Eddy Van Vliet

Dood

jezik: nizozemščina

prevodov: angleščina (Death), francoščina (Mort), finščina (Kuolema), španščina (Muerte), nemščina (Tod), slovenščina (Smrt)

Dood

Dood. Heb geen angst. Talm niet
voor mijn deur. Kom binnen.
Lees mijn boeken. In negen van de tien
kom je voor. Je bent geen onbekende.

Hou mij niet voor de gek met kwalen
waarvan niemand de namen durft te noemen.
Leg mij niet in een bed tussen kwijlende
kinderen die van ouderdom niet weten wat ze zeggen.
Klop mij geen geld uit de zak
voor nutteloze uren in chique klinieken.

Veeg je voeten en wees welkom.

prevodov:

jezik: angleščina

Death

Death. Don’t be afraid. Do not dither
before my door. Come on in.
Read my books. You are part of
nine out of ten. I know about you.

Do not fool me with afflictions
with names nobody dares to mention.
Don’t put me to bed among dribbling
children who know not what they say, of age.
Do not shake money out of my pocket
for pointless hours in classy clinics.

Wipe your feet and make yourself at home.

jezik: francoščina

Mort

Mort. N’aie pas peur. Ne traîne pas
devant ma porte. Entre donc.
Lis mes livres. Tu figures dans
preque tous. Tu n’es pas une inconnue.

Ne te paie pas ma tête avec des maux
dont personne n’ose dire les noms.
Ne me cloue pas dans un lit entre des
enfants qui bavent et, de vieillesse, ne savent
ce qu’ils disent. Ne me vide pas les poches
pour des heures inutiles dans des cliniques chic.

Essuie tes pieds et sois la bienvenue.

jezik: finščina

Kuolema

Kuolema. Älä pelkää. Älä vitkastele
ovellani. Tule sisään.
Lue kirjani. Yhdeksässä kymmenestä
sinä esiinnyt. Et ole tuntematon.

Älä pilaile minun kustannuksellani vaivoilla
joiden nimiä kukaan ei uskalla lausua ääneen.
Älä pane minua sänkyyn keskelle kuolaavia
lapsia jotka eivät vanhuuttaan tiedä mistä puhuvat.
Älä puijaa minulta rahaa hienoissa
klinikoissa vietettäviin hyödyttömiin hetkiin.

Pyyhi jalkasi ja ole tervetullut.

jezik: španščina

Muerte

Muerto. No tengas miedo. No te demores
junto a mi puerta. Pasa.
Lee mis libros. En nueve de cada diez
apareces. No eres ninguna desconocida.

No me quieras engatusar con enfermedades
cuyo nombre nadie se atreve a pronunciar.
No me tiendas en una cama rodeado de niños
babeantes, tan viejos que no saben lo que dicen.
No me vacies los bolsillos
con horas inútiles en clinicas de postin.

Limpiate los pies y sé bienvenida.

jezik: nemščina

Tod

Tod. Hab keine Angst. Zögere nicht
vor meiner Tür. Komm rein.
Lies meine Bücher. In neun von zehn
kommst du vor. Du bist kein Fremder.

Narre mich nicht mit Qualen
die zu nennen sich keiner getraut.
Bette mich nicht zwischen geifernde
Kinder, die vor Alter nicht wissen, was sie sagen.
Zieh mir nicht das Geld aus der Tasche
für sinnlose Stunden in schicken Kliniken.

Tritt dir die Schuhe ab und sei willkommen.

jezik: slovenščina

Smrt

Smrt. Ne boj se. Ne čakaj
pred vrati. Kar vstopi.
Preberi moje knjige. Skoraj v vseh
te omenjam. Nisi mi neznanka.

Ne zasmehuj me z boleznijo,
ki je nihče noče imenovati.
Ne položi me v posteljo k slinavim
otrokom, ki od starosti ne vedo, kaj govorijo.
Ne izmamljaj mi denarja
za nekoristne ure v gosposkih klinikah.

Sezuj se, dobrodošla si.

Eddy Van Vliet

* 11.09.1942, Antwerpen, Belgija
† 05.10.2002, Antwerpen, Belgija

Eddy van Vliet, who in daily life was a practising lawyer, was also someone for whom poetry was a vital part of existence. Only at one moment did the two worlds literally meet. In 1994 he published the passionate essay Poëzie: een pleidooi (Poetry: the Case for the Defence), the text of address he had given back in 1976 to the annual Conference of the Antwerp Bar. It reveals something of the tension between the demands of reality and the world of the dream, the exact field in which Van Vliet’s poetry operates.

After an unremarkable debut in 1964 the poet, in line with the spirit of the times and like so many others influenced by his reading of Bertolt Brecht, plunged for a decade into social and political commitment. That commitment was fuelled not primarily by political theories, but by moral indignation at everything that that detracts from the ideal of a pure, almost paradisial world. Consequently, as the poet begins to find his own voice, starting with the collections Het grote verdriet (The Great Sorrow, 1974) and Na de wetten van Afscheid & Herfst (After the Laws of Parting and Autumn, 1978), it becomes increasingly clear that he is essentially a romantic confessional poet. Not the ethereal, introverted kind, but one who lives fully in the world and is constantly colliding with its imperfections, with loss and madness. His meeting, during Poetry International 1973, with the American poet Robert Lowell, often viewed as among the greatest ‘confessional poets’, may have influenced on that development. From then onwards his set themes become love, both its ecstasy and its failure, childhood and the relationship with the absent father, loss of faculties and death.

A first high point in that mature work is Jaren na maart (Years after March, 1983). In it March stands for the moment at which the father left home and thereby caused a first radical rift in the ordered world of the child. That rift underlies an attitude to life and a way of writing that mark the rest of his work in a fundamental way: the denial of reality and its evocation, the struggle between remembering and forgetting. It is a theme that he shares with Swedish poet Tomas Tranströmer, who he greatly admired. In the presentation of his poetry it often expresses itself in the form of heightened attention to ‘secondary phenomena’ accompanying traumatic events. As in the poem ‘My Father’s Goodbye’: ‘The garden gate in sudden need of grease. / Gaps on the wall must be covered up quick / quick, get rid of the shaving soap smell.’ On the one hand, the eye is diverted from what is shattering the harmony, but at the same time the way in which the whole environment is affected by loss is evoked.

It also operates the other way round, in the many love poems from De binnenplaats (The Courtyard, 1987) and De toekomstige dief (The Future Thief, 1991), in which the perception of reality is transformed by the eyes of the lover: ‘I recoloured, on love’s authority, what lay there slightly wilted / in the shop into a festive meal. Lettuce regained / its vigour […]’.

Finally the collection Vader (Father, 2001), which appeared shortly before his sudden death, can be read as a testament, completely in line with what drove him from the outset. The motto from Graham Swift that prefaces the collection, heralds its tenor: ‘Narrative reconciles retention and forgetting’. Here Van Vliet simultaneously portrays his father, himself and the world of the twentieth century. He does so in the tone of restrained melancholy so characteristic of him and with great attention to sensory detail.

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