.

Well, we can stop

for awhile, if we try hard enough

if we are lucky.  We can sit still,

keep silent, let the phoebe, the sycamore,

the river, the stone call themselves, their own

sounds, their own silence, and thus

may know for a moment the nearness

of the world, its vastness

its vast variousness, far and near,

which only silence knows.  And then

we must call all things by name

out of silence again to be with us,

or die of namelessness.

.

~ Wendell Berry

.

Ω

Naming is a necessity for order,

but naming can not order all things.

Naming often makes things impersonal,

so we should know when naming should end.

Knowing when to stop naming,

you can avoid the pitfall it brings.

.

~ Lao Tzu : from ‘ Tao Te Ching’

.

Ω

as yet still silent, sparkling and unused,

just drinking something with its smile, as though

its singing were being infused.

.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

.

.

Y tú heredas el verde

de los huertos antiguos y el azul

sereno de decaídos cielos:

Rocío de mil días

que dicen mucho sol, mucho verano,

y primaveras con galas y quejas

como las cartas de una mujer joven.

Heredas los otoños, como trajes de fiesta

que guarda la memoria de los poetas.

Y los inviernos, como tierras huérfanas,

a estrecharse vienen suavemente.

Tú heredas Venecia, Kazán, Roma;

Florencia será tuya, la catedral de Pisa,

la Troitzka Lavra, con el Monasterio

que bajo los jardines de Kiev forma

un laberinto  de senderos oscuros y enlazados;

Moscú, con sus campanas como recuerdos.

Será tuyo el sonido: violines, trompas, lenguas:

toda canción que haya sonado bien hondo

resplandecerá en Ti como una joya.

.
.
Rainer María Rilke
De El Libro de la Horas
Traducción de Jaime Ferreiro Alemparte
Austral, 1979
.

Rainer Maria Rilke. Livro “Selected Letters”.

.

Aunque los hombres se esfuerzan por salir de sí mismos

como de la prisión que les odia y encierra,

hay, no obstante, un gran milagro en este mundo:

yo lo siento: toda la vida es vivida.

.

¿Quién, entonces, la vive? ¿Son las cosas

que, como una melodía no tocada,

están como un arpa ante el ocaso?

¿Son los vientos, que del mar soplan,

son las ramas, que están haciendo señas,

.

son las flores, que tejen los perfumes,

son las largas avenidas que envejecen?

¿Son los calientes animales, que andan,

son las aves que, extrañas, alzan el vuelo?

.

¿Quién la vive, entonces?

¿La vives Tú, oh Dios, vives la vida?

.
Rainer María Rilke
De El libro de las horas, II: El libro de la peregrinación
En Antología poética, Austral, 1979
Traducción y notas de Jaime Ferreiro Alemparte
.

People have (with the help of conventions) oriented all their solutions toward the easy and toward the easiest side of the easy; but it is clear that we must hold to what is difficult; everything alive holds to it, everything in Nature grows and defends itself in its own way and is characteristically and spontaneously itself, seeks at all costs to be so and against all opposition. We know little, but that we must hold to what is difficult is a certainty that will not forsake us; it is good to be solitary, for solitude is difficult; that something is difficult must be a reason the more for us to do it. To love is good, too: love being difficult. For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of all out tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation. For this reason young people, who are beginners in everything, cannot yet know love: they have to learn it. With their whole being, with all their forces, gathered close about their lonely, timid, upward-beating heart, they must learn to love. But learning time is always a long, secluded time, and so loving, for a long while ahead and far into life, is solitude, intensified and deepened loneness for him who loves.

Rainer Maria Rilke, 1904
in Letters to a Young Poet

“Aber das Bewußtsein vorausgesetzt, daß auch zwischen den nächsten Menschen unendliche Fernen bestehen bleiben, kann ihnen ein wundervolles Nebeneinanderwohnen erwachsen, wenn es  ihnen gelingt, die Weite zwischen sich zu lieben, die ihnen die Möglichkeit gibt, einander immer in ganzer Gestalt und vor einem großen Himmel zu sehen!” (Briefe)

The Second Elegy

This elegy begins, “Every angel is terrifying” (1). Ok, so a theme is developing here. But the speaker continues, “And yet, alas, I sing to you, almost deadly birds of the soul, even knowing about you” (1-3). From the first elegy, we know all about these angels, and the speaker’s feeling towards them . . . but here we get an emotion from the speaker expressing the lure-call of the angels, despite their terror, the beauty they hold and the terror of beauty. This, again, reiterates the Ouroboros, the circularity of everything. And, again, back to Pynchon: many have argued that Gravity’s Rainbow’s structure is not linear, or anything close to linear, but a series of circles, everything working in circles rather than lines or vectors. . . .

The speaker truly emphasizes the amount of fear tangible in the present, comparing Tobias in his day to today: “But today of the archangel, the dangerous one, took even one step down towards us from behind the stars: our own high-beating heart would beat us to death. Who are you” (7-9). This reminds me of (Gravity’s Rainbow): “Rocket sites? The hand of Providence creeps among the stars, giving Slothrop the finger” (491).

At the end of the second stanza, there is another great line, “mirrors: scooping their own outstreamed beauty back into their faces again” (17-18). These lines set the tone for what is to come in much of the rest of the elegy: the effervescence of life, its constant evolution from one thing into another, one form into another, as one “might say to us, ‘Yes, you’re in my blood, this room, this springtime fills itself with you . . .’ ” But the speaker continues the thought, negating the possibility of this happening, the reality of its existence, “but it’s no use, he can’t hold us, we disappear in and around him. And the beautiful, could anyone hold them here?” (22-26). The angels? Probably not. They cannot hold the beautiful. nothing can hold the beautiful. The question here, then, is mainly one of constancy, of lastability, perseverance. Does anything we emit transfer to anyone else? Can it? Is it traceable? Tangible? Or does it just waft into the ether? (another Pynchonian idea—see Against the Day).

The speaker then proposes this: “Does the space we dissolve into taste of us? Do the angels take back only what’s theirs, what has streamed from them, or do they catch, as if by accident, traces of our being along with it? Are we mingled into their features even so slightly as that vagueness in the faces of pregnant women? They don’t notice it, in the whirl of their return to themselves. (How could they notice it?)” (32-40). I love the way the poem’s argument, or questioning, has progressed. It’s dialectical, in that it is moving from problem, to another problem, in a way, to some sort of agreement at the end (to come soon). In the above quote, the second problem presented concerning “what becomes of us,” I believe the speaker is really asking whether or not humans have a soul, and, if so, where is it, and where does it go? This eternal question, of course unanswerable, is somewhat answered by the speaker himself, in his own questioning of what would happen to our soul (assuming we had one). He wonders if the angels catch a little bit of each of us, if our matter (or soul) naturally mingles with the angels, ever so slightly like the vagueness in the faces of pregnant women (who are so vague because they’ve also lost a bit of themselves to another).

What I really love about this question the speaker asks, more than its progression of the elegy’s argument, is that is begins to answer why angels are so terrifying, why beauty is so terrifying, and thus starting to answer some of the earlier and difficult questions and statements proposed earlier in the elegies. Angels are terrifying, and so is beauty, because we see a little of ourselves in each of them, and that is terrifying, because we both love and fear ourselves, we think that we are both beautiful and frightening.

Maintaining circularity, the elegy’s focus turns to lovers, as it must, to maintain its circularity. The speaker ponders, “If lovers knew about this, how wondrously they could speak in the night air. But it seems everything keeps us in the dark” (41-43). Lovers, then, know nothing about communicating with one another through emission, through mingling from one person to the other. But if they could, oh how wondrously they could speak. If only . . .

Rilke, or at the least the speaker of these first two elegies, has a sort of scorn for lovers. He definitely acknowledges the positives of the lovers’ lives, but at the same time tries to negate the positives with, well, negatives, downsides, all the holes in the lovers’ supposedly perfect world. He acknowledges their tender touches, and that each touch gives warmth and meaning—”rapture”—or even, as he degrades it, “a slight sensation.” “But,” as the speaker says, “who would venture existing, just for that?” (53). Just for that?! Ah, what a wonderful question? And the answer is, of course, the lover, the blind lover who sees nothing else and wants to see nothing else but his love. Tell me this does not make you think.

The speaker continues:

So you promise each other eternity

almost, from your embrace. Once past the terror

of first glances, though, and the longing at the window

and the first walk, once, through the garden together:

lovers, are you still who you were? When you lift yourselves,

one to the other and touch lips—:drink upon drink:

oh, how strangely the drinker is missing from the act (64-70).

Maybe these are unanswerable questions—at least unanswerable to those that truly need to answer it, for their egos stand far too alert to let these sort of thoughts permeate their daily lives, infiltrate the meagerness of the day. But they know who they are, what they’ve become, silly little puppets of duress, the drinker missing from the act of taking the drink.

Der Engel

Mit einem Neigen seiner Stirne weist
er weit von sich, was einschränkt und verpflichtet;
denn durch sein Herz geht riesig aufgerichtet
das ewig Kommende, das kreist.

Die tiefen Himmel stehn ihm voll Gestalten,
und jede kann ihm rufen: komm, erkenn -.
Gib seinen leichten Händen nichts zu halten
aus deinem Lastenden. Sie kämen denn

bei Nacht zu dir, dich ringender zu prüfen,
und gingen wie Erzürnte durch das Haus
und griffen dich, als ob sie dich erschüfen,
und brächen dich aus deiner Form heraus.

Rainer Maria Rilke 1875 - 1926

Premiul I al Sectiunii “Hermeneutica” din cadrul colocviului studentesc “Lucian Blaga” Sibiu

1. Introducere. „Clasicizarea” expresionismului blagian

Opera lui Lucian Blaga prezintă o situaţie aparte în cadrul expresionismului românesc. Se vorbeşte, în critica literară română, despre faptul că Blaga practică în opera sa un expresionism îmblânzit, plasticizat, estetizat, cauzele acestuia fiind puse pe seama autohtonizării poeziilor. În lucrarea de faţă, vom expune, prin intermediul unor citate, această idee, după care vom căuta să demonstrăm că există şi alte motive pentru îmblânzirea expresionismului blagian, mai precis influenţa lui Rilke, ce a avut un efect catalizator asupra poetului nostru. Pentru a demonstra această teză, vom apela la câteva texte ale lui Trakl, expresionist dur, şi ale lui Rilke, el însuşi practicând o estetizare, deci o îmblânzire a expresionismului. În final, vom compara câteva poezii blagiene, care vor avea menirea de a demonstra această apropiere de opera lui Rilke şi efectele ei asupra expresionismului lui Blaga. Prin compararea acestui triunghi expresionist vom căuta să oferim o imagine de ansamblu asupra temei discutate, imagine care nu îşi doreşte neapărat să înlocuiască vechea teză despre îmblânzirea expresionismului prin autohtonizare, ci să o adâncească, aducându-i noi valenţe, necesare unei înţelegeri corecte şi depline a acestei feţe din lirica blagiană.

Dar, mai întâi, să vedem care sunt criticii care pun estetizarea expresionismului blagian pe seama autohtonizării liricii sale. Ioan Mariş, arată că, în cadrul teoretizărilor expresionismului, Blaga se  singularizează prin argumentul discursului cultural al artei noastre folclorice, în care „anonimatul”, „colectivismul spiritual”, „arta abstractă” se regăsesc într-o autentică „spiritualizare lăuntrică”[1]. George Gană arată şi el cum Blaga este influenţat în formarea sa poetică de cultura folclorică română, de ceea ce poetul numea „matricea stilistică”: El observă acum „clasicismul” producţiei folclorice şi pentru că spiritul lui are acum notele „clasice” amintite. Şi le are – într-o măsură imposibil de determinat, însă neîndoielnic – şi datorită contactului cu cultura populară şi cu „centrul ei generator”[2]. Mai mult decât atât, Gană afirmă chiar că: Blaga se formează nu sub influenţa expresionismului, ci paralel cu el[3]. Crohmălniceanu sesizează şi subliniază o diferenţă între Blaga şi scriitorii expresionişti occidentali, raportată, şi ea, tot la percepţia etnicului de către poet: Faţă de confraţii săi din Occident, poetul român îşi reprezintă formele trăirii autentice, originare, ca pe nişte realităţi concrete, familiare, fiindcă are credinţa persistenţei lor în lumea satului arhaic ardelean[4]. Crohmălniceanu se lasă „păcălit” de Blaga şi printr-un alt citat, în care crede să vadă motivarea expresionismului temperat prin influenţa matricei stilistice: Sigur că  intrevin aici şi diferenţe apreciabile, modul stihial românesc, ca şi al artei bizantine – precizează Blaga – e mult mai „static”, şi nu „dinamic”, cum ni se înfăţişează el în expresionismul german: un gust pronunţat pentru împlinirile „organice” vine în plus să atenueze hieratismul şi acuzarea prea rigidă a formelor[5].

Şi Şt. Aug. Doinaş vorbeşte despre o îndepărtare a poetului de modelele culturale germane: Fără ca celelalte elemente – Goethe şi Expresionismul – să-şi înceteze acţiunea, are loc un proces de auto-delimitare faţă de ele, iar această maturizare a gânditorului, independenţa lui crescândă faţă de izvoarele culturale care l-au hrănit, se răsfrâng în universul poeziei[6].

Despre efectul catalitic al satului pentru expresionismul blagian vorbeşte şi Alexandru Paleologu: Concepţia lui Blaga este tot a unui ruralism, nu însă programatic, ci structural, originar; netemător de înstrăinare, el primeşte sugestiile modernităţii, care, asimilată de matca stilistică şi „năzuinţele formative” ale fondului subjacent, vor purta inevitabil amprenta lui autentică. Prin această prismă a înţeles Blaga pictura unor Van Gogh sau Pallady, sculptura lui Brâncuşi, expresionismul german şi toate manifestările culturii şi ştiinţei moderne[7].

Prin citatele la care am apelat, am încercat să arătăm că, fie explicit, fie tacit, fiecare dintre criticii care au vorbit despre relaţia dintre expresionismul blagian si cel european, l-au redus pe primul dintre ele la autohtonizarea poeziei. Chiar în lipsa unei formulări explicite a acestei convingeri, prin neglijarea influenţelor venite din partea expresionismului german şi, în speţă, a poeziei lui Rilke, s-a statuat această idee, dovedind o insuficienţă în receptarea expresionismului blagian, care, după cum vom arăta în cele ce urmează, nu se poate delimita în totalitate de influenţa rilkeiană.

2. Expresionismul „dur”. Georg Trakl

A vorbi despre expresionismul german implică şi a aminti, cel puţin, pe Trakl, poet austriac hipersensibil, maladiv. Acesta este considerat un reprezentat al expresionismului „neîmblânzit” – poezia lui este puternică, abruptă, încărcată de imagini sumbre şi motive ale morţii, a cărei univers poetic rămâne populat de imagini dure, morbide. Una dintre imaginile centrale ale acestei poezii este singurătatea, însă nu una rodnică sau revelatoare de mistere, ci o singurătate apăsătoare, născută, cel mai adesea, din catastrofele războiului, singurătate pe care oamenii ar vrea să o depăşească fără să poată.

Raportându-ne la motivele dure ale poeziei lui Trakl, trebui să menţionăm şi Allerseelen, în care şochează imaginea unei mame ce putrezeşte alături de copilul ei (Und dort verwest die Mutter mit dem Kind[8]). Atitudinea omului faţă de moarte, prin aşezarea unor flori viu colorate pe morminte, este, după cum mărturiseşte eul liric în aceeaşi poezie, ca aceea a unor biete păpuşi în faţa puterii necunoscute a morţii (Sie tun wie arme Puppen vor dem Tod[9]). Tristeţea este atât de mare, încât acoperă prezentul şi viitorul, căci până şi cei nenăscuţi se aud plângând în vântul tomnatic (Im Herbstwind klagt der Ungebornen Weinen[10] ).

Tema războiului, ocupând şi ea un loc central în opera poetului, e însoţită de motive morbide, precum armele ucigătoare (tödlichen Waffen[11]) – unde atributul, deşi evident – căci armele nu pot fi decât ucigătoare – are rolul de a sublinia tocmai acest scop fatal al armelor; se aud vaietele sălbatice (wilde Klage[12]) ale războinicilor muribunzi (Sterbende Krieger[13]), cu guri sfărâmate (zerbrochenen Münder), natura participând şi ea la ororile umane, prin norii roşii (Rotes Gewölk[14]), în care locuieşte un Dumnezeu mânios (zürnender Gott). Sângele scurs (Das vergoßne Blut[15]) ia cu asalt natura, în vreme ce toate drumurile sfârşesc în neagră putrezire (Alle Straßen münden in schwarze Verwesung[16]). Durerea este sfâşietoare (gewaltiger Schmerz[17]), raportată şi ea la generaţiile viitoare, la nepoţii nenăscuţi şi blestemaţi, prin moartea străbunilor, la nenaştere (Die ungebornen Enkel[18]).

Important de reţinut la Trakl este, după cum observă şi Mincu, faptul că este un poet care  nu eludează realul (…). Realul devine la Trakl un punct de referinţă foarte important ce face să sporeacă tensiunea poetică[19]

3. Varianta „îmblânzită“ a expresionismului. Poezia lui Rilke

Rilke este reprezentantul de seamă al expresionismului german, de mare importanţă pentru problema discutată, pentru că lirica sa a avut un efect catalitic pentru opera poetului nostru. Expresionismul practicat de Rilke este unul îmblânzit, estetizat, la care Blaga se raportează adesea. Spre deosebire de Trakl, poezia lui Rilke nu emană atâta frământare, ci, mai degrabă, împlinire,  mulţumire, o resemnare plăcută în faţa destinului şi o încredinţare a vieţii în mâinile unui Dumnezeu bun. Eul liric îşi mărturiseşte iubirea pentru cuvintele banale, umilite tare de-al zilei chin[20]. Acţiunea poetului asupra acestor cuvinte, pe care le transformă în artă (Le dărui din serbarea mea culoare[21]), duce la o adevărată metamorfoză a lor, iar ele surâd şi se înveselesc[22]. Şi în alte poezii avem de-a face cu o atmosferă caldă, lină, de dulce toropeală: copii încinşi de goană aţipesc[23], bătrânii seara stau la masă şi licăriri din vetre în odaie cresc[24]; în înserare clopotele bat[25], iar fetele, istovite după munca de peste zi, pe margini de fântâni s-au rezemat[26]. Până şi verile tac şi dormitează[27], existând o simbioză, facilitată de crengile copacilor, între toate câte au trecut, cele care sunt şi cele care vor mai veni, născându-se astfel un prezent continuu, străjuit şi el de un tei. Totul, în această poezie, se petrece între zi şi vis, realul se uneşte cu oniricul, dând naştere acestei toropeli şi împăcări între contrarii (trecut-prezent) şi, în general, mulţumirii emanate de această poezie. Moartea este privită de către Rilke ca un moment suprem, necesar, de împlinire. În afara ei, omul este doar coajă, frunze rare[28], morţii alăturându-i-se atributul cea mare, ea fiind fructul, e al firii miez[29]. Tot ea este şi mobilul tuturor acţiunilor umane, doar pentru el copile-nmuguresc. Fiecare faptă se îndreaptă spre moarte, aceasta dându-i adevărata amploare şi strălucire: şi-oricine a clădit şi-nchipuit,/ pentru-acest fruct, o lume-a devenit,/ şi-a îngheţat şi s-a topit/ şi înspre el s-a-ntors, strălucitor[30].

Deşi, practic, tema poeziei este tot moartea, la fel ca şi la Trakl, din cea a lui Rilke lipseşte durerea, vaietul, putrefacţia, contorsionarea. Poezia rilkeiană urmează un curs lin, conştient, spre moarte, care vine ca o împlinire, şi nu ca o osândă, cum se întâmplă în primul caz amintit. Deşi sentimentele sunt şi în cazul lui Rilke puternice – marcă neîndoielnică a expresionismului – totuşi, trăirile sunt îmblânzite, înnobilate, împăcate, dovadă supremă a „îmblânzirii” expresionismului.

3. Expresionismul blagian. Efectul catalitic al operei lui Rilke

Cunoscând expresionismul în timpul studiilor sale din Viena, poetul român s-a simţit încă de la început atras de acest curent, pe care însă l-a modificat în anumite puncte, ajungându-se să se poată vorbi despre o blagianizare a expresionismului, pe care Marin Mincu o caracterizează astfel: Pornind iniţial din expresionism, Blaga îşi adaugă aripile metafizice pe care niciun poet expresionist nu le-a purtat; în exemplaritatea aceasta înaltă, teoretică şi practică, poetul român realizând ceea ce am putea numi „blagianizarea expresionismului”[31]. Că această blagianizare a expresionismului se apropie mai mult şi se datoarează în special lui Rilke, vom vedea prin urmărirea câtorva motive din poeziile blagiene. Pentru început ne vom opri la poezia Vara – aceasta putând fi uşor pusă în paralelă cu Sommer a lui Trakl. La Blaga, observă Marin Mincu, constatăm mai degrabă tendinţa către o personalizare a peisajului metafizic, poetul român fiind mult mai fidel plasticii expresioniste. (…) Cu o priză metafizică exacerbată, Blaga transferă expresionismul în spaţiul culturii folclorice[32]. Pământul, în poezia lui Blaga, este un lan întins de grâu şi cântec de lăcuste[33]. Spicele îşi ţin la sân grăunţele/ ca nişte prunci ce sug[34]. Dominanţa naturii, într-un spaţiu vast, neatins de om, întăreşte ideea reîntoarcerii omului spre natură, spre starea primordială, caracterizată de calm şi împăcare, unde dogoarea soarelui nu chinuie, ci împlineşte un dat necesar şi plăcut, născând toropeala pe care am menţionat-o şi la poezia rilkeiană: Iar timpul îşi întinde leneş clipele/ şi aţipeşte între flori de mac[35]. Avem de-a face, deci, cu o transcendere a realului, timpul „stă în loc”, leneş, adormind îmbătat de mireasma macului. La Trakl, în poezia Sommer, ni se înfăţişează momentul serii, când plânsetul cucului (Am Abend schweigt die Klage de Kuckucks[36]) tace, iar cântecul greierului moare (Das alte Lied der Grille erstirbt im Feld[37]. Natura este cuprinsă de o tăcere prevestitoare de furtună – căci nori negri de ploaie se adună pe cer (Schwarzes Gewitter droht über dem Hügel[38]). Deşi cântectul greierilor şi macul apar ca motive în poeziile ambilor poeţi, ele sunt înzestrate la Blaga cu un sens transcendent, care la Trakl lipseşte. Acestea nu sunt, însă singurele diferenţe, căci, atât tematic, cât şi formal, poezia blagiană se apropie, după cum am observat, mult mai mult de opera şi viziunea lui Rilke.

Sentimentul şi realitatea morţii sunt alte elemente care unesc opera blagiană de cea a lui Rilke. Eul liric blagian priveşte moartea ca pe un dat necesar, pe care îl aşteaptă împăcat, iar odată venită, moartea nu înseamnă sfârşitul, ci o contopire cu universul: Gândul meu şi veşnicia seamănă/ ca nişte gemeni[39]. Moartea nu aduce cu sine „guri sfărâmate”, ca în poezia lui Trakl, ci împăcare: tu inimă eşti liniştită-acum! Adverbul de timp sugerează că această liniştire adevărată a inimii este posibilă doar în moarte, astfel încât ea ajunge să fie aşteptată de omul obosit de vâltorile vieţii. Reintegrarea în univers se vădeşte şi din versul desprinse dintr-un pom, care-a crescut din mine. Suferinţa eului liric nu vine, ca în poezia lui Trakl, din cauze exterioare, ci din interior, din adâncurile firii: eram aşa de obosit/ şi sufeream./ Eu cred că sufeream de prea mult suflet[40]. Totuşi, suferinţa nu este însoţită de strigăte şi vaiete, ci e primită cu resemnare şi raportată la univers: Pierdut – m-am întrebat:/ Soare,/ cum mai simţi nebuna bucurie/ de-a răsări? O altă diferenţă faţă de suferinţa din opera lui Trakl este aceea că eul liric găseşte o eliberare din aceasta – prin simbioza, la fel ca în poezia lui Rilke, dintre trecut şi viitor, care se împletesc într-un prezent continuu, în care eul liric se caută pe sine, cel trecut:  aiurind mă căutam în leagănul bătrân/ cu mâinile pe mine însumi –/ ca prunc.

Asemănări cu opera lui Rilke găsim şi în descrierea poetică blagiană a toamnei. Pentru Rilke, la fel ca şi pentru Blaga, toamna corespunde într-un plan superior unei pregătiri pentru moarte, însă este o pregătire plină de calm şi de aşteptare: vara a fost lungă[41]. Eul liric rilkeian cere pârgă pentru poamele târzii[42], încă două zile de căldură, în care să se scalde/ o ultimă dulceaţă în vinul greu din vii. Toate acestea sunt o amânare a morţii, însă spre o mai deplină împlinire şi desăvârşire a sufletului, motiv care apare, în legătură cu toamna, şi la Blaga, când spune: Toamna surâzi îngăduitor pe toate cărările./ Toamna toţi oamenii încap laolaltă./ Iar noi cei altădat’ atât de răi/ azi suntem buni (…)[43]. Toamna la Trakl este aducătoare de nelinişti, de amintiri şi speranţe îngropate (Erinnerungen, begrabne Hoffnung[44]), grădina este părăginită (der verfallne Garten[45]), iar sentimentele sunt de durere, tristeţe (Schwermut[46]), în timp ce din pleoape se preling necontenit lacrimi (Daß von blauen Lidern Tränen stürzen). Sentimentul de împlinire şi aşteptare este înlocuit, de Trakl, prin tristeţe şi suferinţă, bogăţia de culori şi roduri din opera lui Rilke şi Blaga, de veştejire şi putrezire.

3. Concluzie

Deşi avem de-a face cu un triunghi expresionist – apartenenţa niciunuia dintre cei trei poeţi la expresionism neputând fi negată – putem cu uşurinţă observa apropierea operei blagiene de cea a lui Rilke şi îndepărtarea ei de cea a lui Trakl. Chiar şi acolo unde se întâlnesc motive comune atât operei lui Blaga, cât şi celei a lui Trakl, cel dintâi înzestrează acele motive cu capacităţi metafizice, transcendentale, depărtându-se, astfel, de simpla prezentare a realităţii prin intermediul sentimentelor. Blaga creează o altă realitate, un alt univers, care are doar vagi puncte de întâlnire cu cel real.

Iar acest univers blagian este estetizat,  plasticizat – punct de puternică asemănare cu opera lui Rilke, care practică şi el un expresionism îmblânzit, transcendental. Asemănările dintre cei doi poeţi nu pot fi trecute cu vederea, iar dacă ţinem seama şi de faptul că Blaga s-a raportat mereu la Rilke (dedicându-i chiar o poezie, unde îl identifică cu Poetul prin excelenţă), putem înţelege şi recunoaşte efectul catalitic al operei lui Rilke asupra celei blagiene. Influenţa lui este, după cum am arătat, esenţială pentru estetizarea expresionismului blagian, care nu poate fi în niciun caz redusă la „altoirea” expresionismului pe fondul folcloric românesc, deci la „autohtonizarea” lui, ci este un fenomen mult mai complex, ce îşi trage sevele şi din formaţia culturală a poetului şi din influenţa exercitată de expresionismul rilkeian asupra operei sale.

Bibliografie

1. Blaga, Lucian, Opere vol. I, Poezii, Editura Minerva, Bucureşti, 1974;
2. Crohmălniceanu, Ovid S., Literatura română şi expresionismul, Editura Minerva, Bucureşti 1978;
3. Doinaş, Ştefan Aug., Lectura poeziei urmată de  Tragic şi demonic, Editura Cartea Românească, Bucureşti, 1980;
4. Gană, George, Opera literară a lui Lucian Blaga, Editura Minerva, Bucureşti 1976;
5. Mariş, Ioan, Lucian Blaga – Clasicizarea expresionismului românesc, Editura Imago, Sibiu, 1998;
6. Mincu, Marian, O panoramă critică a poeziei româneşti din secolul al XX-lea, Editura Pontica, Constanţă, 2007
7. Paleologu, Alexandru, Spiritul şi litera. Încercări de pseudocritică, Editura Cartea Românească, Ediţia a II-a, Bucureşti, 2007

Surse online

1. http://deutsch.agonia.net/index.php/poetry/139549/Allerseelen
2. http://www.lyrik-lesezeichen.de/gedichte/georg_trakl.php
3. http://www.dan-danila.de/rilke.htm
4. http://deutsch.agonia.net/index.php/poetry/130438/Sommer
5. http://www.textlog.de/19450.html

[2] George Gană, Opera literară a lui Lucian Blaga, Editura Minerva, Bucureşti 1976, p. 85

[3] Ibidem, p. 317

[4] Ibidem, pp. 75-76

[5] Ibidem, p. 268

[6] Ştefan Aug. Doinaş, Lectura poeziei urmată de  Tragic şi demonic, Editura Cartea Românească, Bucureşti, 1980, p. 18

[7] Alexandru Paleologu, Spiritul şi litera. Încercări de pseudocritică, Editura Cartea Românească, Ediţia a II-a, Bucureşti, 2007, p. 263

[8] Georg Trakl, Allerseelen, http://deutsch.agonia.net/index.php/poetry/139549/Allerseelen ; ultima accesare: 23.10.2009

[9] Ibidem

[10] Ibidem

[11] Georg Trakl, Grodek, http://www.lyrik-lesezeichen.de/gedichte/georg_trakl.php ; ultima accesare: 23.10.2009

[12] Ibidem

[13] Ibidem

[14] Ibidem

[15] Ibidem

[16] Ibidem

[17] Ibidem

[18] Ibidem

[19] Marian Mincu, O panoramă critică a poeziei româneşti din secolul al XX-lea, Editura Pontica, Constanţă, 2007, pp. 241-242

[20] Rainer Maria Rilke, Cuvintele banale, umilite tare, trad. de Dan Dănilă, http://www.dan-danila.de/rilke.htm ; ultima accesare: 23.10.2009

[21] Ibidem

[22] Ibidem

[23] Idem, Doar între zi şi noapte sunt acasă, trad. de Dan Dănilă, http://www.dan-danila.de/rilke.htm ; ultima accesare: 23.10.2009

[24] Ibidem

[25] Ibidem

[26] Ibidem

[27] Ibidem

[28] Idem, Căci noi suntem doar coajă, frunze rare, trad. de Dan Dănilă, http://www.dan-danila.de/rilke.htm ; ultima accesare: 23.10.2009

[29] Ibidem

[30] Ibidem

[31] Marin Mincu, op. cit., p. 242

[32] Ibidem

[33] Lucian Blaga, Opere vol. I, Poezii, Editura Minerva, Bucureşti, 1974, p. 85

[34] Ibidem

[35] Ibidem

[36] Georg Trakl, Sommer, http://deutsch.agonia.net/index.php/poetry/130438/Sommer ; ultima accesare: 23.10.2009

[37] Ibidem

[38] Ibidem

[39] Lucian Blaga, Gândurile unui mort, op. cit., p. 91

[40] Lucian Blaga, Leagănul, op. cit., p. 88

[41] Rainer Maria Rilke, Zi de toamnă, http://www.dan-danila.de/rilke.htm ; ultima accesare: 23.10.2009

[42] Ibidem

[43] Lucian Blaga, Bunătate de toamnă, op. cit., p. 153

[44] Georg Trakl, Herbstliche Heimkehr, http://www.textlog.de/19450.html ; ultima accesare: 23.10.2009

[45] Ibidem

[46] Ibidem

Am Wege wachsen weiße Schneebeeren

und schwarze Ligusterbeeren.

Schwarz mit etwas Weiß ist außerdem Lena, meine treue Hausgenossin.

Rainer Maria Rilke
Schwarze Katze

Ein Gespenst ist noch wie eine Stelle,
dran dein Blick mit einem Klange stößt;
aber da, an diesem schwarzen Felle
wird dein stärkstes Schauen aufgelöst:

wie ein Tobender, wenn er in vollster
Raserei ins Schwarze stampft,
jählings am benehmenden Gepolster
einer Zelle aufhört und verdampft.

Alle Blicke, die sie jemals trafen,
scheint sie also an sich zu verhehlen,
um darüber drohend und verdrossen
zuzuschauern und damit zu schlafen.
Doch auf einmal kehrt sie, wie geweckt,
ihr Gesicht und mitten in das deine:
und da triffst du deinen Blick im geelen
Amber ihrer runden Augensteine
unerwartet wieder: eingeschlossen
wie ein ausgestorbenes Insekt.

“Do I contradict myself?
Very well, then I contradict myself,
(I am large. I contain multitudes.)”

-Walt Whitman

“I’m going to try speaking some reckless words,
and I want you to try to listen recklessly.”

-Chuang Tzu

Once the realization is accepted that
even between the closest human beings
infinite distances continue,
a wonderful living side by side can grow,
if they succeed in loving the distance between them
which makes it possible for each to see the other
whole against the sky.

-Rainer Maria Rilke

I’d heard Rilke’s name thrown around here and there for years before I read any of his work. It was a mention, in passing, in Gravity’s Rainbow that finally sparked enough interest in me to go out and find a copy of the Duino Elegies. Weissmann, captain Blicero, Chief of “Pain-land,” “Carrying in his kit a copy of the Duino Elegies, just off the presses when he embarked for Südwest, a gift from mother at the boat, the odor of new ink dizzying his nights as the old freighter plunged tropic after tropic . . . until the constellations, like the new stars of Pain-land, had become all unfamiliar and the earth’s seasons reversed . . . and he came ashore in a high-prowed wooden boat that had 20 years earlier brought blue-trousered troops in from the iron road-stead to crush the great Herero Rising” (99). If only they could dizzy my nights. How could I not be roused to read them at this point (for those unfamiliar with Weissmann/Blicero, check this out, searching for Captain Dominus Blicero: http://www.answers.com/topic/gravity-s-rainbow-characters).

After I finish GR, I’m on to the Elegies. The local library didn’t have copy, nor an anthology containing the Elegies, so I waited for my Amazon order to arrive, and read the Letters to a Young Poet in the meantime. I didn’t remember that I had an old copy of the Letters, a free book from somewhere along the road . . . they seemed like a logical introduction to the Elegies heading my way.

Stunning. I have to use the word stunning. My main thought was: how have I not read this? how did I study literature for four years without reading these letters? how have I been writing fiction, poetry without this advice? It reminds of that book, “Read Kafka Before You Waste Your Life,” or something like that. Ah, yes, Kafka. I haven’t read him either. Looks like its going to be Germans for a while. . . .

On to the Elegies. Duino? I thought these were going to be some German evocation of El Cid along the Duoro, but, alas, it was not to be. Duino is a castle where Rilke was staying, and where he composed most of these Elegies . . . at least significant amounts of them, of which he finished at home. So the idyllic castle gives a dying poet his last breath . . . how surreal. So far this is the furthest things from Blicero. I guess I should always keep in mind that these are elegies after all. . . .

*Note: I am reading from The Essential Rilke, selected and translated by Galaway Kinnell and Hannah Liebmann. It is very possible that these translations are not the final word on Rilke in English. Quotes will have the line numbers noted, in parenthesis, once the quote is complete (for reference).

The First Elegy

This elegy, and thus the entire sequence of elegies, begins, “Who, if I screamed out, would hear among the hierarchies / of angels?” (1-2). A cry for help to start off? Is this series of poems Rilke screaming out, wondering who will hear him, which deities will take note? After all, Rilke is looking beyond humans here, and straight into those above. If he were noted, however, by an angel, he “would perish from his stronger existence” (3-4). Herein lies a great paradox . . . the recognition only decreases his ability to be recognized. Another translation reads (possibly more clearly) as such: “I would die of the force of his being.” Either way, the recognition would destroy the recognized. Gaddis, anyone?

Rilke then proposes another paradox, furthering the aforementioned by intertwining beauty: “For beauty is nothing / but the onset of terror we’re still just able to bear, /  and we admire it so because it calmly disdains / to destroy us” (4-7). Another translation suggests that we are “amazed when it casually spares us.” I like the first translation, I think. There’s something so hauntingly paradoxical there, like women and abusive men, or dogs liking only those who ignore them at first. Maybe we like the challenge, the fear that beauty will destroy us, and take our beauty, like recognition and the recognized . . . and that effervescent fear of disappearance gives us just enough of a thrill to keep going for it. For, although we love angels, and what they may bring, “Every angel is terrifying” (7).

“And so I hold back and swallow the lure-call of dark sobbing” (8). The speaker, opening the second stanza, commits, in some way, to pushing forward, to maintain himself despite the pain of living, or the pain caused by living. But we need help to get through these times, the speaker suggests, and who can help us? Not angels, nor humans or ourselves. Who, then? Something insightful, for they “already note we’re not very securely at home in the interpreted world” (11-13). This line truly fascinates me. Is the aforementioned terror of the poem, from the angels to beauty, simply affecting those who seek to interpret the world, i.e. poets? Maybe this brings forth another paradox: the more knowledge we attain, the more we seek to interpret—the more we seek to interpret, the less secure and more uncomfortable we are within our now interpreted world. This reminds me of the ancient ouroboros, and, of course, Gaddis and The Recognitions.

The speaker then asks, in attempt to resolve the above issues, “Is it easier for lovers?” (22). What a wonderful question. Isn’t this the eternal question, the question that every person not in love asks of those in love, especially when lovers (as they always do) seem so content in the world, free of the problems that nag at the rest of us? Ah, yes, is it easier to live in this world for lovers? It must be, right? Ah! No! “Oh, they use each other to hide themselves from their fate. Don’t you know that yet?” (23-24). Yes, I do know that! How have I forgotten? This line is just so perfect, so on the money, and so obvious yet enigmatic. I wonder why that is . . .

The poem then takes a sort of motivational turn, as the speaker tries to reassure the lonely poet, the lonely whomever who is insecure in the interpreted world. “Yes, the springtimes needed you. There were stars counting on you to sense them” (28-29). Why the past tense? Well, this is an elegy, after all. And these lines especially remind of Katje and Enzian counting on Slothrop in Gravity’s Rainbow. In the spring, In the Zone, Katje and Enzian are all but lost to the world, their lord Blicero gone with the wind, them needing someone, something, to know them, sense them though they must remain discreet, and help them: Slothrop. And the “you” the speaker directs his attention towards is becoming to sound more and more like Slothrop—or maybe any self-conscious good-to-do person in the world: “Weren’t you always distracted by expectation, as if all these announced the arrival of a beloved? (Where will you tuck her away, with all those great strange thoughts going in and out and often spending the night) (33-37). In this despair, this speaker suggests singing of the lovers, the forsaken ones, who you almost envy. Be a hero: “heroes live on, even their downfall was only a way of attaining: their final birth” (43-44). How true is that? The death brings about the biggest and final resurgence interest, turning hero to legend. The speaker continues advising “you” to free yourself from a lover and endure it, for lovers only hide behind each other, and “staying put is nowhere” (56).

The poem ends with the speaker meditating on being dead, or at least not being of this Earth any longer. In this death, the speaker finds it “strange, of course, no longer to inhabit the earth, no longer to practice barely learned customs, not to give roses and other auspicious things the meaning of a human future” (73-76).

Is the legend to no purpose that, long ago, in the mourning for Linos,
a daring first music broke through the benumbed desolation;
and in the terrified space that an almost godlike youth
suddenly quit forever, the void first resonated
with the vibration that now enraptures, consoles, and helps us (95-99).

sagte die ältere BuchhändlerinDame damals, die mir vor rund 20 Jahren den dicken schönen Rilke Gedichtband verkauft hat. Ein Insel Taschenbuch, über 1000 Seiten Dünndruck. Ein Schatz, eine Investition in die Zukunft, und was für eine.

Du sagtest leben laut und sterben leise
und wiederholtest immer wieder: Sein.

The leaves are falling, falling as if from far up,
as if orchards were dying high in space.
Each leaf falls as if it were motioning “no.”

And tonight the heavy earth is falling
away from all other stars in the loneliness.

We’re all falling. This hand here is falling.
And look at the other one. It’s in them all.

And yet there is Someone, whose hands
infinitely calm, holding up all this falling.

— by Rainer Maria Rilke

(Painting: Egon Schiele, “Four Trees,” 1917)

Last night, I stumbled on a wonderful collection of poems. Do bookmark this link and keep it for a moment when you want to relax.

For this morning, at a time when the economies of the UK and the US are about to become very turbulent, it is good to read a poem from German poet, Rainer Rilke.

…I would like to beg you dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.

Rainer Maria Rilke, 1903

in Letters to a Young Poet

It is so hard to think about living without a clear goal.  We’ve been taught to be wilful rather than curious.

Maybe the first question is what it would feel like to turn all my goals today into questions?

What would it be like to get up?  What will it like to have a shower?

Just to ask a series of questions?

.

Exposed on the heart’s mountains. Look, how

small there!

look, the last hamlet of words, and, higher,

(but still how small!) yet one remaining

farmstead of feeling: d’you see it?

Exposed on the heart’s mountains. Virgin rock

under the hands. Though even here

something blooms : from the dumb precipice

an unknowing plant blooms singing into the air.

But what of the knower? Ah, he began to know

and holds his peace, exposed on the heart’s

mountains.

While, with undivided mind,

many, maybe, many well-assured mountain beasts,

pass there and pause, And the mighty sheltered bird

circles the summits’ pure refusal.  - But,  oh,

no longer sheltered, here on the heart’s mountains….

.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

.

I’m feeling lonely today. Go ahead, call me an emo child. Boo hoo.

So I thought I’d read some poems on loneliness. I found some I really liked so I decided to put it up here.

Loneliness

by Rainer Maria Rilke

translated by Robert Bly

Being apart and lonely is like rain.
It climbs toward evening from the ocean plains;
from flat places, rolling and remote, it climbs
to heaven, which is its old abode.
And only when leaving heaven drops upon the city.

It rains down on us in those twittering
hours when the streets turn their faces to the dawn,
and when two bodies who have found nothing,
dissapointed and depressed, roll over;
and when two people who despise eachother
have to sleep together in one bed-

that is when loneliness receives the rivers…

Evening Solace

by Charlotte Bronte

The human heart has hidden treasures,
In secret kept, in silence sealed;­
The thoughts, the hopes, the dreams, the pleasures,
Whose charms were broken if revealed.
And days may pass in gay confusion,
And nights in rosy riot fly,
While, lost in Fame’s or Wealth’s illusion,
The memory of the Past may die.

But, there are hours of lonely musing,
Such as in evening silence come,
When, soft as birds their pinions closing,
The heart’s best feelings gather home.
Then in our souls there seems to languish
A tender grief that is not woe;
And thoughts that once wrung groans of anguish,
Now cause but some mild tears to flow.

And feelings, once as strong as passions,
Float softly back­a faded dream;
Our own sharp griefs and wild sensations,
The tale of others’ sufferings seem.
Oh ! when the heart is freshly bleeding,
How longs it for that time to be,
When, through the mist of years receding,
Its woes but live in reverie !

And it can dwell on moonlight glimmer,
On evening shade and loneliness;
And, while the sky grows dim and dimmer,
Feel no untold and strange distress­
Only a deeper impulse given
By lonely hour and darkened room,
To solemn thoughts that soar to heaven,
Seeking a life and world to come.

.

.

Everything beckons to us to perceive it,

murmurs at every turn ‘Remember me!’

A day we passed. too busy to receive it.

will  yet unlock us all its treasury.

.

Who shall compute our harvest? Who shall bar

us from the former years, the long-departed?

What have we learnt from living since we started,

except to find in others what we are?

.

Except to re-enkindle commonplace?

O house, O sloping field, O setting sun!

Your features form into a face, you run

you cling to us, returning our embrace!

.

One space spreads though all creatures equally -

inner-world-space. Birds quietly flying go

flying though us.  Oh, I that want to grow,

the tree I look outside at grows in me!

.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

.

]]> http://joyfuleyes.wordpress.com/2009/11/13/palm-of-the-hand/ Sat, 14 Nov 2009 03:19:35 +0000 joyfuleyes http://joyfuleyes.wordpress.com/2009/11/13/palm-of-the-hand/

.

Palm of the hand. Sole that walks now

only on feeling. It turns over,

becomes a mirror,

show sky roads, which

themselves are walking.

It has learned to walk on water,

when it dips down,

moves on springs,

causes all roads to fork.

Comes forward into other palms,

those like itself

turn into a countryside,

through them it travels and arrives,

fills them with having arrived.

.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

.

.

Happy who know that behind all speeches

still the unspeakable lies;

that it’s from there that greatness reaches

us in the form we prize!

.

Trusting not to the diversely fashioned

bridges of difference we outfling:

so that we gaze out of every impassioned

joy at some wholly communal thing.

.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

.

Whilst astride The Porcelain Pony the other day, I read from Bill Wyman’s autobiography, Stone Alone. I’d been listening to The Rolling Stones a lot in recent weeks and had begun thumbing through the worn paperback to get a sense of some of the people and times behind their early music. I’d had the book since high school but hadn’t touched it since then; I recalled quickly that it doesn’t stray far from this formula, repeated in nearly every chapter: take straightforward, somewhat dry (if still mildly fascinating) descriptions of chronological events taken from Wyman’s journals, add frequent complaints about not seeing enough of the money they raked in, and multiply that by mostly chaste (yet copious) accounts of bedding loads of girls.

It ain’t poetry, and it isn’t exactly deeply insightful (as Richards himself can be, surprisingly, albeit near-unintelligibly), but it’s worth the time of a music enthusiast (pointless aside: I resist the current practice of calling myself a “nerd” or a “geek” about any and every interest I have) steeping himself in the anecdotal artifacts of a favorite group.

But I digress.

As I read on through to the end, where the books drops us off in 1969, just after the death of guitarist and early bandleader Brian Jones, I arrived at a moving passage that describes Mick Jagger reading part of Shelley’s “Adonaïs” in a tribute to Jones during their first concert after his alleged drowning. Essentially, Jagger painted Jones as a heroic figure by framing him in this context, and he did so broadly: Jones was the sparkplug for the band, playing for and managing them from their earliest days as a blues and R&B outfit. As such, he had been a hero to not just Jagger, but to all (or, at least many musicians and fans–Jones was far from heroic as a husband and father, as the book confides), and yet, as such a figure of praise, he was not dead through the life of the body of his work.

Sure, it’s a little overwrought, but touching nonetheless.

But, then something strange happened that got me thinking about my own heroes. You see, the, erm, pasture in which the Porcelain Pony grazes is within hearing (and, well, viewing) distance of an old television, and I clearly heard a familiar, gruff, and authoritative voice–echoing back to my childhood–issue forth from the tinny TV speakers. I hastily tried to put a face to the voice; I suddenly felt the urge to stay in school and say “no” to drugs, to refashion myself as some sort of soldier of fortune and take orders only from elderly, cigar-smoking white guys with impending emphysema and possible early-onset dementia. A desperate compulsion overtook me to hang out with the local gymnastics team to help them  ”solve mysteries” (as I assured my wife), and I resolved to, once and for all, treat my mother right.

And then it hit me like a Clubber Lang right-hook: It was Mr. T, and he had something to say. Maybe a much-needed positive, moral lesson, like from the Mister T cartoon, for all of us kids. Something to believe in. Maybe even a healthcare proposal that a cautiously hopeful country could rally behind. An unexpected and eloquent defense of The Privacy Scarf. Something!

Unfortunately, that message was this: buy a FlavorWave Oven Turbo. O, B.A. Baracas! How could you?!

How could I bear to see him don an apron and trot out his catch-phrases, one after another, in the service of this new-fangled fleecing (a marvel of cutting-edge technology that uses heat and air to cook food)? Why, T looked like some kind of mincing, mowhawked, and (e)masculated Fred Sanfordian junk pusher! Was he truly just a self-interested shill, a swirling void of hollow, meaningless slogans wrapped in a blinged-out role-model facade?

I’d patterned so much of my life, my upright carriage, my ridiculous beard, and my demand for chemical sedation on airplanes after him. Maybe my childhood hero was less the Adonaïs of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s elegy and more that of Rilke’s Samson, the hero revealed to be false via the subtle employment of self-contradictory images, in the Sixth Duino Elegy. Or some shit.

What if he never was a hero? For every sorta-cool appearance or endorsement (hilarious Conan cameos, World of Warcraft spots, donating money to Katrina victims), there’s been an obvious, ugly cash grab (those cheap-ass Mr. T dolls; nothing else explains Silver Spoons). I fear that I placed him upon too high a pedestal–I know I’d be exploiting every opportunity that came my way if I were in his place. Screw integrity; you won’t see me waving away the dump truck full of money if it ever backs up to my front door. I’ll endorse anything if it frees me from doing any more “monkey tricks for little green rectangles,” as Dennis Miller phrased it, back when he was still cool. What would you do?

Furthermore, maybe I shouldn’t even put so much stock in heroes, or the concept of the hero, especially given that they may be only superficially so (like Brian Jones, like Samson). Maybe, like Rilke, I should put more effort into imaginative self-actualization than in constructing or coveting the ideal in another and move beyond. Or, to paraphrase it as John Lennon put it via Ferris Bueller’s lips, I should stop believing in Beatles and just believe in me.

Or perhaps I should save such pseudo-profound rumination for the Pony rides. Still, I anxiously await the imminent arrival of Rowdy Roddy Piper’s Supercharged HaggisBlaster Pro™, and I’ll try to keep this water-closet wisdom alive.

.

From seeing and seeing the seeing has become so exhausted

it no longer sees anything anymore.

The world is made of bars, a hundred thousand

bars, and behind the bars, nothing.

.

The lithe swinging of theat rhythmical easy stride

that slowly circles down to a single point

is like a dance of energy around a hub,

in which a great will stands stunned and numbed.

.

At times the curtains of the eye lift

without a sound – then a shape enters,

slips through the tightened silence of the shoulders,

reaches the heart and dies.

.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

.

www.textenet.de

Freitag, 20. November 2009 um 19:30 Uhr

Werkstatt für Kunstprojekte
Jens Paul Wollenberg und Uta Pilling – „Ein Bericht für eine Akademie“
Jens Paul Wollenberg liest „Ein Bericht für eine Akademie“ von Franz Kafka, Musik: Uta Pilling

Freitag, 20. November 2009 um 20:00 Uhr

Galerie Koenitz:
Bild und Bildner – Texte zur bildenden Kunst
Texte zur Bildenden Kunst mit Interessierten aus Bildender Kunst und Literatur: u.a. Rosemarie Fret, Jutta Pillat und Ralph Grüneberger, Musik: Martin Höpfner

Freitag, 20. November 2009 um 21:00 Uhr

Galerie A und V:
Ronald M. Schernikau – Abend
Mit Tobias Amslinger und Hannes Becker

Samstag, 21. November 2009 um 16:00 Uhr

Werkstatt für Kunstprojekte:
Verlagspräsentation der Leipziger Belletristik-Verlage
Mit Verlag Faber & Faber, Plöttner Verlag – für den Verlag lesen: Reinhard Bernhof & Thomas Kunst, Poetenladen – für den Verlag lesen: Katharina Bendixen & Johanna Schwedes, Leipziger Literaturverlag – für den Verlag lesen: Viktor Kalinke & Carsten Zimmermann, Connewitzer Verlagsbuchhandlung, Passage Verlag, Mitteldeutscher Verlag – für den Verlag liest Jörg Jacob, PaperOne – für den Verlag treten auf: Volly Tanner & Wolfgang Flür (vom Schlagzeuger der Gruppe „Kraftwerk“ zum Schriftsteller), Zeitschrift EDIT, Carpe Plumbum, Poesiealbum neu, Buchverlag für die Frau – für den Verlag liest: Christel Foerster, edition vulcanus – für den Verlag lesen: Maren Uhlig & Elmar Schenkel, Edition TP, Ausgabe 1 – für den Verlag lesen Marcel Rabe & Thomas Jez

Samstag, 21. November 2009 um 20:00 Uhr

Galerie A und V:
Jürgen von der Wense-Abend
„Lest nicht die Times, lest die Ewigkeiten“ mit Konstantin Ames, Tobias Amslinger, Hannes Becker und Volker Baumann

Samstag, 21. November 2009 um 20:00 Uhr

Begegnungsstätte Mühlstraße:
„So traurig arm im irren Wind der Reisen“ – Rilke und Piano
Mit Stefanie Gersch und Janna Kagerer. Anschließend: „Tonotopy“ mit Lena (vocals, piano), Frank (guitar)

Samstag, 21. November 2009 um 21:00 Uhr

Werkstatt für Kunstprojekte:
„lauter niemand labor“ – EXTRA
Seit Jahren durchforstet die Zeitschrift „lauter niemand“ die Szene auf der Suche nach neuen Talenten. Im Anschluss an die Lesung das „lauter niemand labor“: Jeder kann sich mit eigenen Texten beteiligen. Die Texte bitte in mehreren Kopien mitbringen.

11:00 Uhr RT
Gedichte für Kinder – Poesiealbum „neu“
Kinder des Bleilaus-Verlages lesen ihre Lieblingsgedichte aus dem Poesiealbum. Der Bleilaus-Verlag wird sein Buch „ZYX – Neue Zungenbrecher“ präsentieren. Moderation: Ralph Grüneberger

19:00 Uhr VT
Muspilli – Lesung, Podiumsdiskussion & Konzert mit Bert Papenfuß & Friedrich Schorlemmer
Musik: Ensemble Thios Omilos, Ensemble phase drei, Thomas Becker, Michael Hain. Sprecher: Konstantin Ames. Moderation: Bertram Reinecke

21:00 Uhr RT
Nacht der Autoren
Zum Thema Sonett mit Ann Cotten, Brigitte Lange, Thomas Kunst, HEL & Andreas Reimann

23:00 Uhr VT
Weltuntergangslounge
Eine Sounds&Poetry-Inszenierung zwischen Todes-Meditation und „Muspilli“-Variationen, gestaltet von den Underwater Agents.

Montag, 23. November 2009 um 20:00 Uhr

Werkstatt für Kunstprojekte::
Floppy Myriapoda – Gegner
Subkommando für die freie Assoziation präsentiert: Eine floppy-myriapoda-Lesung mit Ann Cotten, Bert Papenfuß, Kai Pohl, Helko Reschitzki, Su, HEL ToussantT und Florian Günther.

Montag, 23. November 2009 um 20:30 Uhr

Galerie A und V:
„Einzimmerspringbrunnen“ – Buchpremiere
Mit Léonce W. Lupette & Tobias Amslinger

Montag, 23. November 2009 um 21:30 Uhr

Werkstatt für Kunstprojekte
Finissage der Ausstellung „Ehrliche Fälschung“
Mit Valeri Scherstjanoi. Lernen durch Nachahmung. Valeri Scherstjanoi erzählt über seine Begegnungen mit Carlfriedrich Claus und seiner Kunst und liest seine Lautgedichte aus jener Zeit.

Dienstag, 24. November 2009 um 19:00 Uhr

Stadtteilbibliothek Südvorstadt:
Umkreisungen – Die neue Anthologie des Poetenladens
Buchpremieren Leipziger Autoren in der Stadtbibliothek: Der Poetenladen stellt seine neue Anthologie „Umreisungen“ vor: Begrüßung: Andreas Heidtmann. Es lesen: Stefan Heuer & Lars Reyer, Musik: Wolfram Dix, Moderation: Jan Kuhlbrodt

Dienstag, 24. November 2009 um 19:30 Uhr

Café Westen
Studenten des Kompositionskurses von Bernd Franke bearbeiten Gegenwart-Literatur
Seit Jahre führt Bernd Franke Kompositionskurse durch. Dort entstand ein weites Spektrum der verschiedenartigen Arbeiten. Ein abwechslungsreicher Text-Musik-Abend unter anderem mit Kerstin Preiwuß und Dagmara Kraus.

Dienstag, 24. November 2009 um 20:00 Uhr

Werkstatt für Kunstprojekte:
„Entschuldigung wo geht’s ’n hier zur Revolution“
In Manfred Jendryschiks Notizen und Prosaminiaturen aus dem HerbstStraßenTageBuch von 1989 lebt eine Zeit auf, in der alles möglich schien

Dienstag, 24. November 2009 um 21:30 Uhr

Werkstatt für Kunstprojekte:
Versnetze 2 – Virtuelle Lesung
Unter anderen mit Johanna Schwedes und Angelika Janz. Moderation: Michael Gratz

Mittwoch, 25. November 2009 um 17:00 Uhr

Haus des Buches, Literaturhaus Leipzig:
Poetisches Podium IV/2009
„Sind Gedichte übersetzbar?“ Lesung mit Arne Braun und Thomas Eichborn. Moderation: Jan Zänker

Mittwoch, 25. November 2009 um 22:00 Uhr

Werkstatt für Kunstprojekte:
Preis-Gala des Michael-Linder-Literaturwettbewerbs
Es werden die beiden Gewinner der ausgeschriebenen Literaturpreise prämiert. Mit Live Musik von Thomas Becker.