I Dreamed in the Cities at Night

Translated By Donald Gardner

Faded Days

It was late in the evening
rain caught in lamplight
beat down on the cobbles
of the Old Mechlin Road
you were wearing an off-white dress
I'd have guessed you were fifteen
you were walking down the street
as I was crossing
cars passed by
braked rode on
you asked me the way to the Muse Café
the bar where that singer was on
singer you said of your song
voice that had found you
you were on your way there
'Just follow the tram lines'
I let you go

Antwerp girl
you're still on my mind
what have I done
with my life

Iconoclastic, experimental, bohemian and anti-establishment, Remco Campert – who came to prominence in the 1950s – has survived to become something of a national institution in the Netherlands: as a chronicler of alternative Amsterdam life in stories and novels; as a columnist in a national newspaper; as a script-writer and film-maker; and above all as a steadily productive, if not prolific, poet. For many Dutch people, Campert remains first and foremost the writer of such classics as Alle dagen feest (Party, Party, 1952), Een ellendige nietsnut (A Useless Layabout, 1960).

Hopefully, this new translation of Campert's quiet and quirky work (reminiscent of Brian Patten's or Roger McGough's) can help gain a new audience in the Anglo-Saxon world.

"Influenced by jazz, Campert's dry, almost dead-pan voice could be difficult to convey in English but Donald Gardner's versions capture both the lightness and the underlying intensity of the originals: 'Doors are open,' as 'House in Antwerp' wryly observes, 'that will never close again'."
Modern Poetry in Translation

Donald Gardner, born in London in 1938, is a poet and freelance Dutch translator. He has lived in Holland since 1979. He was originally a translator of Latin American literature and his published work includes an acclaimed translation of Octavio Paz's long poem, The Sun Stone (Cosmos, York 1968), and Marcel Duchamp or the Castle of Purity (Cape, 1970). He also published translations of poems by Ernesto Cardenal and contributed to...read more...