here, come here, quick!”
and
the night spreads dim and gray behind her.
The
blood that spattered on the page
has
clotted now.
Pride?
A barque on the soft sea.
Regret?
A harness clattering on the cobbles.
She?
A profile burnt into the wall.
21
The
language of fire?
Roasted
vowels, scorched phrases.
Cooking
has its own grammar.
In
bed, this morning: the smell of coffee.
In
the summer of 44 the American 3rd Army
destroyed
the cheese dairies in Normandy:
because
of the smell—
the
smell of corpses, the soldiers explained.
In
former days, Aristotle pointed out,
All
meat used to be roasted.
Today
too, wise man,
you
who said: “Socrates looks pale,”
who
said: “Man begets man,”
who
even then, by means of understanding
and
judgment and reason,
suggested
solutions for slaves and foundlings,
today
too they’re roasting meat,
as
in fairy tales: human meat.
Each
morning: the smell of coffee, the language
of
fire. A burnt smell, perfectly lukewarm.
—Translated
from the Dutch by Theo Hermans
Vriendin
Zij
zei: ‘Ik zou nooit doden.
Ook
niet al seen man op één meter van mij
mijn
zoontje wurgde.
Alles
wat left is heilig.’
En
ik zag haar in natriumlicht,
de
sibylle met haar schandelijke wet,
krols
van zelfmoord en gebed.
Hoe
de klei hongert naar het gebeente
en
de aarde naar de mest
en
de dweil naar het bloed!
En
hoe ik dans in mijn dierlijk zweet
en
doden zou en hoe!
En
toen zag ik haar
teer,
breekbaar, nachtblind,
verdwenen
in het verleden,
zoals
vroeger de lichtgevende nachtwolk.
(from
Van horen zeggen, 1970)
Girlfriend
She
said: “I would never kill even
if
I had my hands around the man
who
strangled my young son.
All
that lives and crawls is holy.”
I
saw her in the sodium light,
randy
with suicide and sanctity,
the
sibyl with her shameful law.
How
clay hungers for bones, the earth
for
muck, the cloth for blood. How
I
would dance in my animal blood
and
how I would kill, and how!
I
saw her disappear into the past
tender,
brittle, nightblind, luminous
like
the shards of moonlight on cloud cover.
—Translated
from the Dutch by Peter Brown and Peter Nijmeijer
Kringloop
De
borden van het Laatste Avondmaal
bleven
staan na de dood van de Heiland.
Schillen,
kruimels, korsten vet,
de
bevlekte schalen, het dof bestek.
De
afdruk van een gebit in een appel.
De
botten van een fazant.
Toen,
‘s morgens, kwamen de meiden
en
zetten de tafel weer kllar voor het ontbijt.
Eerst
is er de tijd van de goden, dan komt
de
tijd van de helden, en dan die van de mensen.
Is
dit verval? Geenszins. Want de kringloop komt terug
zoals
voedsel folgt op excrement.
Vico
zei: ‘Eerst was er wat noodzakelijk was,
toen
wat nuttig was,
daarna
kwam de gemakzucht,
later
het genot en de wellust
en
uiteindelijk—heir en nu—de waanzin
die
elke levenskracht verspilt.’
Vico
vergat god noch verrader,
priester
noch kannibaal.
In
elk koraal horde hij
het
gebalk van de mongool.
(from
De Wangebeden, 1978)
Circuit
The
plates of the Last Supper
were
left standing after the demise of the Savior.
Peelings,
crumbs, fatty rind,
the
soiled dishes, the dull cutlery.
The
impression of a denture in an apple.
The
skeleton of a quail.
Then,
in the morning, the maids came
and
set the table for breakfast.
First
is the time of the gods, then
the
time of heroes, and then that of mortal man.
Is
this decline? No way! For the circuit returns
like
food follows on defecation.
Vico
said: “First there was what was necessary,
then
what was useful,
and
after that came pleasure,
later
delight and leisure
and
at last—here and now—the madness
that
saps every lifeforce.”
Vico
forgot neither god nor betrayer,
priest
nor cannibal.
In
every hymn he heard
the
braying of the hordes.
—Translated
from the Dutch by Cornelis Vleeskens
Etude
Er
is, er is zoveel, bij voorbeeld die ongelukkige
die
in het prieel staat te beschrijven.
Hij
beschrijft warden, conplementaire tonen
de
stoornis in de sferen
het
glazuur van de voltooid verleden tijd.
Er
is de leraar en zijn totale geschiedenis
er
is de Jezuïet van de rechte lijn
de
poelier van het vluchtige
hij
de ontbijt met een concept
hij
de aleatorisch slikt
hij
die in vrieskelders snikt om de steeds
verder
voortvluchtige paradox van de ruimte
hij
die left van de obscene statuten voor kunst
terwijl
ex nihilo
Er
is wat onstaat uit dorst
er
is wat door dat onstaan wordt ontdaan
er
is natuur met haaar randen en rafels
er
is pigment en het spoor van een hoef
er
is zoiets stils al seen dampened heuvel
zoiets
wilds als de vuilnis van verdriet
er
is een ladder onder de takken
er
is de waanzin van de bladeren
de
kalmte van de vlammen
er
is Eris die zwerft
op
zoek naar het gekerm van de mensen
er
zijn de lijken van vrienden
er
is ex nihilo
hoe
dan ook het noodweer
en
het dichtbij lawaai van de verre zee.
(from
De Sporen, 1993)
Etude
There
is, there is so much, take that lame duck
defining
in the summer house.
He
defines values, complementary scales
the
disturbance in the spheres
the
glazed time of the past perfect.
There
is the teacher and his sum of history
there
is the Jesuit of the straight and narrow
the
poulterer of the fleeting
the
one who breakfasts on a concept
the
one who swallows aleatorically
the
one in the freezer whining about the always
receding
paradox of outer space
the
one who lives by the obscene statutes of art
while
ex nihilo
There
is what is made from thirst
there
is what is unmade by what was made
there
is nature with its edges and loose ends
there
is pigment and a hoof-print
there
is the quiet of a steaming hill
the
wilderness of the trash of grief
there
is a ladder under the branches
there
is the lunacy of the leaves
the
calm of the flames
there
is Eris wandering
in
search of the groaning of men
there
are the corpses of friends
there
is ex nihilio
the
storm anyway
and
the nearby sounding of the distant sea.
—Translated
from the Dutch by Theo Hermans and Yann Lovelock
PERMISSIONS
Permission
to reprint poems in Dutch granted by De Bezige Bij, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Copyright
©1994 by Hugo Claus. Reprinted from Gedichten 1948-1993.
“Behind
Bars,” “An Angry Man,” “Marsyas,” “The Rain King,” “The Animal,” “The Sea,”
“Secret (And the Knife,” “A Woman: 14,” “The Virgin,” “N.Y.,” “The Guard
Speaks,” “from Lord Boar,” “Fable,” and “Girl Friend”
Reprinted
from Peter Glassgold, edited with an Introduction, Living Space: Poems of
the Dutch “Fiftiers” (New York: New Directions, 1979). ©1979 by Peter
Glassgold/The Foundation for the Translation of Dutch Literary Works. Reprinted
by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp.
“Circuit”
Reprinted
from Naked Poetry: Dutch Poetry in Translation, translated by Cornelis
Vleeskens (Melbourne: Post Neo Publications, 1988). Reprinted by permission of
the translator.
“Etude”
Reprinted
from Modern Poetry in Translation: Dutch and Flemish Issue, No. 12
(Winter 1997).
Reprinted
by permission of Theo Hermans and Yann Lovelock.
One
Legged Dance
by
Douglas Messerli
Hugo
Claus Greetings (Orlando, Florida: Harcourt, 2005). Translated from the
Dutch by John Irons
Soon
after I published the Project for Innovative Poetry anthology of the Dutch
Fifiters, I discovered that Harcourt had just published a new collection of Claus
poems, which I immediately ordered through Amazon. Upon its receipt, however, I
wondered perhaps if I’d ordered the wrong book. It seemed amazing to me that
this poet, whose work—as the fiction above suggests—often portrayed an almost
brutal depiction of sex and the human beast, might have a book titled,
Greetings, as if the bitter ironist I knew had suddenly joined the card writers
of Hallmark. If there was one thing that Claus never seemed to do was to
merrily “greet” his readers. The strange photograph on the cover, depicting, I
presume, I underside of a bridge (in Flanders?) continued my confusion. Was
Claus’s dark vision being presented as a “soaring bridge” between beings. The
poem which with the volume began—inexplicably reprinted on the book’s back
cover—was, moreover, one of the worst poems by Claus I had ever read. Its end
rhymed lines, “crow/glow,” “ways/ablaze,” etc and its conventional subject
matter—the days become shorter, “slighter than a butterfly,” all because of
love—seemed almost unrecognizable of what I knew of the Claus canon.
Who
was this translator, John Irons (the internet suggests he may be a British
translator living in Odense, and, if it is the same gentleman, a rather tepid
poet—
pa
was six days gone
in
a coffin of pale wood
clad
in a white shroud
with
pale blue ribbons
begins
one of his “Pa” poems titled “Farewell”)—and what was the standard for the
poems which he had chosen? The book contained neither introduction nor
introductory note, no substantial statement about Claus (a short 6-line bio and
photograph appear on a jacket leaf) and, even more oddly, no copyright line,
which would at least tell us from which of his books the poems had been
collected. It was if the book had simply willed itself into English.*
Although
I would have chosen another selection of Claus’s poems—particularly when it
comes to the rhymed sonnet-sequence of 12 pages near the end of the book (the
alternating and sequential rhymes—“design/Einstein,” “detect/neck,”
“damp/camps,” etc nearly drown out any message that the poet might have wanted
to convey)—there are, nonetheless, important poems in this volume representing
some of Claus’s best writing.
As
I have indicated—and the vast majority of these poems support my
argument—Claus’s Flanders is a dark world, a place of “Sparse song dark thread
/ Land like a sheet / That sinks…,” a world in which “A glass man falls out of
a pub and breaks.” If the recurring themes of his poetry seem predictable and
almost maudlin—the difficulty of growing older (what I described above as the
“rickety-boned” subject matter of Desire, and his life-long love of his wife
and man’s desires in general)—Claus’s presentation of these subjects is quite
the opposite of sentimentality: the wife and husband as represented in his elegiac
poem “Still Now,” for example, battle out their life and love, he “scratching
and clawing for her undersized no-man’s-land,” she a “giggling executioner,”
beheading him in her “cool glistening wound.” The poem ends with an image of
their continuing struggles:
Still
now riveted in her fetters and with the bloody nose
of
lovers I say, filled with her blossoming spring:
“Death,
torture the earth no longer, do not wait, dear death,
for
me to come, but do as she does and strike now!”
Again
in the poem “His Prayers,” Claus presents the act of loving—something he often
portrays in crude and occasionally scatological terms—as a kind of beautiful
punishment:
I
dreamed I pulled off my eyelashes
and
gave them to you, merciful one,
and
you blew on them as on a dandelion,
oh,
hold back your punishing hand!
……
—I
submit
to
your pleasure
There
is a sense of submission, in fact, in nearly all of Claus’s poems. The world of
his Flanders is, in its stench of human misery and flesh, highly unjust: “Do
not talk about the natural hygiene of the universe / which justifies death
(from “His Notes for ‘Genesis 1.1’”). In one of his most parable-like poems,
“Elephant,” Claus spells out this perpetual cycle of love and destruction which
ends nearly always in his work in submission and death: meeting an elephant,
the narrator and the beast become “good friends,” until one day he catches the
animal “giving me a look. / an ice-cold look, a plaice’s look.”
Then
I put on my wishing cloak
I
donned my wig of cunt-hair
and
topped it with my dreaming cap
with
circle, stars, and stripes,
and
then I recited my formula of murder
from
the Catalogue of Changeable Signs
The
elephant was an instant corpse.
Without
a sigh he fell on his rump
and
rumbled, crumbled, tumbled into ash,
But
if the world is unjust, its inhabitants are heroes for simply living. The image
of the one-legged dance (reminding me of the tradition of Flemish painting)
appears again and again in Claus’s poetry. It is the dance itself, as painful
and impossible as it is, that redeems the brutal world he evokes. In the poem
“Simple” he weaves several of his dominant themes—love, submission, fear,
death—together
the
two of us dance on just one leg.
When
I kneel at your knees
and
I bring you to your knees
we
are fragments full of pity and danger
for
each other.
With
chains around their necks
the
dogs of love come.
That
is not what I might describe as a world of “greetings,” but there is no
question that Claus’s vision is of a humane redemption of the sorrow and
suffering we all must face.
*I
have since discovered on the translator’s website that the poems include the
works of Claus’s ik schrijf je neer with the exception of two poems.
Irons is indeed the author of the “Pa Poems.” I believe readers would have been
better served to know this information and the fact that John Irons has
translated a great many other Dutch, Danish, and Swedish and Norwegian poets as
well.
Los
Angeles, March 10, 2006
Reprinted
from Green Integer Review and Jacket
While
reading Claus' novel The Swordfish, I was asked by the British newspaper
The Guardian to write an obituary on Hugo Claus. I have included that
document below.
On
March 19, 2008, Hugo Claus, Belgium’s leading writer, died at Middelheim
Hospital in Antwerp at the age of 78; he had been suffering from Alzheimer’s
disease and, according to his wife Veerle De Wit, had chosen euthanasia, which
is legal in Belgium, as his agent of death. As the head of the Flemish
Literature Fund, Greet Ramael, responded: “He chose himself the moment of his
death. He left life as the proud man he was.”
Author
of hundreds of works, Claus was a major poet, novelist, dramatist, and
essayist. Born in Bruges in 1929, he began writing poetry shortly after World
War II, joining the group of mostly Dutch poets, often referred as “the
Fiftiers.” As a visual artist—Claus was the son of a painter—he was also
involved with the international art movement Cobra (taking its name from the
first letters of the major cities of its proponents
[COpenhagen-BRussels-Amsterdam]).
In
English his Selected Poems 1953-1973 was published in Scotland in 1986
and a more recent collection, Greetings, was published by Harcourt in 2005. A
large selection of his poetry also appears in the Green Integer volume Living
Space: Poems of the Dutch Fiftiers in 2005.
It
is as a novelist, however, that he is best known to the English-speaking
audience. His first novel, De Metsiers (The Duck Hunt)—a work
inspired by William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying— was published in the US
in 1955, and other works, The Swordfish (Peter Owen, 1996) and Desire
(Viking-Penguin, 1997), followed. He is perhaps best known, however, for his
1983 masterwork, Het verdriet van België (The Sorrow of Belgium,
published by Penguin in 1991 and recently reprinted by the Overlook Press). In
the tradition of Günter Grass’ The Tin Drum, The Sorrow of Belgium
recounts the story of Louis Steynaeve from his time in a Catholic boarding
school through World War II. Claus’ clearly autobiographical narrative explores
the expressions of the Dutch- and French-speaking Belgians and their various
collaborations with the English, French, and Germans. Claus’ intricate insights
into the interrelationships of social and governmental corruptions, black
market profiteering, revenge, anti-Semitism, and simple stupidity reveal the
reasons for complacency and outright acceptance of the Nazis by thousands of
his countrymen including Claus’ own early romanticizing of the Germans. As
Claus later admitted: “The Germans were disciplined, sang marching songs—they
were very exotic enemies. Like Louis, I liked them very much.”
In
all his works, Claus tackles difficult subjects, including incest,
homosexuality, and what he determined were the detrimental effects of religion.
Desire depicts a world of small-time drunkards and gamblers, in particular
Michel and Jake, who travel together to Las Vegas in search of excitement; what
the two discover in the American desert are the entangled tragedies they have
left behind; Michel, we gradually perceive, has abandoned the woman he was to
marry, Jake’s daughter Didi, for a homosexual affair with another of the bar
denizens, leaving her in mental collapse. Jake, a seemingly jovial and peaceful
man, suddenly lashes out in anger, killing a young gay dancer from the Circus
Circus chorus.
Claus’
novel The Swordfish recounts the story of a wealthy woman and her son left
by her husband in a small, provincial town. Martin, an intense child, who has
been converted to religion by a local teacher, sees himself as Jesus bearing
the cross to Golgotha, while their drunken hired hand, Richard—a former
veterinarian who has been imprisoned for performing unlawful abortions—looks
on. Accusations of child abuse and the sexual coupling of the woman, Sibyelle,
with a nebbish-like schoolteacher, ends in the brutal murder of Richard’s wife.
In
his 1969 play Vrijdag (Friday), Claus explores an incestuous
relationship. When George Vermeersch returns from prison, he discovers his wife
is having affair with another man. Partially in revenge but also in an attempt
at reconciliation, he admits that he has had a sexual relationship with their
daughter; the wife, in turn, admits that she had known of the situation without
demanding it come to an end, and, as the lover leaves her, the two are left to
reconstruct their empty marriage.
For
all his seemingly dark and despairing portrayals of Flemish life, however,
Claus was a great believer in the human race, recognizing everyone as
interconnected and linked; accordingly, any evil or mean act of his figures
effects the entire society. The betrayal of anyone is the betrayal of all. As
Claus noted in a magazine interview: “We cannot accept the world as it is. Each
day we should wake up foaming at the mouth because of the injustice of things.”
Claus
was often nominated for the Nobel Prize and is quoted as saying he had given up
hope of ever winning. He did, however, receive numerous Belgian and European
prizes for his writing, including the Henriëtte Roland Holst prize for his
plays (1965), the Constantijn Huygensprize (1979), The Prijs der Nederlandse
Letteren (the Dutch Literature Prize, 1986), the Libris Literatuurprize (1997),
and the Aristeion Prize (1998).
Claus
was also a filmmaker, and from 1953 until 1955 he lived in Italy where his
lover and, later first wife, Elly Overzier acted in films. Overzier bore Claus
his first son, Thomas in 1963. In the early 1970s Claus had an affair with
Sylvia Kristel, the star of the Emanuelle erotic films; their son Arthur was
born in 1975. Claus married his second wife, Veerle De Wit, in 1993.
Often
described as a “contrarian,” Claus was a writer one might describe as both
traditional and experimental, often blending the two to produce powerful
messages that, for sympathetic readers, could not be ignored. And in that sense
Claus’s canvas was, as he describes it in his poem “A Woman: 14,” a “landscape
of anger”:
Don’t
run from me (lame humans)
Meet
me, feel me,
Crease
and break, break,
As
Belgian prime minister, Guy Verhofstadt, said of Claus, he was the
Dutch-speaking world’s “greatest writer.”
--Douglas
Messerli
Los
Angeles, April 13, 2008
Reprinted
in different form from The Guardian, Friday, May 2, 2008.
Posted
by Douglas Messerli at 8:28 AM
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