In zijn eigen leemte afgerond : de weg naar Egypte van Gertrude Starink

Abstract

Between 1980 and 2000 Gertrude

Starink (1947-2002) published five collections of poems entitled DE WEG

NAAR EGYPTE (THE WAY TO EGYPT). She called her poems “passages”.

The difficulties facing the reader are partly the kind of problems one has with most modern poetry. The collision between the strict symmetry of the form and the elusiveness of the content is, however, typical for Starink. The formal, predictable regularity raises expectations regarding the possible symmetry of the content and these expectations are usually not met. Again and again it seems that essential information is omitted. I summarize the "indeterminacy" in which this results with the key notion of "lack". It does not only mark the "open spaces" in content and form, but it also indicates a poetical statement relating to the attitude and activity required of the reader. Besides the linear and realistic mode of reading, I practiced the strategy of the exhibition model combined with a reading of the poems as narrative. My research resulted in the conclusion that Starink problematizes the autonomy of the individual poem, the passage and even the collection. The proposed reading strategy provides insight into many intertwined networks and patterns of meaning production, distinct from the formal symmetry, without a common centre