About the
crystal prism
I think that the
poetry of David Stone ripens with age like one of these delicious forbidden
fruits on the limit of explosion, the sound of taste is so near it becomes free
jazz in a city garden.
Not only this is
one of his best collections yet (and more to come for sure), it contains also
one of the best introductions to his poems I have read, focussing on the
politics of his modernist approach. The last paragraph of the intro written by
Michael S. Begnal applies to David’s poems as well as to my own art work backing
«in close harmony / conspiracy (your choice)» his writings on war and peace, on
oppressors and the oppressed and how mythology often translates that, how
culture struggles in the mud of mass graves of all kind, in order to survive at
least some inches of our common dignity and humanity.
The shadows of the
blackbird are always there, on top or under ground, but the only reason of
culture is to be counter culture.
The official
culture is part of the power system of the rulers, so let’s agree they do not
translate or respond to the sounds of freedom of the common people.
A Jewish American
poet writing about world war 1 and what that meant for my own country, an historical
period known as THE RAPE OF BELGIUM?
How shocking, how
revealing, how magnificent, how brave and courageous, how truly international
in approach and spirit.
Stone avoids the
trap of comparing the barbary of Prussian German militarism with the horrors of
nazism that followed during world war 2 and I am grateful for that.
Instead he talks
about certain events of the so-called great war that are part of
Belgium’s history.
Poems like THE OWL
and NIGHT VISION IN THE CLOCK TOWER speak about Louven, city of the major
catholic university in the country. LEUVEN (in Dutch) and LOUVAIN (in French).
The English LOUVEN blends the 2 major tongues in Belgium 2gether in a name that
combines the LOU of the French and the VEN of the Dutch. It is only after the
big student rebellion of May 1968 that the French were asked to leave and they
created their own university in Louvain-La-Neuve (the new Louvain in the French
part of the country).
However one the
biggest cultural crimes during WW 1 was the bombardment of this catholic
university city by the German army and the destruction of its world famous
library with as absurd result the burned archives of the German philosopher Husserl, amongst others.
UNDER THE ORANGE
SKY focusses on the battle of Ypres (IEPER / YPRES), a Flemish town bombed to
the stone age and where the German army used for the first time the awful
weapon of mustard gaz, known later as YPERITE (name derived from that town) and
where Belgians stopped the invasion by opening the floodgates and breaching the
dikes. So a war of trenches started in a small parcel of the country, the
Flemish WESTHOEK (West corner), cornered by the North Sea and part of the
border with France. In the mud of these trenches was born the Flemish movement
opposing Flemish soldiers to their commanders who only spoke French.
The cover on the
crystal prism talks about THE BLACK NORTH SEA and this is not a coincidence.
Of course Belgium
(symbolized by cities as Leuven and Ieper) is a «detail» in the Prism.
Stone’s main
concern is not a place or a country.
He transcends the
problem of war and oppression on a much higher level, using examples of other
countries and situations, using classic mythology and modern philosophy, using
even anachronism (not creationism) when dinosaurs find a route to enter the
modern world of mass destruction, uranium and plutonium, connecting St Petersburg
with New York!
Stone insurges
against the extermination camps, the gulags and all other slaughterhouses (5 to
infinity).
Niemandsgod,
niemands sky, niemandsland...
In the nomansland
of Passchendaele (near Ypres) 500 000 soldiers died to gain or loose a few
square miles of land during the war.
I love how David
often introduces words in Dutch, German or Yiddish in his English texts. Het
Niemandsland is the area between 2 ennemy trenches that belongs to nobody, the
ground of continuous battlefields and corpses...
Read this
collection of poems and savour them. They are part of our common memories and
if not they are able to restore that memory. This is a MUST read collection!
Guido Vermeulen
April 2014
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