De Amerikaanse dichter en schrijver Donald Hall werd geboren in Hamden, New Haven County, Connecticut op 20 september 1928. Zie ook mijn blog van 20 september 2009 en ook mijn blog van 20 september 2010.

A Poet at Twenty

Images leap with him from branch to branch. His eyes

brighten, his head cocks, he pauses under a green bough,

alert.

And when I see him I want to hide him somewhere.

The other wood is past the hill. But he will enter it, and find the particular maple. He will walk through the door of the maple, and his arms will pull out of their sockets, and the blood will bubble from his mouth, his ears, his penis, and his nostrils. His body will rot. His body will dry in ropey tatters. Maybe he will grow his body again, three years later. Maybe he won’t.

There is nothing to do, to keep this from happening.

It occurs to me that the greatest gentleness would put a bullet into his bright eye. And when I look in his eye, it is not his eye that I see.

 

Villanelle

Katie could put her feet behind her head

Or do a grand plié, position two,

Her suppleness magnificent in bed.

I strained my lower back, and Katie bled,

Only a little, doing what we could do

When Katie tucked her feet behind her head.

Her torso was a C-cup’d figurehead,

Wearing below its navel a tattoo

That writhed in suppleness upon the bed.

As love led on to love, love’s goddess said,

“No lovers ever fucked as fucked these two!

Katie could put her feet behind her head!”

When Katie came she never stopped. Instead,

She came, cried “God!,” and came, this dancer who

Brought ballerina suppleness to bed.

She curled her legs around my neck, which led

To depths unplumbed by lovers hitherto.

Katie could tuck her feet behind her head

And by her suppleness unmake the bed.

 

Donald Hall (Hamden, 20 september 1928)

 

De Spaanse schrijver Javier Marías Franco werd op 20 september 1951 in Madrid geboren. Zie ook mijn blog van 20 september 2007en ook mijn blog van 20 september 2008 en ook mijn blog van 20 september 2009 en ook mijn blog van 20 september 2010.

 

Uit: Poison, Shadow and Farewell (Vertaald door Margaret Jull Costa)

‘While it isn’t ever something we would wish for, we would all nonetheless always prefer it to be the person beside us who dies, whether on a mission or in battle, in an air squadron or under bombardment or in the trenches when there were trenches, in a mugging or a raid on a shop or when a group of tourists is kidnapped, in an earthquake, an explosion, a terrorist attack, in a fire, it doesn’t matter: even if it’s our colleague, brother, father or even our child, however young. Or even the person we most love, yes, even them, anyone but us. Whenever someone covers another person with his own body, or places himself in the path of a bullet or a knife, these are all extraordinary exceptions,

which is why they stand out, and most are fi ctitious and only appear in novels and fi lms. The few real – life instances are the result of unthinking refl exes or else dictated by a strong sense of decorum of a sort that is becoming ever rarer, there are some who couldn’t bear for a child or a loved one to pass into the next world with, as their fi nal thought, the knowledge that a parent or lover had done nothing to prevent their death, had not sacrificed themselves, had not given their own life to save them, it’s as if such people had internalized a hierarchy of the living, which seems so quaint and antiquated now, whereby children have more right to live than women and women more than men and men more than the old, or something of the sort, at least that’s how it used to be, and such old – fashioned chivalry still persists in a dwindling band of people, those who still believe in that decorum, which, when you think about it, is quite absurd, after all, what do such fi nal thoughts, such transient feelings of pique or disappointment matter when, a moment later, the person concerned will be dead and incapable of feeling either pique or disappointment, incapable, indeed, of thinking?“

 

Javier Marías (Madrid, 20 september 1951)

 

De Duitse schrijver en journalist Joseph Breitbach werd geboren op 20 september 1903 in Ehrenbreitstein bij Koblenz.Zie ook mijn blog van 20 september 2009 en ook mijn blog van 20 september 2010.

 

Uit: Die Wandlung der Susanne Dasseldorf

“‘Der Generalstreik hat in Paris Eindruck gemacht’, erzählte Cather, als sie sich wieder oben in Cathers Zimmer gegenübersaßen, ‘Wilson hat sich diesmal zu einem formalen Einspruch gegen die französische Rheinpolitik aufgerafft. Sicher werden die Rheinländer jetzt eine Zeitlang Ruhe vor diesen Abenteuern haben.’
‘Aber sonst! Wie sieht es dafür bei uns aus! Diese Friedensbedingungen!’ sagte Louis traurig.
Cather schwieg eine Weile. ‘Ja, was hat man aus Wilsons idealem Programm gemacht’, sagte er endlich…….Louis sah ihn erstaunt an.
‘Ja’, sagte Cather, ‘etwas haben die amerikanischen Delegierten doch gegen die Franzosen durchgesetzt…… Diese Pläne der Franzosen haben wir verhindert. Die Freiheit der deutschen Verwaltung ist doch im großen ganzen sichergestellt, und vor allem ist die Legitimierung des Belagerungszustandes verhindert.”

 

Joseph Breitbach (20 september 1903 – 9 mei 1980)

 

De Duitse dichter, schrijver en essayist Adolf Endler werd geboren op 20 september 1930 in Düsseldorf. Zie ook mijn blog van 20 september 2008 en ook mijn blog van 20 september 2009 en ook mijn blog van 20 september 2010.

 

Dies Sirren

Und wieder dies Sirren am Abend. Es gilt ihnen scheint es für Singen
Ich boxe den Fensterladen auf und rufe He laßt mich nicht raten
Ihr seid es Liliputaner das greise Zwergenpaar van der Klompen
Cui bono ihr lieben Alterchen mit der Zirpstimm im Dunkel cui bono

Resumé

Bis heute kein einziger Seepapagei in meinen vielen Gedichten
(Stattdessen schon wieder’n Dutzend Fadennudeln im Bart);
Auch dem Sabberlatz nicht das ärmste Denkmal gesetzt in Vers
oder Prosa,
So wenig wie der Elbe-Schiffahrt oder der Karpfenernte bei Peitz.
Geschiebemergel dagegen ja!, fast zu häufig die Rede von diesem
(Und meistens mit Fadennudeln im verwahrlosten Bart)!
Nicht vergessen die Gelbhalsmaus, nicht fehlt die sogenannte
Naschmarktfassade!
Selbst Sägeblätter, selbst Kühlhaus-Eierweiß ich irgendwo
untergebracht.
Indessen nicht der kleinste Seepapagei in meinem Scheiße-Gesamtwerk!
Um ehrlich zu sein: Das Gleiche gilt für den Hüfthalter oder den
Kronenverschluß.
Und wie konnte ich fünfzig Jahre lang das Wörtchen “Wadenwickel”
verfehlen?
Es gibt keine ausreichend lichte Erklärung für das und für dies
und für das.
“Darf ich dir die Fadennudeln aus dem Bart nehmen?”
(Sagt Georg Maurer.

Adolf Endler (20 september 1930 – 2 augustus 2009)

 

De Engelse schrijver Henry Arthur Jones werd geboren op 20 september 1851 in Granborough, Buckinghamshire. Zie ook mijn blog van 20 september 2009 en ook mijn blog van 20 september 2010.

 

Uit: Dolly Reforming Herself

TIME: _The afternoon of_ 1ST _January_, 1907.

_Discover at writing-table, back to audience_, DOLLY TELFER, _a bright little woman about thirty, busied with bills and papers. Bending over her, back to audience, is her father_, MATT BARRON, _a pleasant-looking, easy-going cynic of sixty._ HARRY TELFER, DOLLY’S _husband, an ordinary good-natured, weakish, impulsive Englishman about thirty-five, is standing with his back to the fire. Sitting on sofa, reading a scientific book, is_ PROFESSOR STURGESS, _a hard, dry, narrow, fattish scientific man about forty-five. At the table, right, reading a French novel, is_ RENIE STURGESS, _the Professor’s wife, a tall, dark, handsome woman about thirty_.

_Harry_. No, I can’t say that I pay very much attention to sermons as a rule, but Pilcher gave us a regular downright, no-mistake-about-it, rouser at the Watch-night Service last night.

_Matt_. [_Turning round_.] I wonder what precise difference this rousing sermon will make in the conduct of any person who heard it.

_Harry_. Well, it’s going to make a lot of difference in my conduct. At least, I won’t say a lot of difference, because I don’t call myself a very bad sort of fellow, do you?

_Matt_. N-o–No—-

_Harry_. At any rate I’m a thundering good husband, ain’t I, Dolly?

[DOLLY _takes no notice_.] And I’ve got no flagrant vices. But I’ve got a heap of–well a heap of selfish little habits, such as temper, and so on, and for the coming year I’m going to knock them all off.“

 

Henry Arthur Jones (20 september 1851 – 7 januari 1929)
Cartoon uit Vanity Fair

 

Zie voor nog meer schrijvers van de 20e september ook mijn vorige blog van vandaag.