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Ljouwert/Leeuwarden designated City of Literature

Photo: Geart Tigchelaar

At the end of October Ljouwert/Leeuwarden, the Frisian capital and European Capital of Culture in 2018, was designated City of Literature by UNESCO. Leeuwarden is the second Dutch city, after Utrecht, that joins the group of worldwide Cities of Literature.

The project of Cities of Literature started in 2004, with Edinburgh being the first City of Literature. Since then the network has grown, in collaboration with the larger UNESCO Creative Cities Network, to include around 30 cities. Other cities in the network are Ljubljana, Prague, and Melbourne, amongst others.

The UNESCO jury had the following to say about the bid book of Leeuwarden: “The bid-book gave a glimpse of great ambitions. Creative and substantively strong.”

With access to the network, it is hoped that the Frisian literary network can be expanded. That Leeuwarden has been named is a reward of the ambitions of both Leeuwarden and Friesland to keep literature and culture high up on the list of priorities for the city.

Talented Frisian writers and artists will be challenged to contribute to literary projects in Leeuwarden. With the Frisian language, being the second official language in the Netherlands, and the multilingual atmosphere in Leeuwarden, the city together with the province of Friesland will mobilise its literary and artistic heritage and potential, and showcase them in innovative ways on the local, regional and international level.

RIXT is very pleased that Leeuwarden has received this title, since our poets pack wants to reach beyond the Frisian borders and intends to invite poets from other regions and countries to stay here for a while and cooperate with Frisian poets.

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All the same

At the poetry festival Transpoesie in Brussels, in September 2019, Elmar Kuiper was this year’s Frisian poet who was invited to read from his work. During his stay he wrote a prose poem about one of his nightly walks through the city.

Photo: Elmar Kuiper


All the same

At the end of a literary evening in Brussels, I drank a Kaapse Pracht with a South African, whom I, miraculously, was able to understand. “A Frisian has a cruel tongue” I proclaimed and ducked out, staggered across a broken-up street and heard a load of sharp s’s and the hard g of an Arab shouting at me even at this late hour. I looked nervously around me and hurriedly crossed the intersection. Near the Holiday Inn our eyes met each other. She sat bolt upright, on a piece of bubble wrap, in the doorway of a restaurant and had wavy hair and dirty cheeks. Wrapped up in a drab blanket she looked me up and down. The white of her eyes became a puddle in which I almost drowned. “Help me, sir,” she whispered, soft as a summer rain, and I reached, generously minded, into my pocket and folded my wallet open, yet not even a penny rolled out of it. “These are hard times for poets as well,” I snapped, as if it was nothing, but she didn’t say anything and just shook her head.

© Elmar Kuiper
Translation: Trevor M. Scarse
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Oyster

Next Sunday there is a presentation of Unlân, the debut collection of poetry by Gerrit de Vries.  ‘Oyster’, the poem below, is a pre-publication. More information about the presentation, you find here

oyster

in the end there is only one question
can you live with yourself or not

like an oyster
naked on a tray
I lie before you
you may
cut the pearls
out of my body
but please
no lemon
no salt

Translation: Trevor M. Scarse

 

oester

úteinlik is der mar ien fraach
ast mei dysels wol libje kinst

as in oester
neaken op in skaaltsje
lis ik hjir foar dy
meist my
de pearels wol
út de bealch snije
mar asjeblyft
gjin sitroen
gjin sâlt

© Gerrit de Vries
Ûnlân (Hispel, 2019)
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Oan the wey tae

In April 2019, Geart Tigchelaar travelled on his bike to the Soutar Festival of Words in Perth, Scotland. William Soutar, to whom the festival is dedicated, was a poet who published in English and Scottish. He was born in 1898 and died in 1943. From his twenties, Soutar was bedridden because of the Bechterew disease. On the occasion of his bike trip and as a tribute to Soutar’s life and poetry, Tigchelaar wrote a poem. His Scottish colleague Daibhidh Eyre, together with whom Tigchelaar had a performance at the festival, translated the poem into Scottish.

oan the wey tae

the farrest ye’ll gae in fellaship
o yirsel
wi the true boun mates
hings to hink oan an fantasy
aw the days oot the door
oan the soonds trouch the apen windae
wi weel-kent reek
aa afore tae be lived the day
A cycle by him anew
oan a bed in a chamber
fir richt reason o thoan greater
makar
nor A fir whom the warld
lies apen
tire-baunds straik flochty
ower unkent pads
as the dingit pen
ower unscreivit
fell o paper

Translation: Daibhidh Eyre

op wei nei

it fierst giet men yn selskip
fan jinsels
mei de trouwe bûnsmaten
oantinkens en fantasije
alle dagen de doar út
op ‘e lûden troch iepen finster
mei bekende rook
fan alear is de belibbing
op ‘e nij fyts ik oan him foarby
op in bêd yn in keamer
krekt om dy reden grutter
dichter
as ik foar wa’t de wrâld
iepen leit
bannen streekje flugger
oer ûnbekende paden
as de pinne omdoch
oer ûnbeskreaun
fel papier

 © Geart Tigchelaar

 

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Geart Tigchelaar at the Soutar Festival of Words in Perth

Poet Geart Tigchelaar has performed at the international poetry festival StAnza in St. Andrews, Scotland, last year. There he met the Scottish poet David Eyre, who was intrigued by the similarities between Frisian and Scots. As a result, he has started with the translation of Tigchelaar’s work. Eyre was asked to talk at the Soutar Festival of Words about the relationship between Scots and Frisian with the poetry of Tigchelaar as an example. The festival organisation invited Tigchelaar to Perth to accompany and strengthen this presentation. A talk about multilingual poetry suited the festival, as William Soutar, whom the festival is named after, wrote in both Scots and English.

On the 28th of April, the room was not crowded, but the people who did attend were greatly interested. That Sunday afternoon it became much more a conversation with the audience than a poetry recital with a talk afterwards. The audience was not only interested in both Scots and Frisian, but also in the distinct similarities between the two languages (see the poem below). Scots is often seen as poorly pronounced English, but Eyre made clear that this is far from true. His aim is to point towards the relationship with Frisian and transfer that Scots is just a variant of the broad Germanic language family. Frisian is regularly described as melodic, also by people who do not know the language. This afternoon in Perth it was noted that both languages share this melodious ring to it.

Eyre plans to continue translating Tigchelaar’s collection of poetry leech hert yn nij jek and hopes to find a publisher in due time.

The poem below is first written in Scots by David Eyre at the StAnza Festival and then translated with the support of Tigchelaar.


Mammietung

For how sad Ah no daur it?
Ah hae a mammietung
an that tung has a freen.
Lee me gang ther, tae her feastmeal
fu wurdies waarm an licht,
an lee me eat ma full.
Ma tung isna sweir
nae band oer ma mou –
her wurdies smak sae guid tae me.
Saut fae ilka sea has worth.

 

Memmetaal

Wêrom soe ik it net doare?
Ik ha in memmetaal
en dy taal hat in freon.
Lit my gean dêre, oan har feestmiel
fan wurden waarm en licht,
en lit my my fol ite.
Myn tonge is net swier
gjin bân oer myn mûle –
har wurden smeitsje my goed.
Sâlt fan elke see hat wearde.

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Elmar Kuiper selected for Transpoesie in Bruxelles

A jury of the Frisian Writers Association has chosen RIXT-poet Elmar Kuiper to represent the Frisian language at the ninth edition of Transpoesie, an European poetry festival in Bruxelles. Kuiper will perform on September 16, at the Day of the Languages, one of the events organized by the festival in the period September-October. The annual festival is organized by the EUNIC, the network of European Union National Institutes for Culture.

Elmar Kuiper was selected by the Frisian jury because of his poem Myn lân (‘My land’). Last year Janneke Spoelstra, also connected to RIXT, was the first poet to represent Friesland in Bruxelles.

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Gerrit de Vries – April 2019

Gerrit de Vries was RIXT-poet of the month April 2019.
You can read his original Frisian poems of that month here.
One of them – concerning canaries – is published here in translation.

concerning canaries

back then in the coalmine
a cage was hung in the gallery
behind bars sat a canary

carbon monoxide
lack of oxygen
mine gas was a hazard

the miners knew
when the whistling ceased
they could no longer be at ease

grandma had two canaries
Tom and Joy
until one day her tomcat
she fed Tom bird seed

rejoicing he sat sated
on his bar
when both were old
he just fell off

a godwit thrashes
his pecker to bits
looking for food
that no longer is

on the withered green
monotonous wasteland
a fleeing chick is running
out of breath

just pretend
all is fine
a meadow is no coalmine
a godwit ’s no canary

© Gerrit de Vries
Translation: Trevor Scarse

Oer kanarjes

eartiids yn de koalemyn
hong in koaike yn de galerij
siet efter traaljes in kanarje

koalmonokside
tekoart oan soerstof
myngas wie in gefaar

de mynwurkers wisten
as it fluitsjen ophold
dat der wat net doogde

beppe hie twa kanarjes
Piet en Jubel
oant op in dei de boarre
hja fuorre Piet sjongsied

sêd siet er te jubeljen
op syn stôk
doe’t beide âld wienen
foel er dêr ôf

in skries huft him
de snaffel stikken
siket nei iten
dat der net langer is

op de útdrûge grien
monotoane hûngerpôle
draaft in pyk op ‘e flecht
him út de liken

doch mar krekt
as is alles yn oarder
in greide is gjin koalemyn
in skries is gjin kanarje

© Gerrit de Vries