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.
Henk Nijp was RIXT-poet of the month December 2019. You can read the original Frisian poems of that month here. One of them – It doesn’t matter – is published here in translation.
Henk Nijp, ‘As time goes by/De tiid fljocht’, 2017
it doesn’t matter
it doesn’t matter if I shut my eyes
or dig tunnels like a mole,
cultivated mounds with guards every few feet
it’s all the same if I take you with me
along the tow-path to where your vision sets
and to disappear in the scars of the night
it makes no difference if I skip town,
think about what I could have said better
or hide away behind gilded words
it’s no use to scamper behind the fair weather
of prints with serrated edges in mouldy albums
and sing the same old song anew
it is meaningless and search for days past,
collect wearied dreams in the fields of the night
or imagine how it could have been
we cannot turn back the ticking, nor the erosion of time
walk shakily along a tightrope,
can only go forward
Cornelis van der Wal was RIXT-poet of the month November 2018
You can read his original Frisian poems of that month here.
One of them – hout en snie / wood and snow – is published here in translation.
Snow crystals. Photo: Wilson Bentley (1902)
Wood and Snow
To write in Frisian is like the autumn,
the hair of dozing teachers tumbles
over pages of grey paper, the wooden pen
moulders slowly. So, that’s nature.
To write in Frisian is like kicking the bucket.
Poet runs like a white rat in winter’s wheel
and cannot escape. He’s writing with snow.
The literary Spring isn’t coming, the weatherman reports.
Eppie Dam was RIXT-poet of the month October 2018.
You can read his original Frisian poems of that month here.
An English translation of one of these poems will be available soon.
Tsjisse Hettema was RIXT-poet of the month September 2018.
You can read his original Frisian poems of that month here.
One of them – Storm Rider – is published here in translation.
Storm Rider
the exotic makes room within me
drives my reluctance off to the outer ring
where embellishments lie in wait to pounce
within me
my square habits slide roughly over each other
up to the colours
on the eight interfaces of every change of mood
out of my mouth sticks the inner button
like a grey susceptibility outside
