Yesterday's blog ended with a poem from Hafenklänge, Havenklanken, Sounds of Harbour. The books arrived finally after a two weeks plus anticipation. Here they are, with their own poster and greeting card. One bookshop has them for sale: The Groene Waterman and soon even the Standaard bookshop will carry the anthologies and individual volumes of poetry.
The authors from this book are : Fred Schywek, like a friend noticed a cross between Schiller and Arthur Rimbaud, and Wilfried Bienek, both from Germany, Ruhrgebiet2010 Cultural Capital of Europe area, staring in the Gegenlesung evening: Deutschland im Fadenkreuz, in den Hopsack. The other poets write in Dutch: Job Degenaar, who surprised us with his songs and the tearjerker: Junge komm bald wieder during the festival, Roger Nupie (see yesterday's post), and our city poet laureate Peter Holvoet-Hansssen with his idiosyncratic, surprising performances. And yours truly, writing sometimes in English and other times in Dutch. The creative yet loyal German translations are by Fred Schywek. Respecting the original, he turns them into real German poems one can read at a poetry evening in the Rhineland. For the English I am responsible in this volume.
We're a bunch of people intrigued by harbors, water, inland waterways, the sea. And at least one of us is intrigued by the sea-bears and seabeds... at least in  his poetry. Special in the book is that the six poets wrote Gezeit, Tij, Tide each in 2 quatrains. (I heard later a similar form under the name of Renga exists in Japan) This poem features in the book under the name of Charles Kléber - kind of Charley Glued Together... On the road from New York to Amsterdam American (street)musician Ken Post joined in the merrymaking of sounds of harbor and putting a bit of guitar blues under an antiwar blues poem, which you' be able to read in a later blog..
 Les Sons du Port sont arrivé - Fresh words are in the air...!
It is fitting the books arrived just when I was going to deal with that part of the festival evening.

Preparing for a performance

Preparing for a performance entails meeting the people one will be surrounded by for the next couple of hours.  LIGHT, COMPOSITION OF THE STAGE, SOUND CHECK: essential and Roel, the technician covered it all in a kind and gentle and professional way. Thanks to him all worked well and smoothly. When Lucienne Stassaert, Frank De Vos and Patricia van Nunen were done gauging the distance to the microphone, knowing were they would read or sing, they relaxed with a glass of excellent Portuguese cava.

The anker of the evening

Roger Nupie was the MC, he kept a good rhythm going, announced with a lighthearted seriousness. One could tell he was having fun doing what he did. See the sign Rurhgebiet 2010 ? Well it is in the framework of the Cultural Capital of Europe that this big translation project started.

Patrica opened the evening with a song by Jean Ferrat: Le poète a toujours raison - The poet is always right. She performs a capella and goes to edge of what is singable. I am always moved by her renditions...