What a wonderful poet is Judith Herzberg. On the recommendation of my friend Cath I read Herzberg’s But What: Selected Poems. The poems are selected from five of her published collections with an additional section of five new poems. This book of selected was published in 1988 with early versions of some of the poems appearing in magazines and books as far back as 1980. All of the poems are translated from Dutch by the same person though, Shirley Kaufman.
The collection provides selections from Herzberg’s first book of poetry, Zeepost, published in 1963, to Dagrest, published in 1984. During that time period Herzberg published seven books of poetry so two of them are not represented in this collection. Still, it manages to provide a nice line of development through time. However, since Herzberg is still living, you could say it covers only her early work.
The poems tend to be one page, two pages at the most. Her style is short, crisp, she has an edge as opposed to being gentle and musical as some poets are. She writes of every day things. Her tone is often melancholy, musing on life, death, place. Her poems don’t flow over you as you read, they stick to you and ask you to stop and consider for a while.
Herzberg writes things like,
We live off the intentions of our intentions.
’We Live’
And
To know there are rhododendrons on
the slopes of the Himalayas
is not enough.
’Nearer’
And
We are tomato flowers
in our buttonholes and will never grow up to be
tomatoes.
’Late’
Herzberg doesn’t do humor so when it shows up in ‘How Far’ it took me by surprise:
He always used to look out through the OO’s
of his DOOR, but now there are glasses in front
of his eyes that enlarge the business.
Except I should have known that this was a ruse, that this man with “eye-hunger” was not going to remain funny.
One of my favorite poems in the book, “Shoes,” comes late and is this short little gem:
Every morning, between putting on
his right and his left shoe,
his whole life quuickly passes by.
Sometimes he almost doesn’t
get around to the left one.
These are poems not to be rushed through. They are not terribly difficult but they do agitate the brain. Sadly, not much of Herzberg’s poetry has been translated into English. Even if you are not a big poetry reader, you are sure to find something to like in this selected collection.
Those excerpts do “agitate the brain” a bit!
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Jeanne, I hope they agitate in a good way 🙂
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I like how you say “Her poems don’t flow over you as you read, they stick to you and ask you to stop and consider for a while.” That sounds like they are thought-provoking in short bursts. If the quotes you gave are anything to go why, she would be a poet who does ask you to stop and consider. I like that in my poetry, so I will be looking out for her now. Funny, her name is familiar to me too, though I know I haven’t got anything by her here. Thanks for the recommendation, Stefanie!
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Translated poetry is always going to be a bit of a problem but these seem to survive the process. I do think it is worthwhile to translate poetry otherwise whole worlds would simply pass the Anglophone zone by!
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Ian, translating prose is hard, I can only imagine the amplification of difficulty that comes with translating poetry. But I too think it worthwhile. There are a number of poets I love who I would not be able to read if they had never been translated.
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Susan, I’m glad you liked that! Thought-provoking in short bursts is a good way to describe them. It took me quite awhile to get through the book precisely because it is not easy to leap from one poem to the next. Her name does have a familiarity to it, doesn’t it? I felt the same but have never read anything by her until this.
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How wonderful you liked Judith Herzberg’s poetry. It’s a pity her more recent work is not available in English though. Judith Herzberg’s father, Abel Herzberg, was an author too. I’ll check out if his work is translated as then you might have come across him. Judith Herzberg has written prose and is a playwright too, so that’s another possibility.
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Cath, it is a shame her more recent work is not available in English. One or two of her plays seems to have been translated. I’ve not heard of her father before. Will have to look and see what of his work might be available. Thanks for the wonderful recommendation!
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I am always shamed by how few poets I’ve read. These are very quirky, aren’t they? And indeed, sticky. I find that intriguing – I like the feel of the words that trip you up. I’m never sure about translated poetry, but these look like they were made for the transition.
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Litlove, if you mean quirky as not quite like most poetry, yes, it fits. I do enjoy the feel of poetry that flows over like water, but it is the sticky poems that truly make me stop and take notice and that remain so much more memorable. I think the translation on these is done quite well, though I don’t read Dutch so I can’t say for sure! But they don’t have that “translated” feel if you know what I mean.
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As always…thanks for reminding me and letting me get a little dose of poetry…. If I had MORE reading time I am sure I would spend a little of it on poetry. Well, I should anyway….
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