POETRY

REMEMBERING THE NETHERLANDS: Paradise regained, with Hendrik Marsman

Imagine being 40 years old, imagine that your country has been invaded at the beginning of World War II, imagine being on board a ship that takes you over the English Channel, in England, where you can continue to write your poems intense and full of vitality. This was the last trip of Hendrik Marsman, a Dutch poet, who drowned …

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THE HANDS OF ADRIAAN ROLAND HOLST: Where the pale sea foam, while the wind and the time they spend on your heart, above the sea horizon

Adriaan Roland Holst, a Dutch poet, was born in Amsterdam in one day in May 1888 his first volume of poems in 1911 (Verses) and the second is 1913 (The profession of silence), but it will be only after almost ten years his passion for the meek will find his precious language full of symbols, arriving in 1937 to its …

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THE RIDDLE OF PIETER NICOLAAS VAN EYCK: Living suspended between dream and reality, imagination and sensory observability

Pieter Nicolaas van Eyck, a Dutch poet, was born in Breukelen October 1st 1887 Bride in 1914 Nelly Estelle Benjamins – a woman born and raised in Suriname – and she moved to the UK in 1919, literature (especially poetry), there remains for him the existential domain, because he sees in it the power of God. far from young, Van …

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ON THE FIELD OF GRAIN HAI ZI: Come on wheat field, at noon, watching horses red and white

MOZART SAYS IN REQUIEM – by Hai Zi “Women whom I can see women in the water please pick up my bones in the wheat field bones like a bouquet of catkins and bring them home in a violin box. Women whom I can see clean women women on the river please reach into the wheat field. When I am …

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LISTENING TO MARK STRAND: In a black sea, hold things together after a party sad

BLACK SEA – by Mark Strand “One clear night while the others slept, I climbed the stairs to the roof of the house and under a sky strewn with stars I gazed at the sea, at the spread of it, the rolling crests of it raked by the wind, becoming like bits of lace tossed in the air. I stood …

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WITH HANDS OF HAI ZI: Sometimes, hands in the wheat field, make you happy

YOUR HANDS – by Hai Zi “North Drawing your hands The hand picks off a glove They’re just two small lamps.”       SOMETIMES – by Hay Zi “Sometimes I sit alone in the wheat field of May      dreaming of my brothers I see cobblestones roll over the riverbank The arc sky at dusk fills the earth with sad …

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LISTENING HAIZI: Under the tree in August, when the moon break your heart

FROM JUNE TO OCTOBER “Woman of June gathers water, gathers moonlight Woman of July sells cotton Woman under the August tree washes her ears I hear in the opposite window that the woman of September is engaged her ring like a wet chick in her pocket Woman of October blows out the candles of her wedding. Black doors fall on …

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THE CHINESE MAN LOOKING THE MOUNTAIN: Moving between the nine-headed birds and princesses, dragons and caverns impossible, holding a flask of pumpkin

There was once a king and a queen who had a beautiful daughter. One day the girl was walking in the garden when a strong storm broke out that led her away with him. The storm was caused by the bird with nine heads. The king proclaimed that whosoever brought his daughter should have her in marriage. A young farmer …

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CHINESE DEPTHS: Looking at the relationship between man and nature, pruning magnolia trees and soft watercolor painting, along with the children, waiting for the autumn

PRUNING TREES – Po Chu-I “Before my window grow trees; tall trees and dense foliage grows. Sad, alas, the distant view of the mountains: obscured, between them, can be seen just One morning I took a knife and hatchet; with my own hands cut the flourishing branches. Myriads of leaves fall around me in the head, thousands of mountains appear …

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RAINER MARIA RILKE: To be loved is to pass, but love is last

HOW COULD I: “How could I hold it in me, my soul, that your material does not touch; as you remove it over, ad infinitum? I could hide it in a remote corner in the darkness; a stranger quiet refuge, which is not followed to vibrate if it vibrates your deep. But everything that touches us, you and me, together, …

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