Article
You are here / Vous êtes ici
June 19, 2013
Welcome to the main auditorium of the Rotterdam municipal theatre. Make yourselves comfortable. We’re going on a journey and we’ll be travelling by the safest and most comfortable means possible.
In 1794, Count Xavier de Maistre wrote in his famous book, A Journey Around My Room, that he couldn’t imagine anyone who would disapprove of this means of travel: sitting in a chair. I’ll venture a little further, above the door of my office at home hangs a quotation by Blaise Pascal: “All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”
You’ve probably experienced it yourself. You’re wandering around a foreign city and all of a sudden you come across a red dot on an impenetrable map followed by these three words:
This is you. This is the starting point from which you will conquer the city. A specific location allowing you to reflect further. The point of departure for the journey now in your own hands.
The first poet tonight, the Grande Dame of contemporary French poetry, Michèle Métail, was once invited to our sister festival in Berlin, where tonight, almost by accident, the festival also has its opening night. She had never been to Berlin before and wasn’t looking forward to the travelling and the foreign city. She obviated that fear with language. She described in detail her experiences during the train journey, arriving in the city, her search for the centre, right up to the reassuring red dot on a map at a metro station at the heart of the city. It gave her the sense of calm she needed to broach the city.
This evening is a red dot on the map. This is the room, here in the Rotterdam municipal theatre, we will journey around tonight. Tonight you will see and hear nineteen poets who have ignored Pascal to perform for you tonight. They will be our journey’s guides. They will take you back to the places they have come from. Their poems tonight will reveal the starting points of their various journeys which have led to you, here, in this room.
Red dots again, but with different words:
Within these starting points, the wealth and diversity of the journeys has already been fixed. It might be a block of flats in Groningen where a Chinese family has been forced by cooking smells to move to the top floor. The Tasty Chicken House at the festering corner of Boston and Queen in Toronto. The floor of an apartment where the poet is praying. The horizons of the bed on which he lies dreaming, or a book containing the poems of Joseph Brodsky. The flat, barren earth of Kingston or a bench on a square in a Syrian village where everyone has given up looking for shade.
This auditorium, therefore, is the room around which we will journey and it is the room which the poets’ own journeys have led them to. And well, given that everything is now coming together in the intimacy of one room, you won’t mind me making a personal confession. Naturally this must stay between us. It concerns my love of poetry. It concerns the reason I’m standing on this spot for the tenth time, and the reason that I will continue to do so for the coming years, come hell, high water, or political caprice.
My love of poetry stems from a constant, restless, exhilarating feeling that everything could change at any moment. Just as a chance meeting with a translation of a Portuguese poem once changed my life. The sensation that I know nothing. (To be honest, on that score, I prefer to avoid red dots on maps.) My love of poets stems from the fact that they always, wherever they find themselves, live life with all their senses primed. Everything is important. The smell inside, the noises outside, the repeats of a TV soap, the Facebook messages on the screen, the shopping list on the table, the music coming from upstairs, the lyrics of a song they’ve misunderstood, all their thoughts, memories and impressions. Ordering only comes later, on paper or on the screen.
This doesn’t always make the poet the ideal person to live with, but well, that seems to me just a small price to pay for a greater good.
I love poems because they invite the reader to do the same – let all their senses roam free, let everything in, always remain prepared to change everything. Realize that everything can be different. This command is implicit within every poem in fact: Du sollst dein leben ändern. You should change your life.
This may require some practice, and it might be the reason that some of you may have come here with some trepidation. Let me reassure you. The exercise doesn’t require elevating your intelligence to the extent that you'll suddenly gain a total understanding of everything mentioned here this week. The exercise is about lowering the barriers that hold back your senses.
You see, it’s all much simpler than you thought, this poetry stuff.
To assist you in this, we have put together an exceptional five-day programme around 19 poets from 14 countries, from all the continents, with an unprecedented variety of styles and presentation. We’ll pay extra attention this year to the wealth of classical and contemporary Chinese poetry. The poets will meet you and each other in this room, and the other rooms of this theatre, but also at various locations around the city. They will participate in numerous projects with their translators, with their Dutch and Flemish confrères, with musicians, artists, actors and directors. Encounters with all senses primed.
We are proud of our collaboration with Rotterdam Unlimited, the continuation of the Rotterdam Summer Carnival and the internationally-renowned Dunya Festival, an offshoot of the Poetry International Festival. Both are icons of a metropolis with an unparalleled treasure trove of cultures. This city is made up of hundreds of points of departure.
I’m unbelievably proud of everyone in and around Poetry International who has worked so hard to make this 44th edition a totally new experience for you. I would like to thank the Rotterdam City Council, the Dutch Foundation for Literature, our faithful funding bodies, patrons and other friends for their contributions and I’d like to thank the Rotterdam municipal theatre and Rotterdam Unlimited for their cordial support. I’d like to thank all the poets for their confidence in us and for the impact of their unbridled senses.
I declare the 44th Poetry International Festival open.
I hope it will change your life.
Bas Kwakman opens the 44th Poetry International Festival in Rotterdam with this rousing speech.
Ladies and gentlemen,Welcome to the main auditorium of the Rotterdam municipal theatre. Make yourselves comfortable. We’re going on a journey and we’ll be travelling by the safest and most comfortable means possible.
In 1794, Count Xavier de Maistre wrote in his famous book, A Journey Around My Room, that he couldn’t imagine anyone who would disapprove of this means of travel: sitting in a chair. I’ll venture a little further, above the door of my office at home hangs a quotation by Blaise Pascal: “All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”
You’ve probably experienced it yourself. You’re wandering around a foreign city and all of a sudden you come across a red dot on an impenetrable map followed by these three words:
‘You are here’. Or ‘Vous êtes ici’.
This is you. This is the starting point from which you will conquer the city. A specific location allowing you to reflect further. The point of departure for the journey now in your own hands.
The first poet tonight, the Grande Dame of contemporary French poetry, Michèle Métail, was once invited to our sister festival in Berlin, where tonight, almost by accident, the festival also has its opening night. She had never been to Berlin before and wasn’t looking forward to the travelling and the foreign city. She obviated that fear with language. She described in detail her experiences during the train journey, arriving in the city, her search for the centre, right up to the reassuring red dot on a map at a metro station at the heart of the city. It gave her the sense of calm she needed to broach the city.
This evening is a red dot on the map. This is the room, here in the Rotterdam municipal theatre, we will journey around tonight. Tonight you will see and hear nineteen poets who have ignored Pascal to perform for you tonight. They will be our journey’s guides. They will take you back to the places they have come from. Their poems tonight will reveal the starting points of their various journeys which have led to you, here, in this room.
Red dots again, but with different words:
‘From here’. Or ‘Vanaf hier. Or ‘à partir d’ici’.
Within these starting points, the wealth and diversity of the journeys has already been fixed. It might be a block of flats in Groningen where a Chinese family has been forced by cooking smells to move to the top floor. The Tasty Chicken House at the festering corner of Boston and Queen in Toronto. The floor of an apartment where the poet is praying. The horizons of the bed on which he lies dreaming, or a book containing the poems of Joseph Brodsky. The flat, barren earth of Kingston or a bench on a square in a Syrian village where everyone has given up looking for shade.
This auditorium, therefore, is the room around which we will journey and it is the room which the poets’ own journeys have led them to. And well, given that everything is now coming together in the intimacy of one room, you won’t mind me making a personal confession. Naturally this must stay between us. It concerns my love of poetry. It concerns the reason I’m standing on this spot for the tenth time, and the reason that I will continue to do so for the coming years, come hell, high water, or political caprice.
My love of poetry stems from a constant, restless, exhilarating feeling that everything could change at any moment. Just as a chance meeting with a translation of a Portuguese poem once changed my life. The sensation that I know nothing. (To be honest, on that score, I prefer to avoid red dots on maps.) My love of poets stems from the fact that they always, wherever they find themselves, live life with all their senses primed. Everything is important. The smell inside, the noises outside, the repeats of a TV soap, the Facebook messages on the screen, the shopping list on the table, the music coming from upstairs, the lyrics of a song they’ve misunderstood, all their thoughts, memories and impressions. Ordering only comes later, on paper or on the screen.
This doesn’t always make the poet the ideal person to live with, but well, that seems to me just a small price to pay for a greater good.
I love poems because they invite the reader to do the same – let all their senses roam free, let everything in, always remain prepared to change everything. Realize that everything can be different. This command is implicit within every poem in fact: Du sollst dein leben ändern. You should change your life.
This may require some practice, and it might be the reason that some of you may have come here with some trepidation. Let me reassure you. The exercise doesn’t require elevating your intelligence to the extent that you'll suddenly gain a total understanding of everything mentioned here this week. The exercise is about lowering the barriers that hold back your senses.
You see, it’s all much simpler than you thought, this poetry stuff.
To assist you in this, we have put together an exceptional five-day programme around 19 poets from 14 countries, from all the continents, with an unprecedented variety of styles and presentation. We’ll pay extra attention this year to the wealth of classical and contemporary Chinese poetry. The poets will meet you and each other in this room, and the other rooms of this theatre, but also at various locations around the city. They will participate in numerous projects with their translators, with their Dutch and Flemish confrères, with musicians, artists, actors and directors. Encounters with all senses primed.
We are proud of our collaboration with Rotterdam Unlimited, the continuation of the Rotterdam Summer Carnival and the internationally-renowned Dunya Festival, an offshoot of the Poetry International Festival. Both are icons of a metropolis with an unparalleled treasure trove of cultures. This city is made up of hundreds of points of departure.
I’m unbelievably proud of everyone in and around Poetry International who has worked so hard to make this 44th edition a totally new experience for you. I would like to thank the Rotterdam City Council, the Dutch Foundation for Literature, our faithful funding bodies, patrons and other friends for their contributions and I’d like to thank the Rotterdam municipal theatre and Rotterdam Unlimited for their cordial support. I’d like to thank all the poets for their confidence in us and for the impact of their unbridled senses.
I declare the 44th Poetry International Festival open.
I hope it will change your life.
© Bas Kwakman
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