Even Now: Poems by Hugo Claus

by Hugo Claus, Cees Nooteboom (Introduction), David Colmer (Translator)

Beautifully translated from the Dutch by David Colmer, the IMPAC Award-winning translator of Gerbrand Bakker’s The Twin, Hugo Claus’s poems are remarkable for their dexterity, intensity of feeling, and acute intelligence. From the richly associative and referential “Oostakker Poems” to the emotional and erotic outpouring of the “mad dog stanzas” in “Morning, You,” from his interpretations of Shakespeare’s sonnets to a modern adaptation of a Sanskrit masterpiece, this volume reveals the breadth and depth of Claus’s stunning output. Perhaps Belgium’s leading figure of postwar Dutch literature, Claus has long been associated with the these poems challenge conventional bourgeois mores, religious bigotry, and authoritarianism with visceral passion.

Genres: Poetry

220 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

Hugo Maurice Julien Claus was een Vlaams schrijver. Hij was een veelzijdig kunstenaar: romancier, dichter, toneelschrijver, schilder en filmregisseur.
Toen hij opteerde voor euthanasie (legaal in België) veroorzaakte dit veel deining.

Hugo Claus in de Nederlandstalige Wikipedia

Hugo Claus in de Digitale Bibliotheek voor de Nederlandse Letteren

Hugo Claus bij "Schrijversgewijs"


Hugo Maurice Julien Claus was a leading Belgian author, writing primarily in Dutch. He was prominent as a novelist, poet, playwright, painter and film director.
His death by euthanasia, which is legal in Belgium, led to considerable controversy.

Hugo Claus in the English Wikipedia

Reviews

[Erica Wright · Rating 5 out of 5]

Archipelago consistently publishes stellar books in translation. Even Now is no exception. Though drawn more to his later poems, I enjoyed watching Claus's work evolve from 1948 through 2004. Humor emerges in the most unlikely places and is particularly touching in the love poems. One sonnet begins, "I thought (I'm often such a swine) / I'll wait until the winter comes / and carves its lines around her mouth..." This mischievous speaker appears in other poems, as well, his intentions thwarted by sincere—but never sentimental—feeling.

[Edita · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cured of stars but not yet addicted
to the manifold silence
we warm ourselves on the simple weather
*
It is dangerous to believe
that you understand the least bit of it.
Much more than the unknown,
you should fear the known.
*
Even now, I tell myself that in the straitened time
between me and the Arctic night, she was the stars,
the grass, the cockroaches, the fruit and the maggots,
and how I accepted this and how it delights me yet.

[Limele · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a real slog to get through, to be honest. (I can't believe I actually started reading this all the way back in April!) I decided to purchase it in a used bookstore in the hopes of healthfully broadening my diet of poetry, specifically to include more free verse — a desire which has borne little fruit, and which this reading experience has markedly diminished. It occasionally felt as though Claus' personality and poetic sensibility were very compatibly affected, but for the most part these poems felt limp, as though they were merely gestures in the direction of something I might like to hear about more clearly and in greater detail, if only he had been willing to make a more thorough pursuit. Many portions were at best loosely intelligible, to their detriment.

I can only imagine how great an effect translation can have had in this case; it's entirely possible that, if I could read him in the original Dutch, I would be far more impressed. As far as this particular translation is concerned, however, I think of the envoi of the titular 'Even Now' in which the speaker describes their own poems as "vulgar babble or all too noble bluster." That about sums it up.

[Kate Sherrod · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review forthcoming at Insatiable Booksluts!