Salon 12b

Yes it happened Salon 12b: grand and in style: Enjoy the pictures and peruse the program:

Programm / Programma / Program / Programme
Pforten der Abendsonne / Poorten van de Avondzon / Doors of the Evening Sun / Portes du soleil couchant
A cooperation of Salon 12b with DOCKS Dichtkunst zur Zeit (contemporary poetry)
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I
19.00 Peter Holvoet Hanssen
The new poet laureate of Antwerp 2010-11 presents selected poems
19.20 Job Degenaar presents his new book:
Handkussen van de tijd ( Handkisses of Time )
He also reads from the trilogie Flußschiffahrt/ Inland Shipping
Antiwar poetry and Chamber thoughts (Grenzland 3) .
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II
Love in Holland and Flanders
20.00 Catharina Boer
20.20 Rose Vandewalle
Roger Nupie
20.40 Marleen De Smet
Lief Vleugels

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III
ANTI
Fred Schywek
Ode to Brel: When one has nothing
Tribute to Pete Seeger: Where have all the flowers gone/
Wo sind all die Blumen hin
Embrace of a little cloud
Annmarie Sauer
Roger Nupie
Job Degenaar
Lucienne Stassaert
Patricia Van Nunen sings Jacques Brel Les VIEUX
*
Pause
*
LATE FOG
21.20
IV
Lucienne Stassaert, Poems from: In een adem/ In einem Atemzug (WIB 2010)
Patricia Van Nunen song
Hilde Pinnoo, Poems from Avondland/ Abendland (WIB 2010)
Patricia Van Nunen song
Lief Vleugels, two cycles of poetry

Master of Ceremony: Roger Nupie

Wars

If they ask, I am against war. It is a sad night when the amount of troops will be announced to go and finish a job that cannot be finished by violence. If you are called to go and kill don't go. If a command is given, don't obey. Think for yourself. Sometimes poetry helps you do that: Heal by Fred Schywek in English translation:

what did religion give me
thou shalt not kill
what philosophy
man is measure
what do I give
myself
all freedom

what did the bird take from me
do they finally sleep in winters
on dreams
of moon
and stars
on light
and in the circle
of your senses
the birds
in the winter
do the birds
sing by you on the branch

Blogging

It has been obvious to some of you there were no new blog posts. Not for lack of subjects or inspiration. On the contrary, so many actions, subjects, writers in prison came up it stopped the flow. The fight against drones, spearheaded by one of my friends, is just one of them and the war in Afghanistan is the biggest mistake yet by the new team in the White House. Yet since I believe art can change the world and since literature is a strong instrument and since translations bridge the differences in culture and can bring understanding the content of the future blogs my change a bit. The concept isn't definite yet but crystallizing slowly. The gentle wind wins says a German proverb. Art against killing (wars and the death penalty, domestic violence...)

A poem by Fred Schywek in English translation:

Jeez us

Thou shalt not kill
Thou
Thou
Thou
Thou
Thou
Thou
Thou
Thou
Thou

East and west

Two sunsets one sunrise...

Life & Times of Michael K

Life & Times of Michael K by JM Coetzee is all about the voyage, the road, the process, never about the result. The quest is more important than the finding. And finally it is all about the stories…The point if view of the teller is the story is first the all knowing author and then the care taker of Michael K. trying to know his stories, treeing to save him and in the process being a changed human being. The book ’The Life & Times of Michael K.’ is a fundamental anti-war book. The other protagonists are Time the flow of it and Freedom. A must read.

Quotes:

* Now surely I have come as far as a man can come; surely no one will be mad enough to cross these plains, climb those mountains search these rocks to find me; surely now that in all the world only I know where I am, I can think of myself as lost. p66

* But most of all, as summer slanted to an end, he was learning to love idleness, idleness no longer as stretches of freedom reclaimed by stealth here and there from involuntary labour, surreptitious thefts to be enjoyed sitting on his heels before a flowerbed with the fork dangling from his fingers, but as yielding up of himself to time, to a time flowing slowly like oil from horizon to horizon over he face of the world, washing over his body, circulating in his armpits and his groin, stirring his eyelids.

* He is like a stone, a pebble that, having lain around quietly minding its own business since the dawn of time, is now suddenly picked up and tossed randomly from hand to hand.

* At last he spoke: I am not in the war.

The Last Post in Doel

Doel is a small village in the harbor of Antwerp that has to be flattened so that some of the 100 largest Maersk ships can dock here. How many towns have to disappear for these ships? How many people's lives are uprooted and in turmoil. The same happened in Ruigoord, near Amsterdam. At least the town is still standing and it has been turned into an art enclave, where artists work, people visit but where it is forbidden to live. The Ruigoorders have opened an embassy in Doel as a token of support. As far as I am concerned lets close the nuclear plant in Doel and let the people live in Doel. The last post at the last action.

Summerstorm

I have learned and felt today that hailstones on your head hurt. Raindrops on your nose however are gentle greetings from a faraway brook where poets are born... or so it seems after the ice.