De Amerikaanse schrijfster Nicola Kraus werd geboren op 17 augustus 1974 in New York. Zie ook alle tags voor Nicola Kraus op dit blog en ook mijn blog van 17 augustus 2010.
Uit: Over you
“Outfitted in a chic pair of black riding pants, which provide the grounding she’s craving, and a cozy cashmere sweater from her awesome Etsy knitting hookup, which allows her to radiate the comfort necessary on Day One, Max slips inside Bridget’s bedroom. She has already breezed passed Mrs. Stetson with a fluid hand-off of a dozen homemade cranberry muffins and a mention of “last-minute flashcard drills.” With a quick appraisal of Bridget, Max reaches into her red bag, pulls out a stainless steel thermos, and sets it on the nightstand. She glances toward the windows across the street. Taylor’s are still dark. Good.
“Morning, Bridget. ”
As Bridget’s eyes focus on Max, Max lifts her head as if she were a wounded soldier and puts the thermos lid of espresso to Bridget’s lips. Bridget sips.
“Rule number one: caffeine is your new best friend. Liquid optimism.”
“I just . . . it hurts. So. Much.”
“Mornings and evenings are the worst,” Max says as she pulls her up to sitting to give her the Day One speech, noticing she might be saying it as much for herself this particular morning as for Bridget. “But every day there’s going to be a little window of time where you feel not just ‘barely alive’, not just ‘okay’, but positively euphoric. Winning American Idol euphoric. And that window, offering you a glimpse in which you discover you’re getting though it, is going to get longer and longer each and every day. Because your body knows that surviving this . . . elephant is going to bring you a level of strength you have not yet known. I promise. And my system will speed what organically can take months, years, to a few weeks. Today we’re aiming for about a thirty second window, okay?”
Emma McLaughlin en Nicola Kraus (rechts)
De Ierse dichter en schrijver Oliver St. John Gogarty 17 augustus 1878 in Dublin. Hij werkte ook als arts, piloot. Zie ook alle tags voor Oliver St. John Gogarty op dit blog en ook mijn blog van 17 augustus 2009 en ook mijn blog van 17 augustus 2010
The Song of the Cheerful (but slightly sarcastic) Jesus
I’m the queerest young fellow that ever was heard.
My mother’s a Jew; my father’s a Bird
With Joseph the Joiner I cannot agree
So ‘Here’s to Disciples and Calvary.’
If anyone thinks that I amn’t divine,
He gets no free drinks when I’m making the wine
But have to drink water and wish it were plain
That I make when the wine becomes water again.
My methods are new and are causing surprise:
To make the blind see I throw dust in their eyes
To signify merely there must be a cod
If the Commons will enter the Kingdomof God
Now you know I don’t swim and you know I don’t skate
I came down to the ferry one day and was late.
So I walked on the water and all cried, in faith!
For a Jewman it’s better than having to bathe.
Whenever I enter in triumph and pass
You will find that my triumph is due to an ass
(And public support is a grand sinecure
When you once get the public to pity the poor.)
Then give up your cabin and ask them for bread
And they’ll give you a stone habitation instead
With fine grounds to walk in and raincoat to wear
And the Sheep will be naked before you’ll go bare.
The more men are wretched the more you will rule
But thunder out ‘Sinner’ to each bloody fool;
For the Kingdom of God (that’s within you) begins
When you once make a fellow acknowledge he sins.
Rebellion anticipates timely by ‘Hope,’
And stories of Judas and Peter the Pope
And you’ll find that you’ll never be left in the lurch
By children of Sorrows and Mother the Church
Goodbye, now, goodbye, you are sure to be fed
You will come on My Grave when I rise from the Dead
What’s bred in the bone cannot fail me to fly
And Olivet’s breezy– Goodbye now Goodbye.
Op 21-jarige leeftijd
De Franse dichter en schrijver Robert Sabatier werd geboren op 17 augustus 1923 in Parijs. Zie ook alle tags voor Robert Sabatier op dit blog en ook mijn blog van 17 augustus 2010.
Passage de l’arbre
Un arbre passe, un homme le regarde
Et s’aperçoit que ses cheveux sont verts
Il bouge un bras tout bruissant de feuillages
Une main douce à cueillir les hivers
Lentement glisse à travers la muraille
Et forme un fruit pour caresser la mer.
Quand l’enfant vient, c’est la forêt qui parle
Il ne sait pas qu’un arbre peut parler
Il croit entendre un souvenir de sable
La vieille écorce aussi le reconnaît
Mais elle a peur de ce visage pâle.
Chacun s’éloigne – il vole quelques feuilles
Tout l’arbre bouge et jette son adieu
Pour une veine il pleure sept étoiles
Pour une étoile il a donné ses yeux
Il a jeté ses racines aux fleuves.
Les derniers cris déserteront les gorges
Quand les oiseaux ne s’y poseront plus
Quelqu’un déchire un à un les automnes
Le fils de l’arbre écarte ses bras nus
Et dit des mots pour que le vent les morde.
De Russische dichter Anton Delvig werd geboren op 17 augustus 1798 in Moskou.Zie ook alle tags voor Anton Delvig op dit blog en ook mijn blog van 17 augustus 2010.
Romance
Oh what a lovely, happy day!
There’s love, the sun, the plain!
The shadows all have gone away
My heart is light again.
Wake up, you groves and fields, and see
That all is filled with life!
She’s mine! – my heart is telling me,
She’s mine, and all is live.
Why do you, little swallow cling
Onto to my windowpane?
Perchance, you sing about the spring
Inviting love again?
It’s not for me, as I can see,
The singer’s love, divine.
It is my heart who’s telling me:
She’s mine, oh yes she’s mine!
Vertaald door Alec Vagapov
To A Bird Set Free
In the name of lovely Delia,
In the name of burning love,
Winged warbler, I give you
Freedom – Fly away!
And my beloved has dealt me
An equally happy lot:
As you owe her your freedom
I owe her my captivity.
De Poolse dichter en schrijver Józef Wittlin werd geborern in Podolien op 17 augustus 1896 in het toenmalige Oostenrijk-Hongarije. Zie ook alle tags voor Józef Wittlin op dit blog en ook mijn blog van 17 augustus 2010.
Hymn of Hatred (Fragment)
And when a boy walked down the street to buy his father bread, when
he was buying
the bread
–hatred gazing upon it–
the bread turned to poison–
The boy poisoned his father… Oh what bitter bread!…
And when a farmer walked his plough (with hatred tromping through
the field)
and hatred plunges into him
like an eagle’s claw
her green gaze–black clods turn to sand, blowing yellow sand…
from barren work, comes barren waste–
and worthless, miserable toil…
As a young man walks in springtime through a whispering grove, some
dreamy scented night
When from the branches a nightingale sings its gentle trill
as hatred drifts in with the wind (coming from the nearby city, whence
she has her kingdom) through the crown of trees: there he proudly
grabs a stone, briskly hurls it–
right where that bird sings–
and kills it in the tree for its pretty song…
When hatred walks along a bank, wherever there is water, pure and
spring fresh water,
be it wellspring, be it river, or pool, or lake–
when a thirsty traveler
stops and wants to drink:
hatred turns his water muddy
(from the distant city’s gutter–)
let him pour a drink, a drink of city streets,
He’d grow sick from that journey, and after every day he would curse
his god!…
De Zweedse schrijfster Fredrika Bremer werd geboren op 17 augustus 1801 in Tuorla bij Piikkiö. Zie ook alle tags voor Frederika Bremer op dit blog en ook mijn blog van 17 augustus 2010.
Uit: Hertha or the Story of a Soul (Vertaald door Mary Howitt)
“And we shall always continue to be minors, if we do not go to law with our father, because it is his will that we should ever be dependent upon him, and the laws of our country forbid us to act as if we were rational, independent beings! Look, Alma, it is this injustice towards us, as women, which provokes me, not merely with my father, but with the men who make these my country’s unjust laws, and with all who contrary to reason and justice maintain them, and in so doing contribute to keep us in our fettered condition. We have property which we inherit from our mother; yet can we not dispose of one single farthing of it. We are old enough to know what we desire, and to be able to take care of ourselves and others, yet at the same time we are kept as children under our father and guardian, because he chooses to consider us as such, and treat us as such. We are prohibited every action, every thought which would tend to independent activity or the opening of a future for ourselves, because our father and guardian says that we are minors, that we are children, and the law says, ‘it is his right; you have nothing to say!'”
“Yes,” said Alma, “it is unjust, and harder than people think. But, nevertheless, our father means well by us, and manages our property justly and prudently with regard to our best interests.”
“And who will be the better for it? We? When we are old and stupid, and no more good for anything? See, I shall soon be twenty-seven, you are twenty-nine already, and for what have we lived?”
Alma made no reply, and Hertha continued:
“If we had even been able to learn anything thoroughly, and had had the liberty to put forth our powers, as young men have, I would not complain. Is it not extraordinary, Alma, that people always ask boys what they would like to be, what they have a fancy or taste for, and then give them the opportunity to learn, and to develop themselves according to the best of their minds, but they never do so with girls! “
Portret door Johan Gustaf Sandberg, rond 1840