This article is based on this Dutch article of Martijn Benders
Beautiful Halloween poems, right? It’s fascinating to see how more and more people turn their front yards into eerie doll-themed parties, even in this neighborhood. Apparently, this sparks quite a bit of complaints from the Christian community:
Hopefully, people will also find their way back to poetry, where the romance of the night roams in insistently unique Trakl translations.
The mystery that a poet always serves grew yesterday. Who were the jury members of the cursed episode of Buddinghcomedy in 1998?
They were Huub Beurskens, Marc Reugebrink, and Esther Jansma. Now it happens that I had once emailed Huub Beurskens regarding the bullying treatment he received from Arjan Peters. At the time, I was pitted against him in a newspaper review, suggesting I was better than Ellott, and Huub was presented as the counterpoint. I let Huub know that I found the treatment he received far from decent, to put it mildly.
Anyway, Huub seems to have no recollection of the incident. He does remember being on that jury once, but that’s about it. He writes: “how strange that the prize didn’t go to someone else then,” the same thought that occurred to me. The prize was awarded but not presented, the strangest construction imaginable if corruption is at play.
Very Catholic indeed. Not letting go of power but suggesting decency. Should I investigate this mystery further? Perhaps, but I’m mainly doing this as an exercise in recapitulation—I try to bring forth memories of events in my life. By the way, it really helps to take Lion’s Mane—the neurogenerative mushroom.
I’ve attended Poetry three times. The first time was for the award ceremony, flying in directly from Istanbul. I had to pay for the flight myself, so I essentially had to lay out a significant amount to lose on stage, which led to a somewhat amusing performance. Komrij, as Poet Laureate, also never had his flights reimbursed, which was why he quit that role. I would have done the same.
The friendly lady who drove me to the hotel told me she didn’t understand the choice for the winner: I was much better, she said. It felt strange, as a participant you don’t expect the organization to seemingly rebel against itself. I spent about two hours on the bed before heading to a café where I had arranged to meet Alexandra Crouwers. Samuel Vriezen and Arjen Duinker were also there. The evening burst into lively cheer. Bart and Jacqueline were also there. We were already a bit tipsy when we headed to the Buddingh.
We had to watch some profound heron film presented by the winner, Mischa Andriessen. My memory suddenly goes blank. But it’s not because I don’t remember; sometimes a memory can ask for silence. Like a curtain drawn before the eyes, not out of carelessness but out of a sort of dreamy necessity, as if some memories shroud in mist to protect the reader from themselves.
I also had something with a Flemish artist (not Alexandra), with whom I spent a night in a hotel on the Red Light District that had a carpet steeped in weed smell, as if the walls and halls themselves had absorbed the stories of hundreds of nights and could only speak in an intoxicating haze, accentuated by the rattling fan that kept me up all night. But was that night before or after the Buddingh award ceremony? It couldn’t have been the second time I went to Poetry because I was with Olga then. Ah, no, it must have been in Amsterdam, when I practiced for about fifteen minutes with Bart at Perdu, where Joost Baars somewhat grumpily opened the door.
I think that night in the Red Light District came afterward, but that doesn’t match the memory that I flew in directly from Istanbul. That can’t be correct, so why does my memory insist? The sequence has reestablished itself: I came from Istanbul, slept at my parents’ house, went to Amsterdam to practice with Bart, then to the Red Light District, and then to Poetry, where, because of my poor night’s sleep, I requested early access to the hotel room. Yes, that’s how it happened then.
And then that heron film. After a considerable number of Chouffes. And the night before, I had sampled quite a bit of whiskey on the Red Light District. That film seeped into the mind like a strange silence and entrenched itself in a vague no man’s land of memory. Perhaps it wasn’t just the alcoholic veil but also that moment when the mind decides that some details are better left behind the closed curtains of the mind.
I remember a Cuban cigar bar and, upon returning to the hotel, finding Samuel Vriezens’ fake mustache stuck to my shoe. I saw it as a grand omen but had no idea what it meant. The fake mustache, bizarrely attached to my shoe, felt like a symbolic indictment from the universe itself—a mysterious hint, almost a comedic warning that didn’t fully reveal its meaning. The false mustache, a crumpled remnant in my path, as if I’d unknowingly crossed a boundary.
So now I need to clarify what happened between the heron film and the cigar bar.
Martinus 03-11-2024
