De Italiaanse dichter en schrijver Giacomo Leopardi werd geboren in Recanati op 29 juni 1798. Zie ook mijn blog van 29 juni 2007.

 

To the Moon

 

Oh gracious moon, now as the year turns,
I remember how, heavy with sorrow,
I climbed this hill to gaze on you,
And then as now you hung above those trees
Illuminating all. But to my eyes
Your face seemed clouded, temulous
From the tears that rose beneath my lids,
So painful was my life: and is, my
Dearest moon; its tenor does not change.
And yet, memory and numbering the epochs
Of my grief is pleasing to me. How welcome
In that youthful time -when hope’s span is long,
And memory short -is the remembrance even of
Past sad things whose pain endures.

 

 

 

The Infinite

 

It was always dear to me, this solitary hill,
and this hedgerow here, that closes out my view,
from so much of the ultimate horizon.
But sitting here, and watching here, in thought,
I create interminable spaces,
greater than human silences, and deepest
quiet, where the heart barely fails to terrify.
When I hear the wind, blowing among these leaves,
I go on to compare that infinite silence
with this voice, and I remember the eternal
and the dead seasons, and the living present,
and its sound, so that in this immensity
my thoughts are drowned, and shipwreck seems sweet
to me in this sea.

 

 

Giacomo Leopardi (29 juni 1798 – 14 juni 1837)

 

De Italiaanse journaliste en schrijfster Oriana Fallaci werd geboren in Florence op 29 juni 1929. Zie ook mijn blog van 29 juni 2007.

 

Uit: On Jew-Hatred in Europe (Panorama magazine , April 17, 2002)

“I find it shameful that in Italy there should be a procession of individuals dressed as suicide bombers who spew vile abuse at Israel, hold up photographs of Israeli leaders on whose foreheads they have drawn the swastika, incite people to hate the Jews. And who, in order to see Jews once again in the extermination camps, in the gas chambers, in the ovens of Dachau and Mauthausen and Buchenwald and Bergen-Belsen et cetera, would sell their own mother to a harem.

 

I find it shameful that the Catholic Church should permit a bishop, one with lodgings in the Vatican no less, a saintly man who was found in Jerusalem with an arsenal of arms and explosives hidden in the secret compartments of his sacred Mercedes, to participate in that procession and plant himself in front of a microphone to thank in the name of God the suicide bombers who massacre the Jews in pizzerias and supermarkets. To call them “martyrs who go to their deaths as to a party.”

I find it shameful that in France, the France of Liberty-Equality- Fraternity, they burn synagogues, terrorize Jews, profane their cemeteries. I find it shameful that the youth of Holland and Germany and Denmark flaunt the kaffiah just as Mussolini’s avant garde used to flaunt the club and the fascist badge.

 

I find it shameful that in nearly all the universities of Europe Palestinian students sponsor and nurture anti-Semitism. That in Sweden they asked that the Nobel Peace Prize given to Shimon Peres in 1994 be taken back and conferred on the dove with the olive branch in his mouth, that is on Arafat. I find it shameful that the distinguished members of the Committee, a Committee that (it would appear) rewards political color rather than merit, should take this request into consideration and even respond to it. In hell the Nobel Prize honors he who does not receive it. I find it shameful (we’re back in Italy) that state-run television stations contribute to the resurgent anti-Semitism, crying o
nly over Palestinian deaths while playing down Israeli deaths, glossing over them in unwilling tones. I find it shameful that in their debates they host with much deference the scoundrels with turban or kaffiah who yesterday sang hymns to the slaughter at New York and today sing hymns to the slaughters at Jerusalem, at Haifa, at Netanya, at Tel Aviv.”

 

 

Oriana Fallaci (29 juni 1929 – 15 september 2006)

 

De Duitse dichter en schrijver Ror Wolf (pseudoniem van Raoul Tranchirer) werd geboren op 29 juni 1932 in Saalfeld/Saale. Zie ook mijn blog van 29 juni 2007.

 

Uit: Pfeifers Reisen

 

Jetzt kommt der Moment auf den wir warten.
Er beginnt mit einem kurzen harten

Knall. Heraus aus der Vergangenheit
stürzt Hans Waldmann, kalt und zugeschneit.

Er erscheint und sagt ganz allgemein:
Wenn es sein muß, muß es eben sein.

Waldmann, er steht da und er beginnt,
und er sieht die Dinge wie sie sind.

In der Ferne hört man Nacken knacken,
Kuchenbacken ach und Knochenhacken,

Wolken kratzen und Tapeten platzen,
und man hört ein Schmatzen auf Matratzen.

Waldmann, um die Ruhe herzustellen,
geht davon mit seinen leichten schnellen

Schritten, und man hört Hans Waldmann sprechen.
Stühle kippen um und Wände brechen,

Teller klirren kalt und Tüten knallen,
Herren schreien auf und Damen fallen.

Wie die Welt so ist, so ist sie eben,
und genauso ist es mit dem Leben,

sagt Hans Waldmann, hier am Rand von O:
Wenn die Welt so ist, dann ist sie so,

sie verschwimmt dort an den weichen Rändern,
aber das ist leider nicht zu ändern.

Waldmann steht am Rand von O und spricht:
Wenns nicht geht, dann geht es eben nicht.

Waldmann hebt die Hand und sagt vergnügt:
Nun ist Ruhe, doch die Ruhe trügt

 

Ror Wolf (Saalfeld/Saale, 29 juni 1932)

 

De Amerikaanse dichter en schrijver Oleg Korenfeld werd geboren op 29 juni 1977 in Khabarovsk, Rusland. Zie ook mijn blog van 29 juni 2007.

 

Portrait

Black turtleneck.
Familiar grin is hovering above it.
I’m dizzy with anticipation, and I love it.
My soul is a diluted silhouette

indented on a burning cigarette.
And even if the bridge is gone,
the meaning still remains within transparent phrases
of an obscure sonnet.

Alas, the shortness of my neck
curbs any will to reach for greatness.
So I grew gills ignoring complications.
Committed to dig up the ocean floor,

I fearlessly grab the brush and draw
myself, but as a sizzling Pisces
with human features – gluttony and pride –
inside a frying pan; still elegantly dressed in coats of spices.

 

Oleg Korenfeld (Khabarovsk, 29 juni 1977)

 

De Servische dichter Vasko Popa werd geboren in Grebenac op 29 juni 1922. Zie ook mijn blog van 29 juni 2007.

 

 

Before you play

You shut one eye
You peer into yourself
Peep into every corner
Make sure there are no nails no burglars
No cuckoos’ eggs

Then you shut the other eye as well
You crouch, then jump
Jump high, high, high
Right up to the top of yourself

Then your weight drags you down
You fall for days and days as deep as deep
Down to the bottom of your abyss

If you’re not smashed to bits
If you’re still in one piece and get up in one piece
You can start playing

 

 

The little box’s prisoners

 

Open up little box
We’re kissing your bottom and lid
Your keyhole and key
The whole world has crammed inside you
And now it looks like
Nothing like itself
Serenity its own mother
Wouldn’t recognise it now
Rust will devour your key
Our world and us inside you
And you too in the end
We’re kissing all four of your sides
And all four of your corners
And all twenty-four of your nails
And everything you’ve got
Open up little box

 

 

 

The beautiful God-Hater

 

A regular customer in a local bar
Waves his empty sleeve
Fulminates from his undisciplined beard
We’ve buried the gods
And now it’s the turn of the dummies
Who are playing at gods
The regular is hidden in tobacco clouds
Illuminated by his own words
Hewn from an oak trunk
He is as beautiful as a god
Dug up recently nearby

 

 

Vertaald door Anthony Weir

 

Vasko Popa (29 juni 1922 – 5 januari 1991)

 

De Franse schrijver Antoine de Saint-Exupéry werd geboren op 29 juni 1900 in Saint-Maurice-de-Rémens. Zie ook mijn blog van 29 juni 2006 en ook ook mijn blog van 29 juni 2007

 

Uit: Vol de nuit

“Il aurait pu lutter encore, tenter sa chance : il n’y a pas de fatalité extérieure. Mais il y a une fatalité intérieure : vient une minute où l’on se découvre vulnérable ; alors les fautes vous attirent comme un vertige. Et c’est à cette minute que luirent sur sa tête, dans une déchirure de la tempête, comme un appât mortel au fond d’une nasse, quelques étoiles. Il jugea bien que c’était un piège : on voit trois étoiles dans un trou, on monte vers elles, ensuite on ne peut plus descendre, on reste là à mordre les étoiles… Mais sa faim de lumière était telle qu’il monta. »

 

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (29 juni 1900 – 31 juli 1944)

 

Zie voor onderstaande schrijvers ook mijn blog van 29 juni 2007.

De Vlaamse schrijver Anton “Tony” Bergmann werd geboren te Lier op 29 juni 1835.

 

De Belgische surrealist, schrijver, dichter en dwarse geest Louis Scutenaire werd geboren in Ollignies op 29 juni 1905.

 

De Amerikaanse schrijver en historicus John Willard Toland werd geboren op 29 juni 1912 in  La Crosse, Wisconsin.