Evening gymnastics and other mad happenings

June 23, 2015

This year’s Poetry International Festival promised to give you ‘Reasons to be cheerful’ – and we hope it did – but in the end it also gave us a lot to ponder, to admire, to critique, to want to include, to reconsider, to be proud of and to improve. It also made us want to write, whether poems, essays, Facebook posts or tweets, and we are glad it sparked many of our visitors and festival participants to write as well and to continue the conversations begun in the Rotterdam Schouwburg.

Here are excerpts from what we’ve been reading:

Popular Dutch children’s book writer Lydia Rood, who attended our opening program, ‘Reasons to be cheerful’:

Evening gymnastics

One day I was sick in bed when I heard my father stumble over. A rarity, because he avoided the children’s floor, especially since we were teenagers. The cat, who did not know better, should have straightened out his legs; I heard a meow for attention.

“Mao is dead,” snarled my father.

I chuckled under the blanket.

Such a family we were: my father did not know I was lying there sick. I did not let him know I had laughed at his joke. And that was all the attention the cat got.

My father, the self-styled poet that he was, found freedom more important than rules, and freedom of speech was vital: he rarely stopped talking . . .

I still do not dare to write poetry. I hardly dare to read it – only my father understood poetry. That he was not a world-famous poet was a fault of the universe.

So what in heaven’s name am I doing at the opening of the Poetry International Festival? I sit here just as Ma Flodder does with the National Ballet: tapping along with my feet, but not going any further . . .

What a sublime form of evening gymnastics.

Poet/translator Radu Vancu, Poetry International’s newly appointed Romania editor:

The opening reading of the Rotterdam festival was overwhelming: there [were] 19 poets from as many countries, from Russia to US and from Zimbabwe to Chile. All poems were read in [the original language] – and on a huge screen behind the poet one could read the translations in English and Dutch – and the lines were superimposed on some cute-devastating videos – so that each reading was actually a wonderful, memorable, hyperemotional videopoem.

I have been to a good number of festivals – the Rotterdam one is by far the most professional. As far as poetry can do something like that, there still is hope for this species of ours.

Michael Clay, editor of the American literary journal Mad Swirl:

A grand experience, these last three days; full expectations for more great poetry and poets to come. This is a fine gathering to be; creative synapses are being disconnected, challenged to realign in different ways. A great opportunity to hear new voices and new ideas . . . OK, this mad happening has two more days to go. We are selfishly concluding this post here so we can dive back into the rest of it, swim around in it; realize we have yet to learn to swim. Loving the pool time here . . .

A write-up about festival poet Justyna Bargielska’s reading at Leeszaal West, via poolseliteratuur.nl:

The audience showered Justyna Bargielska with questions about very specific details from her poems. A couple days earlier, translation workshops took place at Leeszaal West . . . During the workshops, participants worked on translations of ‘Do Chloris’ and ‘Projekt wymiany ramek we wszystkich obrazkach’. The ardent translators wanted to know if the voluptuous letter ‘ż’ in ‘Projekt . . .’ related to the working lawnmowers or lush lust. And here comes a surprise. The letter ‘ż’ refers to life (as in the Polish ‘życie’), and the best translation solution would be not to substitute the candy with Dutch anise candy, but with a word including the same letter ‘l’ of ‘life’.

Frisian poet Tsead Bruinja, who was a host and moderator for several of our programs:

Many people approached me afterward. One found the interview to be too little about writing, another found it too ‘cognitive’ (‘too little emotion’), and someone else found me too aggressive.

I have, in any case, enjoyed all of the presentations and interviews (including attractive tangents), however cognitive, aggressive or unliterary.

PEACE OUT!

There’s still plenty of time and opportunity to join in! All of our main readings and programs were filmed and can be viewed on-demand here.