Poetry from the Low Countries: Eire by Manuel Kneepkens

Tuesday, 29 December 2015

Eire by Manuel Kneepkens

Eire

What am I to do in this rain-drenched
moss-green
island

the sun
sets there
whiskey-coloured

visit a Pub, I think
and from there
drunk...

-at the stroke of closing time
full of midnight
desires

plan to call
the sweetest copper-haired
of all Ireland

if she wants to be unfaithful,
Miss Deirdre of Usnach
with me, a stranger
from Bergen, North-Holland

(her fairylike green eyes
as frivolous
as an Easter Rising...)

westwards far
behind the molehills
of the pixies!

O, Ireland, Blissful Island

besides

the ulcus

of Ulster...

Manuel Kneepkens [1942]

(photo Internet)

Original title: Eire

2 comments:

ronnííí27 January 2016 at 14:10
..nice translation.. 0-x-0
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Hans van den Bos

was born in Rotterdam, The Netherlands in 1948.

In the late Sixties, after National Service, he began working in a bookshop, which he took over after a number of years. The shop, under his direction, became specialised in Literature, Modern Art and Architecture, containing one of the largest collections of poetry in the whole of The Netherlands.

He was invited, in the 1990's, by the former director of Poetry International, the late Martin Mooij, to display his poetry collection on a book stall at the annual festival in Rotterdam. In 1997 he closed the shop and 5 years later emigrated to Ireland, where he is presently busy as a writer and translator of poetry.

Contact: JohannesvandenBos@protonmail.com

Hilary Reynolds

Hilary Reynolds is an English/Dutch classical singer, music teacher and choral conductor, who was born in Maracaibo, Venezuela in 1954.

She studied singing and piano at the Royal Academy of Music in London and, after graduating in 1978, moved to The Netherlands, where she pursued a career as a concert singer and vocal coach. In 2002, she moved to Ireland, together with her husband, Hans van den Bos, where she had been invited by the Head of the Music Department of University College Cork to take up a post there teaching Vocal Studies, Art-Song and Opera.

For a number of years, she has collaborated with Hans van den Bos writing theatre shows and plays and assisted with translations of his own work as well as of other poets, including translations of Russian poetry by Anna Achmatova.