Selected Poems: Translated by Lloyd Haft
About this ebook
The selection traces the stages of Gorter's career as a poet. It opens with 22 poems from his introvertive 'sensitivist' Verses (Verzen, 1890) which have been called the beginning of modern Dutch poetry. These are followed by poems from later collections in which Gorter was transitioning to a less self- and more world-focused perspective. In the subsequent passages from the long epic Pan (1912/1916), he has clearly become a 'socialist' poet, albeit in a unique visionary sense. He is now pursuing a theme which will obsess him for the rest of his life: how to address the object of his love as both an individual woman and an incarnate summation of all humanity.
The rest of the book comprises the first publication in English of Gorter's little-known last work Lyrics (Liedjes,1930).
Haft's judicious abridgment reserves the structure, erotic themes, and lyric high points of this outstanding sequence which originally occupied three volumes.
In Haft's version, Gorter sounds the way he should sound: musical and sensitive, at times groping, at other times jubilant, always sure of himself and amazing. For readers of English it will be a feast to be able to make his acquaintance via this translation. - Piet Gerbrandy, winner of the Herman Gorter Prize
About the author
Herman Gorter (1864-1927)
Gorter was born into a simple family in a rural town in the northwestern Netherlands. His father, a pastor, died when he was only six years old. Still, Gorter received a good education, studied classical languages in Amsterdam and became a teacher at a Gymnasium.
In 1889, after three years of work on his epic poem “Mei” (“May”), Gorter finally could proclaim “the thing is done”. Mei was published in the contemporary periodical De Nieuwe Gids (“The New Guide”), a retrospection of Gorter’s youth through nature, love, idealism, disillusion and melancholic reflection. Spontaneous and full of vibrant imagery, “Mei” quickly became a landmark for the 1880 literary movement in The Netherlands, that attempted to reclaim aesthetics for the art (the “Tachtigers”).
In 1890, Gorter married the girl that stood model for “Mei”. That same year his “Verzen” was published, celebrating his spiritual and sensual experiences of these emotionally rich years. Gorter gradually distanced himself from the “Tachtigers” movement. He became increasingly politically engaged, and turned to express his Marxist ideals through his work. The metaphysical longing expressed in Book 2 of “Mei” turned out to be a prelude to his more utopian work of this time, such as Pan (1916). Like “Mei”, Gorter eventually became disillusioned about the attainability of his ideals and had to deal with recurring depressions. Love remained a key theme in Gorter’s work until his death.
Translator Lloyd Haft (1946) grew up in the USA and graduated from Harvard. Graduate studies in Chinese took him to Leiden, and he has lived in The Netherlands since 1968. He soon discovered a fascination with modern Dutch poetry, starting with Herman Gorter's famous (or notorious) Verses. He became a regular translator for Poetry International and published ten volumes of his own poetry in Dutch, including a free-verse adaptation of the Psalms which won the 2004 Ida Gerhardt Prize. Professionally, for many years Lloyd Haft taught Chinese language and literature at Leiden University. Since retirement he has spent much of his time in Taiwan with his wife Katie Su, a writer on theater arts in Taiwan. His collected translations from the metaphysical poet Zhou Mengdie are scheduled for publication in 2021.
Dutch poet, winner of Herman Gorter Prize
