Editorial: December 2004

January 18, 2006 {id="2450" title="Embiricos"}, our new poet from Greece this month, is mainly known as the poet who introduced surrealism in Greece in the 1930s, and as a great explorer of the subconscious in prose poems created by automatic writing. Yet he also wrote poems in free verse such as ‘Turbine Turns’ which, "although inspired by the free-flowing imagination of a surrealist mind," as our Greek editor puts it, "are direct in their clarity":

O ocean liner you sing and sail
Over the radiance of the sea with gulls
And I am in your cabin as you are in my heart.

Another poet in our December magazine that confesses to a downright obsession with the sea, shore and harbours, is {id="4039" title="Tsjêbbe Hettinga"}. Hettinga is one of three Dutch poets published this month on PIW that write in Frisian, the second language of the Netherlands, spoken by some 450.000 people. Hettinga recites his poetry by heart, like an old bard, partly because of his very poor eyesight, and partly because he believes it increases the intensity of the performance. Now all visitors of PIW can hear and see him recite ‘Strange Shores’ in our Camera Poetica film of the poet.

On black as tar steel cables all the derricks
Have hoisted up the night above sea and harbour.
The cries of the seagulls now a-slumber on
The water, have been replaced by the shrill shrieks of
Girls, who dart out to tig lads in the harbour
Laden with sea-salt and foreign tongues, the mild wind,
As dutifully as a bum-boat, sails down
Through the waterways of the port, along the quays (…)

Hettinga is generally considered to be the most important Frisian poet writing today in the Netherlands, yet a younger generation of poets is steadily gaining recognition, of which {id="4038" title="Tsead Bruinja"} and {id="3996" title="Albertina Soepboer"}, also published here this month, are some of the most interesting representatives. The following scène, from ‘Bridgemaster’ by Bruinja, is quintessentially Frisian, but with a twist:

come father strap my skates on now
I’ve almost got my boyhood wellies on
come strap my skates on now
the ice is thin like your exhausted face
you stare at me through watering eyes
rise up from that thick woollen grave
and strap on my skates
the water will see us fly above it

"Poetry is a reason some people need to go on living. The place where most people come to a halt is precisely the place from which the poet sets out from. Most people kill time; the poet creates it," writes {id="978" title="Zhai Yongming"}, our final poet for the Chinese magazine in 2004. Zhai Yongming, an introspective, self-consciously feminist poet, is heavily inspired by Sylvia Plath, and her poetry is suffused with mystery, surrealism and magic. "Zhai Yongming is," our Chinese editor writes, "primarily a poet of inner psychological darkness and the best way to read her is in utter gloom."

Finally, our new Slovenian poet {id="5041" title="Meta Kusar"} is hard to categorize. Fiercely individual, she is mostly concerned with testing the boundaries, pushing out the limits of language and experience, writes her translator Ana Jelnikar. A long essay accompanuing Kusar’s poetry, {id="5028" title="The Time of Soul is the Time of Poetry"}, sheds more light on this intriguing poet, who seems both of and not of her time:

If I yield to the crowd’s instincts,
the Host won’t crack.
Beauty will slip out of flesh.
The spirit of reality will have
a distinct smell.
This will break what is ordinary.
Decades on my lips are trying to catch dreams
which had missed their time
until finally their time came.