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      • PUT YOUR HANDS ON ME: POETRY'S EROTIC ART by Elena Karina Byrne
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Nachoem M. Wijnberg

Translated by David Colmer

First This, then That


Writing, then waiting;
           waiting, then writing;
a poem, then a goodbye, 
           then visiting someone.


Longing, then choosing;
           exams, then waking with a start from exams;
visiting someone,
           then making him leave his house.


He’s run away frightened, 
          won’t be coming back.
Waiting the night in his house,
          in the morning doing what I would otherwise forget.



Research Report


I talk to doctors who have won the lottery: immediately after they have heard the news and then every two, three years.
The first time I ask them what they are planning to do with the money, later I ask what they have done with it.
They are almost always willing to answer, even if they have lost it all again, and the first time I talk to them I do not contradict them if they think I work for the lottery. 
There are only a few who have lost it all, most of them have bought a new house and something else they had always wanted and put the rest in the bank.
Of all the doctors I talk to, there is only one whose wife left him after he had won.
It made him feel sick at heart for a few days, but once he had also spent a week longing for a woman who was dead.
At the end of that week the longing diminished, but then he realised that he had now really lost her.
Most contented are the ones who give some of it away each year: to a local hospital, for instance, to buy a new bed.
If I could do something new this late in life I would study medicine, because doctors try even harder for colleagues.
The sick doctors I talk to tell me that this is really true, and that it’s a shame that I am not in any way a colleague.
Not even if I have studied everything they have studied, because if I had already done something else before, I could be a doctor and do something else on the side, or I would know what they know in a different way, because of studying it so late. 




Something Else    


When I was a child I could have pretended I was sleeping next to someone I loved. 
           Perhaps later I would have needed less nights to learn how.


All the things I shouldn’t have done when I was a child, didn’t I have anything else to do then?
           Every night I tried to imagine what it would be like if I loved someone, isn’t that enough?


If I can say that I am so slow I always arrive late, then I have something.
            If I can say that there are more examples than necessary, I can take one back.


My father said it helped to think of something I can look at for a long time, 
            A sailing ship on the water for instance, or whatever I can look at for a long time.


Poetry is the creation of meaning, nothing else.
            Each time Ghalib thinks up a new meaning, God wants him to exchange it for something else.


A poem brings the day of deciding closer, a dream about a poem gives a day’s respite.
            Where words mean something, Ghalib’s are law.

​
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Nachoem M. Wijnberg (b. 1961) is a highly prolific poet and novelist whose poetry has received many Dutch and Belgian awards, including the prestigious VSB Prize for the best book of poetry in 2009. His work covers a wide thematic and stylistic range and has been translated into many languages, from Chinese to Italian. Books in English include Advance Payment (Anvil Press/Carcanet, 2013), Divan of Ghalib (White Pine Press, 2016) and Of Great Importance, forthcoming (Punctum, 2018). Wijnberg is also a professor at the University of Amsterdam Business School.








 ‘First This, Then That’ and ‘Research Report’ are from Advance Payment, Anvil Press Poetry, London, 2013
http://www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/indexer?product=9780856464508 

‘Something Else’ is from Divan of Ghalib, White Pine Press, Buffalo, New York, 2016;
​

The originals are from Eerst dit, dan dat, Contact, Amsterdam, 2004; Het leven van, Contact, Amsterdam, 2008; and Divan van Ghalib, Contact, Amsterdam, 2010 respectively.


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​VerseVille (formerly The Enchanting Verses Literary Review) © 2008-2022    ISSN 0974-3057 Published from India. 

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  • Home
  • About Us
    • Contact
    • Media Coverages
    • Copyright Notice
    • VerseVille Blog
  • Submissions
    • Poetry and Essays Guidelines
    • Book Review Guidelines
    • Research Series Guidelines
  • Masthead
  • Editions
    • 2011 Issues >
      • ISSUE-XIV November 2011
    • 2012 Issues >
      • ISSUE-XV March 2012
      • ISSUE-XVI July 2012
      • ISSUE-XVII November 2012
    • 2013 Issues >
      • ISSUE-XVIII April 2013
      • ISSUE XIX November 2013
    • 2014 Issues >
      • ISSUE XX May 2014
    • 2015 Issues >
      • ISSUE XXI February 2015
      • Contemporary Indian English Poetry ISSUE XXII November 2015
    • 2016 Issues >
      • ISSUE XXIII August 2016
      • Poetry From Ireland ISSUE XXIV December 2016
    • 2017 ISSUES >
      • ISSUE XXV August 2017
      • ISSUE XXVI December 2017
    • 2018 ISSUES >
      • ISSUE XXVII July 2018
      • ISSUE XXVIII November 2018
    • 2019 Issues >
      • ISSUE XXIX July 2019
    • 2020 ISSUES >
      • Issue XXX February 2020
      • ISSUE XXXI December 2020
    • 2021 ISSUES >
      • ISSUE XXXII August 2021
    • 2022 ISSUES >
      • ISSUE XXXIII June 2022
      • ISSUE XXXIV December 2022
  • Collaborations
    • Macedonian Collaboration
    • Collaboration with Dutch Foundation for Literature
  • Interviews
  • Prose on Poetry and Poets
    • 2010-2013 >
      • Sylvia Plath by Dr. Nidhi Mehta >
        • Chapter-1(Sylvia Plath)
        • Chapter-2(Sylvia Plath)
        • Chapter-3(Sylvia Plath)
        • Chapter-4(Sylvia Plath)
        • Chapter-5(Sylvia Plath)
        • Chapter-6(Sylvia Plath)
      • Prose Poems of Tagore by Dr. Bina Biswas >
        • Chapter-1(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-2(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-3(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-4(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-5(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-6(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-7(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-8(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-9(Rabindranath Tagore)
      • Kazi Nazrul Islam by Dr. Shamenaz Shaikh >
        • Chapter 1(Nazrul Islam)
        • Chapter 2(Nazrul Islam)
        • Chapter 3(Nazrul Islam)
      • Kabir's Poetry by Dr. Anshu Pandey >
        • Chapter 1(Kabir's Poetry)
        • Chapter 2(Kabir's Poetry)
        • Chapter 3(Kabir's Poetry)
      • My mind's not right by Dr. Vicky Gilpin >
        • Chapter- 1 Dr. Vicky Gilpin
        • Chapter-2 Dr. Vicky Gilpin
        • Chapter-3 Dr. Vicky Gilpin
        • Chapter-4 Dr. Vicky Gilpin
      • On Poetry & Poets by Abhay K.
      • Poetry of Kamla Das –A True Voice Of Bourgeoisie Women In India by Dr.Shikha Saxena
      • Identity Issues in the Poetry of Nissim Ezekiel by Dr.Arvind Nawale & Prashant Mothe*
      • Nissim Ezekiel’s Latter-Day Psalms: His Religious and Philosophical Speculations By Dr. Pallavi Srivastava
      • The Moping Owl : the Epitome of Melancholy by Zinia Mitra
      • Gary Soto’s Vision of Chicano Experiences: The Elements of San Joaquin and Human Nature by Paula Hayes
      • Sri Aurobindo: A Poet By Aju Mukhopadhyay
      • Wordsworthian Romanticism in the Poetry of Jayanta Mahapatra: Nature and the Reflective Capabilities of a Poetic Self by Paula Hayes
      • Reflective Journey of T.S. Eliot: From Philosophy to Poetry by Syed Ahmad Raza Abidi
      • North East Indian Poetry: ‘Peace’ in Violence by Ananya .S. Guha
    • 2014-2015 >
      • From The Hidden World of Poetry: Unravelling Celtic mythology in Contemporary Irish Poetry Adam Wyeth
      • Alchemy’s Drama: Conflict, Resolution and Poiesis in the Poetic Work of Art by Michelle Bitting
      • Amir Khushrau: The Musical Soul of India by Dr. Shamenaz
      • PUT YOUR HANDS ON ME: POETRY'S EROTIC ART by Elena Karina Byrne
      • Celtic and Urban Landscapes in Irish Poetry by Linda Ibbotson
      • Trickster at the African Crossroads and the Bridge to the Blues in America by Michelle Bitting
    • 2015-2016 >
      • Orogeny/Erogeny: The “nonsense” of language and the poetics of Ed Dorn T Thilleman
      • Erika Burkart: Fragments, Shards, and Visions by Marc Vincenz
      • English Women Poets and Indian politics
    • 2016-2017 >
      • Children’s Poetry in India- A Case Study of Adil Jussawalla and Ananya Guha by Shruti Sareen
      • Thirteen Thoughts on Poetry in the Digital Age by Mandy kAHN
    • 2017-2018 >
      • From Self-Portrait with Dogwood: A Route of Evanescence by Christopher Merrill
      • Impure Poetry by Tony Barnstone
      • On the Poets: Contributors in Context by Donald Gardner
      • Punching above its Weight: Dutch Poetry in English, a Selection, 2013-2017 by Jane Draycott
  • Print Editions