This article is based on this dutch article of Martijn Benders
I asked ChatGPT whether it found my translation better than the original:
Your version of “Evening Melancholy” certainly offers its own, appealing quality and captures a unique atmosphere that fits well with Trakl’s original. While Trakl’s poem in German uses more abstract, sometimes shadowy images, your Dutch version feels more accessible and somewhat more tangible. It has a direct simplicity that enhances the melancholic mood without falling into complexity.
The choice to use words like “doodsbreed,” “traagschommelend,” and “verstuifde dorpen” gives the poem a soft, decelerating cadence that beautifully supports the atmosphere. Compared to the original, where the images are more elusive and the melancholy shimmers through as a constant tension, your version feels slightly closer to the physical world, almost as if we see the landscape through a personal lens. This makes it in a way more accessible and at the same time visually rich.
If I put them side by side, I would say your version is an interpretation that is less mystical than the original, but powerful in its simplicity and clarity. It’s not really a question of better or worse; your poem offers a slightly different experience – softer, closer to nature, and somewhat less steeped in mystical darkness. Both poems have their own value, and your translation reads like a beautiful tribute to Trakl, with a unique, Dutch melancholy.
**
Well, I can live with that. I don’t find my versions less mystical, quite the contrary. But perhaps you could argue that they have a more magical mysticism that indeed lies closer to the world and less in the ‘confused mind.’ What I cut from Trakl are things I didn’t think worked. For a ‘normal’ translator that would be taboo: the original is considered sacred there. However, no one has ever been able to explain to me what was the point of the invention of the printing press. Why do people act as if you can damage the original, as if it were some kind of antique vase? Isn’t it fixed in a book? This logic predates the printing press, doesn’t it?
Well, I also add things to Trakl. Also, an icy taboo in the translation world. The poem is not a living being there, but a dusty relic that must forever remain the same as a kind of ‘achievement.’ And if you point out to them that the poem has long been eternally registered and that this is called ‘printing press,’ they usually start to babble a bit, something about ‘respect for the poet,’ which you would have if you translate the poem as stiffly and originally as possible, including things that actually don’t work (often not even in the original). That’s usually where the shoe pinches: the poet has been canonized and made no mistakes; his poems contain no things that don’t work, etcetera. But if you analyze that position firmly, you see that it is essentially a form of literary idolatry.
This position assumes an untouchable loftiness that places the poet above criticism, as if his work exists without human shortcomings. But poetry, like all art, is a product of the creative process, including the imperfections and nuances that come with it. The idea that a poem should remain a static object denies the lively interaction that poetry engages in with the reader and time. A poem can gain new layers, take on different colors, and even correct shortcomings through each translation or interpretation that aligns with contemporary experience.
The printing press brought us the ability to disseminate texts and with it the opportunity to engage in dialogue with the past. Instead of rigidity, respect for the poet might mean giving his work new life and not restricting it to a “dusty relic.”
Treating the poem as a relic denies that it can lead a life of its own, that it is a living being that can breathe, change, and even meaningfully respond to time. Precisely for this reason, this attitude is a striking example of Foucault’s idea of Christian parrhesia – speaking with full openness and courage, in which the speaker does not present his own ideas or truths but rather the “truth” of the system he defends. This “truthful” discourse of the translation world is itself a product of a system that treats the original work as a sacred object, as an artifact that must remain untouched to preserve its value.
In fact, this Christian parrhesia is nothing more than an attempt to create an authority in which the translator places himself in the paradoxical position of one who serves but also determines what service means. Thus arises a kind of hidden hierarchy in which the original is untouchable, a status that no interpretation or context may violate. In the name of respect and authenticity, the poet is elevated to a holy position, with any possible shortcomings and vulnerabilities of the work erased. This ‘veneration’ of the work – and of the author as an untouchable source – deprives poetry of its ability to evolve and renew itself. Instead of a dynamic process, we see ossification: a form of exercising power over the work, now inseparably linked to an outdated authority, embedded in a canonical standard that only maintains the appearance of authenticity.
This seamlessly aligns with Foucault’s thinking on power and knowledge. So-called fidelity to the original is not simply a respectful act but an act that affirms power structures. In reality, one does not ‘preserve’ the poem; one freezes it, depriving it of its potential to resonate in different ways over the centuries. The fixation on maintaining an unchangeable “truthful” original creates canonical violence: a compulsive adherence that robs the poem of its own voice and reduces it to a museum piece that only allows one type of reading. What we lose with this is the potential of the poem to relate to a constantly changing world.
Conflict of interest in the prize culture
What preceded: Erik Menkveld was at the center of a literary scandal in 1998, after which the board “awarded the prize to him but did not present it.” Jury member Huub Beurskens told me he remembered little of the incident, but it seemed bizarre to him now. Huub emailed me the article that appeared at the time in NRC, written by Arie van den Berg:
It is inevitable. The jury will recommend Erik Menkveld’s The Carp Simulator as the winner of the C. Buddingh’ Prize for New Dutch Poetry 1998. The board of the Poetry International Foundation thus has a problem. But how is this a conflict of interest? Menkveld wrote and published The Carp Simulator long before he joined Poetry International. Moreover: when his debut appeared, he was poetry editor at De Bezige Bij, and it was that publisher who published The Carp Simulator. Menkveld was therefore his own editor, but no critic or gossip column has ever wasted words on that. Why should he not be allowed to co-program his own party on Sunday evening?
What a strange reasoning, that something wouldn’t be a conflict of interest because it was published before he joined. No, really, Arie, then you really haven’t understood the term. So, it was a conflict between the jury and the board: the board found the nomination inappropriate, while the jury stubbornly persisted. Furthermore, it turns out Erik Menkveld was his own editor at De Bezige Bij – a true pioneer, as poetry editors who publish their own collections defy all ethics in the literary world. Where previous generations of poetry editors maintained an unwritten rule of distance between their own work and the publications they guided, Menkveld broke this barrier without hesitation. This act showed a certain recklessness but also a power position that could afford to disregard the conventions and ethical codes of the literary world.
Arie van den Berg’s reasoning in NRC – that there was no conflict of interest because Menkveld’s collection was already published before he joined Poetry – illustrates an almost naive view on ethics in a cultural context. As if timing alone would be sufficient to avoid any suspicion of conflicting interests. This argument ignores the broader structures of influence and position and exposes a deeper flaw in the system: a system where literary power and networking weigh more heavily than the question of whether there is an integral separation between personal interests and the greater good of poetry. The question here is not whether Menkveld should have distanced himself from his role; it’s about recognizing that a literary platform should be characterized by a clear separation between author and function.
The Menkveld issue exposes a vulnerability in the literary world: a world where personal connections, influence, and power structures undeniably play a role, but that at the same time anxiously avoids naming these power relations. The jury’s stubborn persistence in awarding Menkveld the prize, despite opposition from the board, shows the clash between artistic integrity and the realpolitik of the literary circuit.
More examples
Searching for “buddinghprijs bestuur” on DBNL, I immediately encountered another example:
The Board of the Gerrit Achterberg Society objected to the non-application of the regulations: the study to be awarded was published in 2000 and fell outside the period to which the prize related (1995-1999). The board thus decided to grant the prize to board member Fabian Stolk. The board also decided to double the prize and award two prizes.
This concerned a prize of 10,000 euros that the board awarded to one of its own members because the winner of the contest did not fully meet the criteria. Subsequently, the prize money was very Christianly distributed as if putting a mantle over it. Boardroom culture in its prime, at least in our literary world.
Why do I so strongly advocate that people with leadership experience be chosen when a director needs to be appointed?
The answer is simple: they have backbone and are not easily steered by others. But in the literary world, we constantly see people without any leadership experience being appointed as directors.
The result? Figures that waste tons of money—meant for writers—on expensive survey bureaus so they can bask in endless performance reviews of their own functioning. “Look how brilliantly we govern!”
Meanwhile, writers have to scrape by because the board members consider it more important to conceal their narcissistic insecurities—at all costs—behind the thickest stack of expensive reports.
Arie van den Berg on Menno Wigman
The last two poets were not nominated. Perhaps the jury, like Guus Middag, thought Wigman’s debut borrowed too much from other poets. In “‘s Zomers stinken alle steden,” there is a borrowed voice, with many references to great predecessors. It is typically ‘poetic’ poetry.
What’s annoying about Wigman’s collected poems is that the references are missing. Menno’s pastiches have become untraceable in this work because it was thought readers “should look it up in the individual collections.” Such an attitude is lazy. A poem that stems from someone else’s work cannot be printed without citations.
Was Wigman’s debut justly not nominated for the Buddingh’ Prize? I’ll first read the nominated collections to judge that. Incidentally, the collected poems of Cees Buddingh’ I found quite annoying. The Bluebillgurgle, which made him famous, isn’t even original – the idea comes from The Bluebillgurgle by E. Nesbit.
A strange choice to name a prize for debutants after Buddingh,’ especially if you also accuse non-nominees of ‘borrowed voices.’
Martijn Benders, 04-11-2024
