Hans Faverey

Translated by Francis R. Jones and Lela Faverey

from Hommage à Hercules Seghers

Standing on a cliff
which is the beginning 
of a mountain,


and yet which plunges
in front of my eyes
into the sea,


I could sometimes 
long so strongly
for the inner sea in me 
that I had almost
become a self-outcast.




from Chrysanthemums, Rowers

The chrysanthemums,
which are in the vase on the table
by the window: those


are not the chrysanthemums 
which are by the window 
on the table
in the vase.


The wind which is bothering you 
and making a mess of your hair,


that is the wind which is messing your hair;
it is the wind you no longer 
want to be bothered by
when your hair is a mess.



*

Little by little –
they are drawing nearer: 8 rowers,
growing ever further inland


into their mythology:
with each stroke ever further 
from home, rowing with all their might;
growing till all the water is gone,
and they fill the whole landscape


to the brim. Eight –
rowing ever further inland;
landscape, for there is
no more water: overgrown
landscape. Landscape, 
rowing ever further 


inland; land
without rowers; over-
rown land.

​

Hans Faverey (1933-1990) was born in Paramaribo, in present-day Surinam, but moved to Amsterdam as a boy. Alongside his poetic work, he lectured in clinical psychology at Leiden University. Faverey is regarded as one of his generation’s leading poetic voices. His short, crystalline poems are often enigmatic, sometimes playful, sometimes serious. They explore the nature of language and perception, of motion and stillness, of existence and the nothingness that follows it. Two books of his poems, translated by Francis R. Jones, have appeared in English: the selection Against the Forgetting (Anvil, 1994; New Directions, 2004), and the collection Chrysanthemums, Rowers (Leon Works, 2013). 






From Chrysanthemums, Rowers (Leon Works, Providence RI, 2013).
The originals are in Gedichten 1962-1990, De Bezige Bij, Amsterdam, 2010

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