De Canadese dichteres, essayiste en vertaalster Anne Carson werd geboren op 21 juni 1950 in Toronto. Zie ook alle tags voor Anne Carson op dit blog.
V. Here Is My Propaganda One One One One Oneing On Your Forehead Like Droplets of Luminous Sin
Like many a wife I boosted the husband up to Godhood and held him there.
What is strength?
Opposition of friends or family merely toughens it.
I recall my mother’s first encounter with him.
Glancing
at a book I’d brought home from school with his name inscribed on the flyleaf
she said
I wouldn’t trust anyone who calls himself X—and
something exposed itself in her voice,
a Babel
thrust between us at that instant which we would never
learn to construe—
taste of iron.
Prophetic. Her prophecies all came true although she didn’t
mean them to.
Well it’s his name I said and put the book away. That was the first night
(I was fifteen)
I raised my bedroom window creak by creak and went out to meet him
in the ravine, traipsing till dawn in the drenched things
and avowals
of the language that is “alone and first in mind.” I stood stupid
before it,
watched its old golds and lieblicher blues abandon themselves
like peacocks stepping out of cages into an empty kitchen of God.
God
or some blessed royal personage. Napoleon. Hirohito. You know
how novelist Ōe
describes the day Hirohito went on air and spoke
as a mortal man. “The adults sat around the radio
and cried.
Children gathered in the dusty road and whispered bewilderment.
Astonished
and disappointed that their emperor had spoken in a voice.
Looked at one another in silence. How to believe God had
become human
on a designated summer day?” Less than a year after our marriage
my husband
began to receive calls from [a woman] late at night.
If I answered [she]
hung up. My ears grew hoarse.
How are you.
—
No.
—
Maybe. Eight. Can you.
—
The white oh yes.
—
Yes.
What is so ecstatic unknowable cutthroat glad as the walls
of the flesh
of the voice of betrayal —yet all the while lapped in talk more dull
than the tick of a clock.
A puppy
learns to listen this way. Sting in the silver.
Ōe says
many children were told and some believed that when the war was over
the emperor would wipe away their tears
with his own hand.
Uiterlijk verliep zijn leven soepel
Vergelijkende cijfers: 1784 Kant bezat 550 boeken, Goethe 2300, Herder 7700.
Ramen: Kant had één slaapkamerraam, dat hij te allen tijde
gesloten hield, om insecten
tegen te houden. De ramen van zijn studeerkamer keken uit op de tuin,
aan de andere kant waarvan
de stadsgevangenis was. In de zomer waaide luid koorgezang van de gevangenen
naar binnen. Kant vroeg of dat
zingen sotto voce mocht gebeuren en met gesloten ramen. Kant
had vrienden op het stadhuis en
zijn wens werd verhoord.
Tolstoj: Tolstoj dacht dat als Kant niet zo veel tabak
had gerookt, dat de Kritiek van
de Zuivere Rede dan zou zijn geschreven in een taal die je zou kunnen
begrijpen (daadwerkelijk
rookte hij één pijp om 5 uur).
Telling: Kant at nooit alleen, dat put de
geest uit. Dinergasten, volgens de
opvattingen van die dagen, mogen niet met meer zijn dan de Muzen
noch met minder dan de Gratiën.
Kant zorgde voor zes zitplaatsen.
Zinnelijkheid: Kants lievelingseten was kabeljauw.
Beheers Jouw Natuur: Kant ademde alleen door zijn neus.
Vertaald door Frans Roumen
Zie voor nog meer schrijvers van de 21e juni ook mijn blog van 21 juni 2020 en eveneens mijn blog van 21 juni 2019 en ookmijn blog van 21 juni 2014 deel 1, en deel 2 en eveneens deel 3.