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
‘In 2018, Leeuwarden and Valletta (the capital city of Malta) were the European City of Culture. Leeuwarden and the Bildt region have had ties with Malta since as far back as around 1850. Every year, the first potatoes are shipped from the Bildt to Malta around the end of September and the new potatoes – grown from the seedlings – find their way back the same way the following March. Malta and Friesland are also officially dual language and have a wealth of modern and classic poetry, all of which has resulted in a literary poetry project: an exchange of Frisian and Maltese poems.’ (http://www.bildtseaardappelweken.nl/english)
During a period of four years, poems were shipped with potato bags from Friesland to Malta, and vice versa. Finally the poems written for the project were included in a quadrilingual publication of poems from Friesland and Malta (Frisian, Maltese, Dutch, and English): Poetic potatoes. Poetry in potato bags (2018). Frisian and Maltese poets had exchange meetings in Friesland and Malta, and performed together at different occasions. Several RIXT-poets contributed to the project.
Read here the potato poem written by Yva Hokwerda.
Poetic Potatoes project was part of the Bildt Potato Weeks 2018, which was included in the Leeuwarden/Fryslân European City of Culture 2018 programme under the name ‘Potatoes go Wild’. The idea behind the programme was, that the city meets the countryside and the countryside goes to the city.
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.
Tabula Rasa (‘Skjin Laai’ in Frisian) was an exhibition in the Cultural Capital year 2018. It was organized by Tresoar, the center of Frisian history and literature, together with art galery Schoots en Van Duyse (Antwerp). In the old mayor’s house of the Frisian village Beetstersweach, visual artists and poets imagined and expressed the theme of creative emptiness.
Almost twenty RIXT poets participated in the project. Art objects and poems were exhibited together and in close connection, which lead in some cases to surprising relations.
In the catalogue of the exhibition, all the poems were included tri-lingual: Frisian, English, and Dutch.
The participating artists/poets were: Armando, Willem Abma, Harmen Abma, Pieteke de Boer, Bernard Aubertin, Edwin de Groot, Sies Bleeker, Tsjisse Hettema, Bram Bogart, Eeltsje Hettinga, Marije Bouman, Hein Jaap Hilarides, Jan Henderikse, Simen de Jong, Maaike Hogerhuis, Jan Kleefstra, Elmar Kuiper, Anke Kuypers, Rein de Lange, Jan Maaskant, Bartle Laverman, André Looijenga, Albert Oost, Zoltin Peeter, Aggie van der Meer, Grytsje Schaaf, Henk Nijp, Baukje Scheppink, Marije Roorda, Jan Schoonhoven, Geart Tigchelaar, Kaneli & Smit, Jetze de Vries, Syds Wiersma.
Grytsje Schaaf, Hein Jaap Hilarides, and Syds Wiersma
The exhibition took place from October 14 – December 16, 2018.
You can read here the poem written by Marije Roorda. It was inspired by Mark Rothko’s work.
Nothing bound
It takes more than emptying out
this room, painting the walls white
and binding the empty room to secrecy
to bring emptiness home to me.
Only then do I stray towards
a deeper nothing where deafness
settles in a word and an image
becomes intoxicated as I stare
at the black of Rothko,
walk anxiously into a field of darkness
which speechlessly
unfolds the inscrutable.
Nei it neat
It freget mear as dizze keamer
leech te heljen, muorren te wytsjen
en lis de keale romte in swijplicht op
sadat in leechte yn my trochkringt.
Earst dan dwaal ik ôf nei
in djipper neat dêr’t dôvens
delstrykt yn in wurd en rekket
in byld bedwelme as ik nei
it swart fan Rothko stoarje,
mei huver syn donker fjild ynrin
dat sprakeleas
it ûnbestimde iepenteart.
Edwin de Groot, André Looijenga
