On a Close-up of Louis Esterhuizen, on His Poem “Winnie”
So tell me Louis, you allege:
“I went to look at the remarks
found in his biographical sketch:
“I love the work of various poets
and my favourites are AG Visser, Eugene Marais,
Ingrid Jonker, D.J. Opperman, N.P. Van Wyk Louw,
William Shakespeare, Dylan Thomas, John Keats,
Robert Frost, W.B. Yeats, Yahuda Amichai,
Hannah Szenes, Stevie Smith, Dorothy Parker
and even Homer.””
Further you say: “With the exception of a few names
under the English favourites, all the Afrikaans poets are experts
whom he probably encountered at school,
if a person looks at the verses on his page
you realise that Mr. X has never grown past the incidental
school-contact...In this he is alas not unique.”
Still you are the great master
where it comes to the works of Homer,
as you make a comparison
in your poem “Winnie” between Me. Winnie Mandela
and Homer’s character Penelope,
where there are in reality flagrant contrasts
and the masters canonise this poem
in the “Great Verse Book”
without even being aware of the contrasts?
Let me as just a unfolding poet
who “has never grown past
the incidental school-contact, ”
point out the contrasts clearly:
The story of Penelope comes
out of Homer’s Odyssey where the title
indicates a long historical journey or adventure
or some wanderings
that the main character Odysseus / Ulysses
undertakes before again arriving
at the island Ithaca
where he rules as the king.
For only a very short while
Odysseus / Ulysses is with the nymph Circe
on a island, but the greatest part of the book
is about his wanderings.
In flagrant contrast you write:
”And Penelope comes forward, impatient
and rude as Ulysses is only moving rocks
on his island.”
Where you use the Roman name of Odysseus
to describe Nelson Mandela.
Your Ulysses is not wandering at that stage
or travelling on a historical journey full of adventure
he is busy “moving rocks.”
At that stage your Ulysses
isn’t a king, far less
your Penelope ever becomes a queen,
not even the wife of a president.
The original Odysseus / Ulysses
is only true to one goddess namely Athena
who at various times helps him,
even in his battles,
where your Ulysses divorces your Penelope,
takes another wife
and marries her as a Christian, a Moslem, a Hindu
and also as a Jew.
Still less the ”UDF, AZAPO and also COSATU;
then there’s also the Young Comrades -”
are princes and kings who are trying to seduce her.
Nevertheless you write:
“But while the crown-princes are wooing her
and the almost-princes gather around her
and rollick, the woman plays
in the three storey-mansion
with her last matches.”
The real wife of the real Odysseus / Ulysses
was not involved with a “Stompie” character
who disappeared without a sign
and in the Odyssey the property of Odysseus / Ulysses
is wasted and devoured,
while the princes are fornicating with the maids
and Odysseus / Ulysses
along with his son Telemachus destroys
all of those princes and kings
along with the fornicating maids
that contrasts flagrantly
with the acts of your Ulysses.
Your Ulysses is moving stones, only walks
on his way to freedom a few steps,
divorces your Penelope
and marries another wife.
Nonetheless the original Penelope remains true
to Odysseus / Ulysses,
under the pretext of completing a shroud
that she is weaving for her father in law Laertes,
of which she continually again frays out the thread
and later the two are again together and happy
and it is the nearest
that you come to the original story:
“to again fray out the dream-cloak:
Oh, the endless undoing
of the endless doing, she lisps.”
To my opinion your comparison
between Me. Winnie and Penelope
is rather shallow and totally ungrounded,
as their are just too many contrasts
that you did not think through
and now I am wondering
who is the person
that has “never grown past the incidental
school-contact” as far as Homer’s Odyssey is concerned?
(After Anthony Delius/References: The poem “Winnie” by Louis Esterhuizen, “The Odyssey” by Homer. “On a Close-up of Dirk Opperman, on the Jacket of his Komas” by Anthony Delius.)
poem by Gert Strydom
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An Ancient Gesture
I thought, as I wiped my eyes on the corner of my apron:
Penelope did this too.
And more than once: you can't keep weaving all day
And undoing it all through the night;
Your arms get tired, and the back of your neck gets tight;
And along towards morning, when you think it will never be light,
And your husband has been gone, and you don't know where, for years.
Suddenly you burst into tears;
There is simply nothing else to do.
And I thought, as I wiped my eyes on the corner of my apron:
This is an ancient gesture, authentic, antique,
In the very best tradition, classic, Greek;
Ulysses did this too.
But only as a gesture,—a gesture which implied
To the assembled throng that he was much too moved to speak.
He learned it from Penelope...
Penelope, who really cried.
poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay
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He's meant to be that classic Homer, Ulysses, Hercules - a character who goes out or has some gift of some kind. He goes on a journey of discovery and part of that is falling into darkness - the temptations of life.
quote by Robert Redford
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When Ulysses hears his own story sung by an epic poet and then he reveals his identity and the poet wants to continue singing, Ulysses isn't interested any longer. That's very astonishing.
quote by Raymond Queneau
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Farewell Visit to Ulysses -2
After twenty years, Ulysses has come back. He must realize a transformed world. And also he must understand his wife.
You wanted to return and find your world again,
Nature would have been the same, people couldn't refrain.
Your solitude breaks off and on, we like your feelings
Don't like your action, and this journey is over.
More than returning, more than finding, meeting means:
That wasn't your anniversary, Penelope loves new teams.
poem by Paolo Giuseppe Mazzarello
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Ulysses could have done with a good editor. You know people are always putting Ulysses in the top 10 books ever written but I doubt that any of those people were really moved by it.
quote by Roddy Doyle
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Ulysses finds himself unchanged, aside from his experience, at the end of his odyssey.
quote by Raymond Queneau
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If Happiness…
If happiness can just be bought,
I’ll buy a ton of it, and give it to my boss
If happiness can just be found online,
I’ll be connected with it,24/7
If happiness can just be heard,
I’ll play it in my mp3
If happiness can just be written,
I’ll get a perdurable paper and use an inerasable ink
I’m glad, true happiness can be sown,
and cultivated in a love-fertile heart
~Champs Ulysses Cabinatan
poem by Champs Ulysses Cabinatan
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Homer And Laertes
Laertes: Gods help thee! and restore to thee thy sight!
My good old guest, I am more old than thou,
Yet have outlived by many years my son
Odysseus and the chaste Penelope.
Homer: Hither I come to visit thee and sing
His wanderings and his wisdom, tho my voice
Be not the voice it was.
Laertes: First let us taste
My old sound wine, and break my bread less old,
But old enough for teeth like thine and mine.
Homer: So be it! I sing best when such good cheer
Refreshes me, and such a friend as thou.
Laertes: Far hast thou wandered since we met, and told
Strange stories. Wert thou not afraid some God
Or Goddess should have siez'd upon thy ear
For talking what thou toldest of their pranks.
Homer: They often came about me while I slept
And brought me dreams, none painful, none profane;
They loved thy son, and for his sake loved me.
Laertes: Apollo, I well know, was much thy friend.
Homer: He did not treat me quite as Marsyas
Was treated by him: lest he should, I sang
His praise in my best chaunt: for Gods love praise.
Laertes: Have they enricht thee? for I see thy cloak is ragged.
Homer: Ragged cloak is poet's garb.
Laertes: I have two better; one of them for thee.
Penelope, who died five years ago,
Spun it; her husband wore it only once
And but one year, the anniversary
Of their espousal.
Homer: Wear it will I not,
But I will hang it on the brightest nail
Of the first temple where Apollo sits,
Golden-hair'd, in his glory.
Laertes: So thou shalt
If so it please thee: yet we first will quaff
The gift of Bakkos, for methinks his gifts
Are quite as welcome to the sons of song
And cheer them oftener.
(Girl enters.)
Maiden! come thou nigh
And sit thee down, and thou shalt hear a song
After a while which Gods may listen to;
But place the flask upon the board and wait
Until the stranger hath allaid his thirst,
For poets, grasshoppers, and nightingales
Sing cheerily but when the throat is moist.
Homer: I sang to maidens in my prime; again
(But not before the morrow) will I sing:
Let me repose this noontide, since in sooth
Wine, a sweet remedy for weariness,
Helps to uplift its burden.
Laertes: Lie then down
Along you mat bestrown with rosemary.
And, Agatha, do thou bring speedily
The two large ewers, and fill brimfull the bath
Capacious; that of brass; Penelope's
Own bath, wherein she laught to see her boy
Paddle, like cygnet with its broad black oars,
Nor shunn'd the chilly water he threw up
Against her face . . he who grew soon so sage!
Then do thou, maiden, from hot cauldron pour
Enough to make it soothing to the feet;
After, bring store of rushes, and long leaves
Of cane sweet-smelling, from the inland bank
Of that famed river far across the sea
Opposite, to our eyes invisible.
Be sure thou smoothen with both hands his couch
Who has the power to make both young and old
Live throughout ages.
Agatha: And look well throughout?
Laertes: Aye, aye, and better than they lookt before.
May thou rest well, old wanderer! Even the Gods
Repose, the Sun himself sinks down to rest.
poem by Walter Savage Landor
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The Iliad Odyssey: The Summary Of A Man
Odysseus indeed in spoils of war
with cunning brave heart, cleverly won,
many a fair desirable noble women
while his wife loyally waited, on Ithaca,
for warrior hero's fleet bloodied blade
in the hand of a Hellene king in duress,
foremost ever in corpse reaping battle
renowned for guile deceit resourcefulness,
will storm many fortified rampart hearts
enchant many fair young, innocent maids,
before finally ends an epic tragic Odyssey
decade upon a decade in event, laden journey,
for renown upon renown in famed Trojan War
an epic travails in trials score upon score
as virile Odysseus tries to spoils laden return fara
reassert his place as rightful king of Ithaca.
poem by Terence George Craddock
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Ulysses and the Siren
Siren. COME, worthy Greek! Ulysses, come,
Possess these shores with me:
The winds and seas are troublesome,
And here we may be free.
Here may we sit and view their toil
That travail in the deep,
And joy the day in mirth the while,
And spend the night in sleep.
Ulysses. Fair Nymph, if fame or honour were
To be attain'd with ease,
Then would I come and rest me there,
And leave such toils as these.
But here it dwells, and here must I
With danger seek it forth:
To spend the time luxuriously
Becomes not men of worth.
Siren. Ulysses, O be not deceived
With that unreal name;
This honour is a thing conceived,
And rests on others' fame:
Begotten only to molest
Our peace, and to beguile
The best thing of our life--our rest,
And give us up to toil.
Ulysses. Delicious Nymph, suppose there were
No honour nor report,
Yet manliness would scorn to wear
The time in idle sport:
For toil doth give a better touch
To make us feel our joy,
And ease finds tediousness as much
As labour yields annoy.
Siren. Then pleasure likewise seems the shore
Whereto tends all your toil,
Which you forgo to make it more,
And perish oft the while.
Who may disport them diversely
Find never tedious day,
And ease may have variety
As well as action may.
Ulysses. But natures of the noblest frame
These toils and dangers please;
And they take comfort in the same
As much as you in ease;
And with the thought of actions past
Are recreated still:
When Pleasure leaves a touch at last
To show that it was ill.
Siren. That doth Opinion only cause
That 's out of Custom bred,
Which makes us many other laws
Than ever Nature did.
No widows wail for our delights,
Our sports are without blood;
The world we see by warlike wights
Receives more hurt than good.
Ulysses. But yet the state of things require
These motions of unrest:
And these great Spirits of high desire
Seem born to turn them best:
To purge the mischiefs that increase
And all good order mar:
For oft we see a wicked peace
To be well changed for war.
Siren. Well, well, Ulysses, then I see
I shall not have thee here:
And therefore I will come to thee,
And take my fortune there.
I must be won, that cannot win,
Yet lost were I not won;
For beauty hath created been
T' undo, or be undone.
poem by Samuel Daniel
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Delilah
We have another viceroy now, -- those days are dead and done
Of Delilah Aberyswith and depraved Ulysses Gunne.
Delilah Aberyswith was a lady -- not too young --
With a perfect taste in dresses and a badly-bitted tongue,
With a thirst for information, and a greater thirst for praise,
And a little house in Simla in the Prehistoric Days.
By reason of her marriage to a gentleman in power,
Delilah was acquainted with the gossip of the hour;
And many little secrets, of the half-official kind,
Were whispered to Delilah, and she bore them all in mind.
She patronized extensively a man, Ulysses Gunne,
Whose mode of earning money was a low and shameful one.
He wrote for certain papers, which, as everybody knows,
Is worse than serving in a shop or scaring off the crows.
He praised her "queenly beauty" first; and, later on, he hinted
At the "vastness of her intellect" with compliment unstinted.
He went with her a-riding, and his love for her was such
That he lent her all his horses and -- she galled them very much.
One day, THEY brewed a secret of a fine financial sort;
It related to Appointments, to a Man and a Report.
'Twas almost wortth the keeping, -- only seven people knew it --
And Gunne rose up to seek the truth and patiently ensue it.
It was a Viceroy's Secret, but -- perhaps the wine was red --
Perhaps an Aged Concillor had lost his aged head --
Perhaps Delilah's eyes were bright -- Delilah's whispers sweet --
The Aged Member told her what 'twere treason to repeat.
Ulysses went a-riding, and they talked of love and flowers;
Ulysses went a-calling, and he called for several hours;
Ulysses went a-waltzing, and Delilah helped him dance --
Ulysses let the waltzes go, and waited for his chance.
The summer sun was setting, and the summer air was still,
The couple went a-walking in the shade of Summer Hill.
The wasteful sunset faded out in turkis-green and gold,
Ulysses pleaded softly, and . . . that bad Delilah told!
Next morn, a startled Empire learnt the all-important news;
Next week, the Aged Councillor was shaking in his shoes.
Next month, I met Delilah and she did not show the least
Hesitation in affirming that Ulysses was a "beast."
* * * * *
We have another Viceroy now, those days are dead and done --
Off, Delilah Aberyswith and most mean Ulysses Gunne!
poem by Rudyard Kipling
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Wars Continue Still!
Union of two hearts reinforces love after long gap;
Lasting love waits many years in isolation for union;
Ulysses and Penelope of Iliad are great lovers too!
Retired after war soldiers of yore spend in grief
Losing friends, loves and all known faces of humour
Just to pass on time in booze many a time in life!
Wars leave many scars unchanged for eternity!
For the sake of peace they have fought endless wars;
Their sacrifices no one understands much later in life!
Some have become addict of liquors and lose life........;
Some become mad left in isolation long sans any respite;
Some have become poets to pour out their hearts to all!
Wars of the world have changed life style everywhere;
But wars are still going on for the sake of justice endless!
poem by Ramesh T A
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The Seventeenth Book Of Homer's Odysseys
...
Such speech they chang'd; when in the yard there lay
A dog, call'd Argus, which, before his way
Assum'd for Ilion, Ulysses bred,
Yet stood his pleasure then in little stead,
As being too young; but, growing to his grace,
Young men made choice of him for every chace,
Or of their wild goats, of their hares, or harts.
But his king gone, and he, now past his parts,
Lay all abjectly on the stable's store,
Before the oxstall, and mules' stable door,
To keep the clothes cast from the peasants' hands,
While they laid compass on Ulysses' lands;
The dog, with ticks (unlook'd-to) over-grown.
But by this dog no sooner seen but known
Was wise Ulysses, who new enter'd there,
Up went his dog's laid ears, and, coming near,
Up he himself rose, fawn'd, and wagg'd his stern,
Couch'd close his ears, and lay so; nor discern
Could evermore his dear-lov'd lord again.
Ulysses saw it, nor had power t' abstain
From shedding tears; which (far-off seeing his swain)
He dried from his sight clean; to whom he thus
His grief dissembled: "'Tis miraculous,
That such a dog as this should have his lair
On such a dunghill, for his form is fair.
And yet, I know not, if there were in him
Good pace, or parts, for all his goodly limb;
Or he liv'd empty of those inward things,
As are those trencher-beagles tending kings,
Whom for their pleasure's, or their glory's sake,
Or fashion, they into their favour take."
"This dog," said he, "was servant to one dead
A huge time since. But if he bore his head,
For form and quality, of such a height,
As when Ulysses, bound for th' Ilion fight,
Or quickly after, left him, your rapt eyes
Would then admire to see him use his thighs
In strength and swiftness. He would nothing fly,
Nor anything let scape; if once his eye
Seiz'd any wild beast, he knew straight his scent;
Go where he would, away with him he went.
Nor was there ever any savage stood
Amongst the thickets of the deepest wood
Long time before him, but he pull'd him down;
As well by that true hunting to be shown
In such vast coverts, as for speed of pace
In any open lawn. For in deep chace
He was a passing wise and well-nos'd hound.
And yet is all this good in him uncrown'd
With any grace here now; nor he more fed
Than any errant cur. His king is dead,
Far from his country; and his servants are
So negligent they lend his hound no care.
Where masters rule not, but let men alone,
You never there see honest service done.
That man's half virtue Jove takes quite away,
That once is sun-burn'd with the servile day."
This said, he enter'd the well-builded towers,
Up bearing right upon the glorious wooers,
And left poor Argus dead; his lord's first sight
Since that time twenty years bereft his light.
...
poem by George Chapman
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Life Is A Reward
Everyone is a Ulysses;
Death is the greatest adventure
That everyone would face.
Life is a reward in advance.
poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar
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Death, an adventure
Death is the greatest adventure.
No adventure is bigger than that.
Those of Hercules and Ulysses
Are less than deaths that we will face.
02.05.2010
poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar
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The art of war is simple enough. Find out where your enemy is. Get at him as soon as you can. Strike him as hard as you can, and keep moving on.
quote by Ulysses S. Grant
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The art of war is simple enough. Find out where your enemy is. Get at him as soon as you can. Strike him as hard as you can, and keep moving.
quote by Ulysses S. Grant
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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On a Close-up of Louis Esterhuizen, on His Verse Novel “die onderwaterweg, ” (The Underwater Way)
So tell me Louis, you start your verse novel
of which the story line is very thin,
with a white man lying drunk and silent in hospital
after trying to commit suicide,
with memories taking him back
to events in his marriage with his white wife
who had been a left wing political activist,
where politics makes the marriage crumble,
rather than interpersonal relationships,
were marriages usually crumble
from a lack of communication
and respect for each other?
Where at times he is impotent,
where at times he gets it right,
where he looses her in consequence of a rebellious march
are cut from her leftwing circle of friends,
where she head over heels in the middle of the road
lift her dress; let her panties hang around her knees
where she has sex with a black freedom fighter
(how realistic this may be)
is pregnant with a child for Azania
while children in rags string along after her,
where they again sleep together
and he does not catch AIDS,
she is slaughtered in a pincher operation
or maybe by canister-shot
(again utterly unrealistic)
after which he buries her
along with her black friends.
On visits by a certain Jabula, fall in love with her,
he changes from white to black,
so much so that he takes a taxi to a hut somewhere,
where she is a labourer on a sugar plantation
where she makes love to him, they give life to a child
and I wonder if you want to draw this story
through to every white Afrikaner?
Especially where the main character in a prayer
to the almighty God wants to know
if the AK-47 and famine
is God’s own way of controlling vermin?
A person can easily come to the conclusion
along with the thirst for heroes for the black struggle
and where you write “morning walk”
set against Ingrid Jonker’s poem of the child,
that you view every Afrikaner,
every white farmer killed on a farm,
as plague or vermin,
that God kills through black people,
if white people do not mix with blacks,
as the main character in your story does?
[After Anthony Delius/References: Louis Esterhuizen, “Die onderwaterweg, ‘n versroman, Human & Rousseau, (1996) Kaapstad. “On a Close-up of Dirk Opperman, on the Jacket of his Komas” by Anthony Delius.]
poem by Gert Strydom
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The Confrontation
The angry sparrow, narrow and light
fiercely pursued the thieving crow
slender beak stabbing
smooth black feathers,
rising and diving,
rolling and turning,
a vicious top-gun
dog-fight.
Then the crow, tired of torment,
set heavily down on the high lamp post
as the small bird circled, crying invective,
taunting the crow to rise again and fight!
but the old crow, patient and wise
settled comfortably for this shrill siege
and calmly waited for the air-show to end.
Finally, exhausted,
the sparrow gave up,
but claiming victory,
like Odysseus
nearly home
at last,
became Homer,
and composed his own
epic poem
of the fierce
midnight raven,
homewrecker
wrought low,
driven down
into death’s
bitter dust,
which, of course, he sang
in heroic,
avian meter
to his faithful,
Penelope.
poem by Steven Federle
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Here now John Keats, I salute you
Some of your poems
were met with contempt
and yet above most
English poets your work rise.
Your words are deep and wise
and sweep past time
in eloquence,
breaking right through history
with magic and imagery
and only after death
your true honour comes.
Now famous are your name
and on first reading
“Chapman’s Homer”
I was convinced
to read Homer’s Iliad and the Odyssey.
Your “La Belle Dame sans Merci”
and “Lamia” are reflected
in my own verse
and here now
John Keats, I salute you
while your words
are immortal to me.
poem by Gert Strydom
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