Zelfportret, by Albert Hagenaars

Self Portrait, by Vincent Van Gogh (Netherlands) 1887

 
Zelfportret

Vincent van Gogh
 
Kijken tot waar het moeten ontstijgt
aan wat men meent te zien,
 
tot waar een wuivend graanveld
vlaagloos overgaat in het wezen
van de wind, het zaad in de zak
van de zaaier in kiemkracht
 
en het donkerend landschap
in een zelfportret,
op verblindend moment
als dat van u zelf herkend:
 
in bloedgeel en hoerengroen,
in graanrood en kraaienblauw,
 
in hemelzwart.
 
Albert Hagenaars

**

Self Portrait
 
Vincent van Gogh
 
Gazing at where compulsion arises
from what one thinks one sees,
 
at where a swaying field of grain
shifts unflurrying into the being
of the wind, the seed in the sower’s
pouch in germinative force
 
and the darkening landscape
in a self-portrait,
at a blinding moment
as that self-recognised:
 
in blood-yellow and whore-green,
in grain-red and crow-blue,
 
in sky-black.
 
Albert Hagenaars. Translation,  John Irons.
 
Albert Hagenaars (1955, Bergen op Zoom, The Netherlands) was initially active as a visual artist and gallery owner. Besides poems, novels and translations, he also writes critical reviews on literature and modern visual art for different newspapers and the National Library Service. Several of his books have been translated, into English, German, French, Indonesian and Romanian. Albert Hagenaars has travelled a lot, in, amongst others, the United States, Latin-America and the Far East. He spends his summers living and working in Java (Indonesia), the birth place of his wife. Therefore his most important themes are travel, intercultural relations and alienation. In 2007 he received the Sakko prize, an oeuvre award, which is provided by Tamoil Nederland BV yearly. www.alberthagenaars.nl

John Irons, born 1942, studied French, German and Dutch at Cambridge, where he wrote a Ph. D. thesis on poetic imagery. A professional translator for twenty years, his poetry translations have mainly been from Dutch and the Scandinavian languages. He lives in Odense, Denmark.