Serenade (poetry collection)

The collection comprises 27 poems of between 6 and 48 lines. Four of the poems form a tetralogy called "For the children", containing a creation myth, a poem in which the dead lovingly address children, a narrative poem about a child that fell from the stars, and a poem in which a child compares the stars to a herd of animals and questions why they do not wander.

Many of the poems discuss sexual love. P. N. van Eijck noted that compared to earlier poems by Slauerhoff the speaker seems to adopt a less antagonistic attitude toward the women addressed in the poems, and figures as a lover (albeit a powerless and unsatisfied one) rather than a desperate man who opposes everything on principle.[1] Van Eijck notes the dependence of many of the poems (and that of his Saturnus) on the French poetry of the 1850-1900 period, and considers their genesis to be mostly sexual.[2]

Other readers focused on the sense of desperation, of never being at home, that is found in some of the poems; A. G. W. Severijnen cited from two poems in Serenade in an obituary on the occasion of Slauerhoff's death. In "De voorpost" ("The outpost") and "In mijn leven..." ("In my life"), Severijnen sees Slauerhoff's disgust with ordinary bourgeois life, the desire to escape the mundane and to wander the earth.[3]

First published in 1930 by The Halcyon Press of Maastricht and Brussels (with E. du Perron having corrected the manuscript[4]), it was reprinted four times by A. A. M. Stols (Maastricht/The Hague, in 1938, 1942, 1946, and 1954), and twice by Emanuel Querido (Amsterdam, 1978 and 1982). It was published (unchanged from the first edition) in 1982 by Nijgh & Van Ditmar as part of Slauerhoff's collected poetic works.[5]

Hendrik Marsman thought that on the whole Serenade was bad, full of trivial material, and written in a very pedestrian style—the best that could be said about a lot of the poems was that they were not awful. Particularly the fourth poem of the "For the children" cycle invoked his wrath; he thought it childish. Marsman also commented that he just could not get used to Slauerhoff's rhythm with its frequent syncopation, masculine rhymes, and monosyllabic phrases. The collection's bright side is a half a dozen poems which, according to Marsman, are Slauerhoff at his most powerful and personal.[6]

E. du Perron responded directly to Marsman's commentary in a lengthy review of Slauerhoff's poetry. Du Perron sees no weak spots in the collection, liking even the poems that Marsman did away with as childish. He separates them in two categories—lighter and of higher tone, and heavier and more serious, and claims to not want to miss a single stanza of Serenade. He noted "De Voorpost" and "In mijn leven..." as among the serious ones, the same poems Severijnen focused on in his obituary.[7] Anton van Duinkerken also cites "Voorpost" as emblematic of Slauerhoff's life and desire.[8]

Long after Slauerhoff's death, Victor E. van Vriesland revisited Serenade and Marsman's critique; van Vriesland argues that Serenade is the best Slauerhoff published before 1930, that he managed to overcome most of the "errors of his virtues". Those errors include capriciousness and a nonchalance intended to show his antipathy against the pose of literariness. In Serenade, van Vriesland argues, Slauerhoff left behind the "anecdotal character" of his earlier work. He praises the collection for its "pure lyric" and its "refined technique" which still retained the unexpected and concise expression he had already demonstrated.[9]

I Miss You Poems poems about community

• Eldorado, second edition (PDF)