Anne Feddema was RIXT-poet of the month September 2019. You can read his original Frisian poems of that month here. One of them – Papel Solo – is published here in translation.
Papel Solo
I’d already seen them for many a day
The crowd of profitess sisters
At the Sevillian cathedral
Swarming Sybils
Money is their language
Almost fighting
For the favour
Of the future tourists
They don’t have no
Red headscarves
Large earrings
No balls of crystal
They’re wearing Kappa clothing
Cervesacynic within me says:
Is there any honour in this work?
Today the last day
In the city of Carmen
And Don Juan
So… sigh…
Let’s get it over with
What will the future hold for me?
I give her my hand
And clichés start tumbling out
I’ll grow old, be happy
And rich, of course
I hear the chatter
Already pass me by
Now it’s my time to read her hand
I give her two euros
However, she says:
‘ Papel solo ‘
Money is what she wants
But only made of paper
I walk away abruptly
And point at my buttocks
Almost sing
Papel solo
Papel solo
To wipe myself
Sytse Jansma was RIXT-poet of the month August 2019. You can read his original Frisian poems of that month here. One of them – Hiroshima – is published here in translation.
Hiroshima, 6th of August 1945
this poem is an indictment against nuclear weapons
now that I know how narrow pilots, people, countries
that they actually opened the hatch, a ‘little boy’
above playing school children
a dad cycling to work, a waiting mum
on the steps of the main station
that it can be turned so easily
in mere seconds
people, talking with each other,
looking into each other’s eyes full of life,
just saying what they wanted to
say at that moment
into sizzling heaps of flesh
a person, that you’re there,
and then suddenly you’re not
after which, like a delirium,
everything comes down as black hellish rain
on top of the made redundant;
the cups on the table, the toys
in the garden, the clothes
in the closet
and that underneath the rubble
of what used to be a home,
only crushed bones remain
white powder that flies up
at the softest of breezes
Job Degenaar was RIXT-poet of the month July 2019. You can read his original Dutch poems of that month here. One of them – Girl on her way to the textile mill – is published here in translation.
Foto: Bangladesh Labour Foundation (BLF)
Girl on her way to the textile mill
Some kids never get to be kids
a fact we seemingly concede
for centuries they’ve been used
abused like animals
The world doesn’t stop
when in the early morning
a small girl walks to the factory
to spin the web of her miserly life
unable to extricate herself from it
in vibrant colours
while we on the sunny side of the earth
blindly turn our backs
Yva Hokwerda is RIXT-poet of the month June 2019.
You can read her original Frisian poems of that month here. One of them – Transcycling – is published here in translation.
Transcycling
Whoever sees me cycling
– winding around Sneek the meadows
and the low-lying hay fields in-between,
everywhere
reading the landscape, shouting “bloody cat!”
at the furtive prowling monsters
which cat ladies
love so dearly, petting them in the evening
after which those pesky pookies
go trawling for chicks in the night –
should know: I don’t cry about that.
Whoever hears me cycling
should know: that’s not me.
On that bike
my handlebars are a silent mouse, my saddle
the chair in front of my desk in the office
unable to make any difference, because
nobody dares to sing,
laughter is stifled,
chitchat becomes muted and
words grey like mice-
On that bike
my distress doesn’t hear birds anymore
as ears ring from the silence
of concrete in carefully filled up
pots and pans, too heavy
from the sewn-on ears
to grasp the enclosed contents.
Whoever sees her cycling
behind my sunglasses
– that I’ve already put on at first rays
against flies, of course –
out of a crooked eight,
along an old field filled with new houses
– pretty detached
in rows and a boat
in the canal in front of the house –
should know: I’m not there.
This is my saddle,
but I still have to get home
– you can’t lie down comfortably on only
one herb-filled bank, lounging in the countryside –
and I haven’t found them yet,
the true stewards, the wise women
the people who really know
what has to be done.
Whoever hears me cycling,
may know, it’s not me
because I’m crying
about the playful hares in the land
Simon Oosting was RIXT-poet of the month May 2019.
You can read his original Frisian poems of that month here.
One of them – concerning canaries – is published here in translation.
Suckers and stooges
He’s aware of the pattern this leader of the people
as he says what civilisation restrains us from saying
with allusions opening up rusty doors to deep crevasses.
He knows that his people meekly speak of yeah yeah yeah
and thinks he says what they like to hear
and that the others will be surprised and furious and outraged
and will deliberate everywhere and for hours on end.
So, he can say that he hasn’t got the freedom to say
that people can’t hear nor read
that they’re words without context
that he hadn’t known.
Yeah yeah yeah people will nod accordingly.
And the others like suckers and stooges
scattered the seed of the weeds over the land.
Better to grow some strong crops
so that weeds don’t have room to grow
and let that leader sink back into the shadows.
Hy wit fan it patroan dizze lieder fan it folk
as er seit wat beskaving ús hjit net te sizzen
mei allúzjes dy’t rustke doarren nei djippe spelonken iepenje.
Dan wit er dat syn folk deemoedich praat fan ja ja ja
en tinkt dat er seit wat se hearre wolle
en dat de oaren ferbjustere en dûm en lilk
wêze sille en oeral en oerenlang petearje.
Dat er dan sizze kin dat er gjin frijheid hat om te sizzen
dat men net harkje en lêze kin
dat it wurden binne sûnder ramt
dat er der net fan witten hat.
Ja ja ja sil men dan wer knikke.
En de oaren as sûgen en oksen
brochten it sied fan it túch oer it lân.
Better bouwe se in sterk gewaaks
dat túch gjin romte jout
en swije se dy lieder yn ‘e lijte.
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
Piter Yedema († 2018) was RIXT-poet of the month April 2018.
You can read his original Frisian poem of that month here.
It is called ‘Land of birds ‘ and is published here in translation.
Piter Yedema performing
Land of birds
Most cruel of months is April
A lapwing turns mid-air
far sounds his tweet thin and shrill
Memories and desire are freed
from dead ground a winter long
The poverty of today soon gone
Then resounding loudly her bird song
New life gets the place all to itself
and happily they lived long after
Edwin de Groot was RIXT-poet of the month March 2019. You can read his original Frisian poems of that month here. One of them – On the poles it is cold (still) – is published here in translation.
On the poles it is cold (still)
In the villages in the early hours of the morning
colourful cockrels and everwhere the blossom of the elderberry
beautiful bright white butterflies flew around and every now and then one that ’s black
who wasn’t destined to grow old, catching the eyes of the birds
until the villages ended up in soot and the whites being preyed upon
meanwhile the black ones greedy guzzling their colour from the chimeys
that also ended and it showed: safekeeping
is a cautious coat in the colour of pepper and salt
Janneke Spoelstra was RIXT-poet of the month February 2019.
You can read her original Frisian poems of that month here.
One of them – Fantastic Plastic – is published here.
Fantastic Plastic
I learned the power of plastic at a young age:
I was once with my mum
visiting nan and gramps for tea
and my nan gave us tea and biscuit.
It was a lovely get-together, until
gramps tried to crumple up
the plastic cookie container
now standing empty on the table.
His old worker’s hands could only
compress it a little, but as soon as he let go
it would spring back, with only minor
creases, into its original form
on the plush table cloth.
Gramps glared at it in disgust
and tried anew. Again, his wrinkly hands
got a hold of the glossy container.
He squeezed and squeezed, red-blue veins
popped up from the effort. Mum and nan
and I held our breath. Until finally
my mum said: ‘That doesn’t seem to work.’
The way gramps looked at her…
and even though it was only about 1970
and gramps liked his daughter in law,
everything was already, as I think about it now,
contained in this episode: our struggle
with the plastic soup in the oceans, the project
of Boyan Slat, MSC Zoe’s containers
in our seas, the poems on www.rixt.frl
and even the themed edition of Iepen Up,
like Obe Postma said: ‘everything lies in everything’
… but my mum was right. Letting go of the
container it stayed the same. Unflinchingly,
it gloated at us from the table.
‘I’m Fantastic Plastic,’ it shouted,
‘and indestructible!’
De krêft fan plestik learde ik al jong kennen:
sa wie ik in kear mei ús mem
by pake en beppe te teedrinken
en beppe joech ús in koekje by de tee.
It wie gesellich sa mei-inoar, oant
pake it plestik bakje, dêr’t de koekjes
út kamen, en dat leech op ’e tafel
stie, byinoar frommelje woe.
Syn âlde wrottershannen krigen it bakje
wol wat yninoar, mar sagau’t se los lieten,
sprong it, mei heechút wat falske tearen,
wer yn ’e oarspronklike foarm
op it plusen taffelskleed werom.
Pake seach der mispriizgjend nei
en besocht it op ’e nij. Wer griepen
de ronfelige hannen nei it glinsterjende bakje.
Hy kniep en kniep, de readblauwige ieren
op ’e hannen setten derfan op. Beppe en mem
en ik holden de siken yn. Oant op ’t lêst
ús mem sei: ‘No, dat slagget echt net, hear.’
Hoe’t pake doe nei har seach…
en hoewol’t it noch mar om ende by 1970
wie en pake goed mei syn skoandochter koe,
it lei, as ik der no oan weromtink,
der allegear al yn besletten: ús wrakseljen mei
plastic soup/sop yn ’e oseänen, it wurkstik
fan Boyan Slat, MSC Zoe har konteners yn
ús seeën, de fersen op www.rixt.frl
en sels de tema-edysje fan Iepen Up,
sa’t Obe Postma al sei: ‘alles is yn alles’
… mar ús mem hie gelyk. Loslitten wie it bakje
noch hieltyd in bakje. It gniisde ús fan
de tafel ûnferwoestber oan.
‘Ik bin Fantastic Plastic,’ rôp it,
‘en net stikken te krijen!’
Hein Jaap Hilarides was RIXT-poet of the month January 2019. You can read his poems of that month, written in the Bildts language, here. One of them – I sing against the relevance– is published here in translation.
I sing against the relevance
I sing against the relevance,
not the existence of last year.
No, I sing for the idea that
you should always grill someone
to stick to his imagination, fabricator
of a world of words that we inhabit.
Imagination makes a world of words liveable,
meaning to a condemned house.
I look at the poet.
The poet smells me, knows where I stand.
Will he find me? Good?
I smell his weak, sweet garlic smell.
I lose my smell,
my pages come loose.
The poet sees me. Doesn’t he?
He approaches me, feels me and whispers:
The preserving jar says the water isn’t okay.
The water blames the glass’s transparency.
