‘The end of an age’ – true or not, when a greatness dies those words are sure to fall. But with the death of Remco Campert, an era is now coming to an end: that of the fifties. Campert was the benjamin of the rebellious group of artists, writers and poets that broke with the traditions and formalities of before that after the Second World War. Spontaneity and directness, that’s what it was all about. It sometimes resulted in inscrutable art – but not with Campert. He embraced the freedom to let go of form and rules in poems, but his work was always accessible, more ‘ordinary’ than exalted. That is precisely why he appealed to – and speaks – to subsequent generations of poets. Campert showed them that poetry doesn’t have to be difficult.
‘Campert’s poems are so natural that you understand them instinctively’, says poet Ester Naomi Perquin (1980). ‘So even if you are young and have little experience with poetry, like I did when I first read it in high school. The poem creed came to me right away when I was 15. In it Campert opposes the world as it is. I believe in a river that flows from the sea to the mountains. For why must water always flow from the mountains to the sea? That recalcitrant, that was exactly what I craved as a teenager. It showed me that not all adults are in line, which reassured me.
‘Many of Campert’s poems express this resistance. But it never becomes sour or petty. It’s charming resistance. I think it’s because he’s always had something naughty about it. I noticed that when I met him, during a Night of Poetry. I thought I’d better take that old man to his hotel quickly. Once there, he walked on to the bar in a calm mood. Don’t go to bed early. He’s a little boy, I realized, a crumpled little boy with a twinkling ghost. I told him I should have analyzed his poems back in school. “Sorry,” he said.
The poet Mustafa Stitou (1974) also read Campert for the first time as a teenager. ‘Campert was my first love, in terms of poets. He was the first poet I could follow, with his clear language he opened up poetry to me. I thought poetry was pompous, but he wrote in colloquialism – that was new to me.
‘Telling a great secret in an everyday way’, is how poet Ingmar Heytze (1970) describes it. ‘Campert wrote poetry that you can reach. Even people who have no love or understanding of poems can do something with it. But don’t underestimate him. Campert’s job is not as simple as it seems. take the poem Photo† Now you have to take a picture if you want to laugh later with friends girlfriends or alone, that’s how it starts. Campert then describes what you would see in that photo: a poet who is only messing around a bit at night. I stipulate certain matters of importance. I build a rose out of paper. He makes fun of himself, it is a bit melancholic but above all very cleverly done: by describing the photo you should take, he makes that photo, with his words. You can see it all in front of you. And so he shows the power of poetry – exactly what the poet is looking for in the poem. It may sound complicated, but the poem is so simple that you would easily read over it. Typically Campert, he was also someone who stood modestly on the sidelines and didn’t show off his talent.’
Heytze believes that just about every Dutch-speaking poet is indebted to Campert to a greater or lesser extent. ‘It almost has to be, he has continued to write for so long and has grown so old that he has had a very long-lasting influence on all of us. At least for me. Campert was able to put things into perspective without flattening his poems, that’s what I try, often in vain, in my own work.’
The fifty year old is still essential for Stitou and Perquin. Perquin: ‘When I get stuck in my work, I often think: what would Campert do? And then I grab a bundle. I learned from him: just say it like it is. Also, don’t be afraid of a little sentimentality. Sometimes Campert is very sentimental. But thanks to his boyishness, it never gets too much.’
Stitou has reflected a lot on his poetry in recent years. ‘I thought about its meaning. In Poetry is an actI found the most powerful expression of poetry and in my latest collection I refer directly to these lines of poetry: Poetry is an act of affirmation. I affirm that I am alive, that I am not living alone.’
Poetry is an act. † †
Poetry is an act
of confirmation. I confirm
that I live, that I do not live alone.
Poetry is a future, think
to next week, to another country,
to you when you are old.
Poetry is my breath, moves
my feet, hesitant at times,
about the earth that asks for it.
Voltaire had smallpox, but
healed himself by drinking
120 liters of lemonade: that’s poetry.
Or take the surf. smashed
on the rocks she is not really slain,
but resumes itself and is poetry in it.
Every word that is written
is an attack on old age.
In the end death wins, yes,
but death is only the silence in the hall
after the last word has been spoken.
Death is a emotion.
creed
i believe in a river
that flows from the sea to the mountains
I ask no more of poetry
then map that river
I don’t want to knock water out of the rocks
but I want to carry water to the rocks
dry black rock
turns blue water rock
but the newspapers want it different
want to be dry and black with heads
build checkers and force
turns back
Photo
Now you have to take a picture
if you want to laugh later
with friends or alone.
I’m put down in the night
tonight by your own feet
with our own hands (we do
after all, everything is always by yourself).
I’m slumped in my chair
tonight, a pen in my hand
and control from that position
the course of my existence.
I’m listening to a clock
that strikes the night
that strikes the love
which stores local atmosphere.
I write a way out
a way in. I stipulate
certain matters of importance.
I build a rose out of paper.
I don’t fold a hat, no
no hat tonight. Tomorrow
maybe if it then
definitely everyone’s must.
I’m put down in the night
tonight and hear the city
but barely and breath
with my own breath.
Now you have to take a picture
if you want to laugh later
with friends or alone.