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On the occasion of the 41st Poetry International Festival

Interview with Hasso Krull

31 mei 2010
The theme of this year’s festival is ‘prose’. Do you feel there are (many) similarities between poetry and prose?

Poetry and prose share the same substance: language. So the similarities may appear at every possible level. Poetry might use different voices and narrative techniques, and prose might be full of images and tropes. The principal difference between poetry and prose is what might be called a “temporal attitude”. Writing a voluminous novel seems to imply that readers could possibly live several hundreds of years. Writing a short poem is like a hypothesis, that a butterfly who won’t live more than a single day could perhaps also enjoy it.


You told us your favourite novel was The Trial by Franz Kafka. Can you explain why you chose this novel?

I read The Trial when I was fourteen. It wasn’t that I had chosen it, it would be more accurate to say that it chose me. I was absorbed by that novel for about three months, and meanwhile something changed in me, as if I had been in a strange land. Afterwards it was not easy to describe that experience. I think I just happened to find the right text at the best possible time.


Do you write fictional prose as well? If so, do you often use the same themes in your prose and your poetry?

No. But if I were to, I’d try to write it in a way that wouldn’t resemble my poems too much.


Who are your favourite poets?

I don’t have just a few favorite poets. There were poets whom I read when I was fifteen, poets whom I read after that, and poets whom I read in my thirties . . . That would make quite a long list. Usually my favourite is the poet whose work is in my focus just now, whom I have just discovered.


Do you remember how ‘Righ came about?

Yes, I remember that exactly. There were turbulent emotions, a fever and something more that can perhaps only be expressed in a poem. Well, it's a documentary poem, I have not invented anything. I wouldn't even say that I created it. Perhaps it was the words, the language that wanted to become a poem. Then suddenly a poet was found, who made an effort to fulfill the task, and rushed on to other things. But the poem was born already, and left in the forest like a young hare.
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