Koenraad Kuiper
Doctor poet Frank Koenegracht is, as it says in his publicity, ‘one of the best, albeit not yet best-known, poets of the Dutch language area.’ For a day job he has been a psychiatrist specialising in sleep disorders.
He was born in Rotterdam in 1945 and has published ten volumes of poetry all with De Bezige Bei (The Busy Bee). He has received two prizes for his work: in 1990 the Anna Blaman Prize an in 2001 the Frans Erens Prize for his collective work.
His poetry often employs a vernacular style and picks up pop music allusions, has flashes of humour but is seriously involved with the human condition.
I did not find Koenegracht. He found me in the form of a volume of his collected poems given me by a Dutch colleague. I was tempted, although not a translator, to translate them from the first reading and have re-read the volume many times. Each time the poems yield more.
I approached Frank some years ago to gain permission to publish some translations. I think he was concerned at what is lost when one translates poetry, and to be sure there are losses. My aim for a translation is to create a new poem in which—as far as possible—the losses are offset by gains, and to give as much of the original as possible.
I met Frank Koenegracht some years ago at the home of Rudi Kousbroek and Sarah Hart. Sarah Hart is an Irish novelist and friend of Frank’s, and she acted as go-between. She had translated some of Koenegracht’s work for the Rotterdam Poetry International festival at which Koenegracht had been featured.
A set of Selected Poems translated by Sarah Hart and me have now been published by Cold Hub Press.
We three met again recently to try and get a bigger selection of Frank’s work in translation published.
ANATOMIE voor prof. landsmeer en cadaver no.271
Zo is op de tafel gezonken
de oude bark van ribben.
In de verte schommelt lastig een plas.
Waar lopen je benen waar zwaaien
je armen waar praat je hoofd?
Vliezenkast
waar is je hart?
Het huis van slappe sluizen
is dood. Wie lijkt nog ergens op
na 10 anatomen (een bark een huis).
Aan wat nu over is
zit een roer een groen geslacht
5 jaar formaline is geen pretje.
ANATOMY for prof. landsmeer and cadaver no.271
So on the table has sunk
the old barque of ribs.
In the distance a difficult puddle sways.
Where are your legs walking where are
your arms swinging where is your head talking?
Membranechest
where is your heart?
The house of slack locks
is dead. Who still looks like anything
after 10 dissections (a barque a house).
Of what now remains
a green dick sits like a rudder
5 years of formalin is no joke.
2 SECTIES
s./644
En als je stil bent
vertel ik je hier
van baronesse M. of N.
die ik ontmoette op
de snijtafels en dus
dood maar die sprak
met haar kleine lichaam
van dat het nooit
getrouwd was maar wel
jaren bij een psychiater
was geweest voor
psychogeen braken dwz.
dat ze kotste op de wereld
of zichzelf maar ze had
evengoed mooi
slokdarmkanker. En waarom
zou ze trouwens spugen op het
bestaan. Ze was een klein
vogeltje en een tuinhuis
van haar slot
theedrinkend met iemand
die ze kende
En nu ontmoette ik haar
witte lijfje
alsof het te lang
op de maan gelegen had
waarschijnlijk dromend van
de liefde want ze had
een kippenborst
s./648
Lieve mevrouw, dit is
de dood niet deze ongeschoren
ploeteraar met beitels, zijn
bril tussen zijn tanden van
inspanning, kankerend op uw
wervelkolom, deze vieze en
verveelde lezer van ingewanden.
De dood
is een wit onzinkbaar schip
dat luistert naar muziek.
2 DISSECTIONS
s./644
And if you are quiet
I will tell you here
about baroness M. or N.
whom I met on
the dissection tables and thus
dead but who spoke
with her small body
of how it had never been
married yet had spent
years with a psychiatrist
for psychologically induced vomiting
that is to say
that she puked on the world
or herself but she had
at the same time
splendid
oesophageal cancer. And why should she
in any case vomit on
existence. She was a little
bird in the summer house
of her castle
drinking tea
with someone
whom she knew
And now I met her
small white body
as if it had lain
too long on the moon
probably dreaming of
love because she was
pigeon chested.
s./648
Dear Madam, this is
not death this unshaven
labourer with chisels, his
spectacles between his teeth with
exertion, grizzling about your
spinal column, this dirty and
bored reader of intestines.
Death
is a white unsinkable ship
which listens to music.
Listen to Koenraad Kuiper read these poems.
Koenraad Kuiper was exported from the Netherlands when he was seven. His family came from Rotterdam. He is Professor Emeritus at the University of Canterbury and currently Adjunct Professor at the University of Sydney. He has published three monographs in linguistics, four textbooks, numerous book chapters and journal articles, and edited two scholarly journals. Alongside the day job he has published four books of poetry at ten year intervals. He has also played second baritone (poorly) in the Sumner Silver Band for some years.
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