Dichtersbankje | Wim Wenders

Foto: © Hugo Hoes | Miesbach | Bayern 

Uit de collectie Mellendijk (keuze cineast en film) voorraad Hoes: Wim Wenders⇲

Road-movie | Im Lauf der Zeit⇲

Dichtersbankje | Abigail Mott

Foto: © Hans Mellendijk | High Line | New York

Uit de collectie Mellendijk (keuze poëtische actie en dichter) voorraad Mellendijk: Abigail Mott⇲

High Line Poetry

Zie ook documentaire A PLace Of Truth⇲

Dichtersbankjes | Walt Whitman

Foto: © Hans Mellendijk | Brooklyn Heights Promanade | NYC

Uit de collectie Mellendijk (keuze dichter en gedicht) voorraad Mellendijk: Walt Whitman⇲

I Hear America Singing

BY WALT WHITMAN

I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,

Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong,

The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,

The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work,

The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck,

The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands,

The wood-cutter’s song, the ploughboy’s on his way in the morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown,

The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or washing,

Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,

The day what belongs to the day—at night the party of young fellows, robust, friendly,

Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.

n/a

Source: Selected Poems (1991)

Dichtersbankje | Delmore Schwartz

Foto: © Peter Bevers | Hudson River | NY

uit de collectie Mellendijk (keuze dichter en gedicht) voorraad Mannen van Bevers: Delmore Schwartz⇲

America America!

 I am a poet of the Hudson River and the heights above it,
 the lights, the stars, and the bridges
I am also by self-appointment the laureate of the Atlantic
 -of the peoples' hearts, crossing it 
 to new America.


I am burdened with the truck and chimera, hope,
 acquired in the sweating sick-excited passage 
 in steerage, strange and estranged
Hence I must descry and describe the kingdom of emotion.


For I am a poet of the kindergarten (in the city)
 and the cemetery (in the city)
And rapture and ragtime and also the secret city in the
 heart and mind
This is the song of the natural city self in the 20th century.


It is true but only partly true that a city is a "tyranny of
 numbers"
(This is the chant of the urban metropolitan and
 metaphysical self
After the first two World Wars of the 20th century)

--- This is the city self, looking from window to lighted
 window
When the squares and checks of faintly yellow light
Shine at night, upon a huge dim board and slab-like tombs,
Hiding many lives.
 It is the city consciousness
Which sees and says: more: more and more: always more.