Eric Watson & Ben Sluijs - dubbelconcert

The poetry of Van Ostaijen and Poe displays derangement and genius. In 'Feasts of Fear and Pain' and 'The Raven', the two poets coolly and refinedly unscramble the 'human thirst for self-torture'. Poe's genius lay in the gruesome candour with which he ventilates the dark side of humanity. Van Ostaijen, for his part, stated that 'Poetry in fact has nothing to say, save to state the fulfilment of the unsayable'. Both regarded poetry as a way of achieving intuitive knowledge, and both were regarded as mysterious and morbid, effectively walking in the shadow of Ezra Pound's full moon. Just like the two poets, Sluijs and Watson too are unfathomably brilliant. They string notes, or lyrical bacilli, together to make well-turned musical phrases. As an expression of mystical ecstasy, their music leads, as poetry does, to the subconscious. Their sounds create an assimilating space as a palindrome for lyricism. Ought their music to be regarded as a palimpsest, overwriting poetry? Or the reverse? Each era, each discipline, throws up artists who, in their quest for authenticity, discover their own particular truth by developing their own individual view of things. But listen to Eric Watson's CD 'Midnight Torsion'!