De Amerikaanse dichteres en performster Jayne Cortez werd geboren op 10 mei 1936 in Fort Huachuca, Arizona. Zie ook alle tags voor Jayne Cortez op dit blog.
Poetry
In fact
poetry
will not
strike
lightning
through
any
convoy of chickens
Today poems are like flags
flying on liquor store roof
poems are like baboons
waiting to be fed by tourists
& does it matter
how many metaphors
reach out to you
when the sun
goes down like
a stuffed bird in
tropical forest
of your solitude
In fact
poetry
will not
sing jazz
through
constricted mouth
of an anteater
no matter how many
symbols survive
to see the moon
dying in saw dust
of your toenail
De Italiaanse schrijver Roberto Cotroneo werd op 10 mei 1961 geboren in Alessandria. Zie ook alle tags voor Roberto Cotroneo op dit blog.
Uit: Letters to my son on the love of books (Vertaald door N. S. Thompson)
“The Captain’s presence disturbs the everyday life of this English family living at the beginning of the eighteenth century: he drinks too much, doesn’t pay his bills, and has a violent nature. It is in these early pages, Francesco, that the lines are made unclear. The terrible Bill announces himself in all his loud and conceited banality, but he is simply a joke of a pirate or—to be more precise—he is made to appear so. One evening when he tries to go too far, the rum having made more than its usual mark, he is first threatened, then silenced by Dr. Livesey. Billy Bones is nothing more than Stevenson’s means to force Jim on a journey that will take him from adolescence, with its inevitable pain and damage, into adulthood. With Billy’s arrival, Jim’s father falls ill, then after some time, dies, and everything at the inn becomes more difficult. Jim and his mother find it an increasing effort to look after so troublesome a guest as the captain, especially when he starts to receive visits from Black Dog and Blind Pew.
Some pages back I spoke to you about good and evil and about why this novel is a kind of journey of initiation into life. It is a complex journey where many characters come into play: main characters who appear minor, and vice versa. It is a novel that has none of the linearity or apparent simplicity of certain oriental tales of initiation. When you are grown up, you will read books like René Daumal’s Mount Analogue and understand that there are many ways of overcoming the obstacles that life places in your path: sometimes they are linear, with progressive steps; but they can also take a different course and follow a more shifting, circuitous path, where it seems that you slide about, taking two steps forward and one step back. Books are also like that, Francesco, they digress and speak of other things, before returning to the main subject with an added something. Treasure Island is a novel about a journey that is very different from what it first announces itself to be. It is about the end of innocence: it is true that it is a book for children, but once they read it, and read it carefully (although perhaps a single reading won’t suffice), then they can only grow.”
De Engelse schrijfster Barbara Taylor Bradford werd geboren in Leeds, West Yorkshire op 10 mei 1933. Zie ook alle tags voor Barbara Taylor Bradford op dit blog.
Uit: An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith
“To make bread or love, to dig in the earth, to feed an animal or cook for a stranger—these activities require no extensive commentary, no lucid theology. All they require is someone willing to bend, reach, chop, stir. Most of these tasks are so full of pleasure that there is no need to complicate things by calling them holy. And yet these are the same activities that change lives, sometimes all at once and sometimes more slowly, the way dripping water changes stone. In a world where faith is often construed as a way of thinking, bodily practices remind the willing that faith is a way of life.”
(…)
“People encounter God under shady oak trees, on riverbanks, at the tops of mountains, and in long stretches of barren wilderness. God shows up in whirlwinds, starry skies, burning bushes, and perfect strangers. When people want to know more about God, the son of God tells them to pay attention to the lilies of the field and the birds of the air, to women kneading bread and workers lining up for their pay. Whoever wrote this stuff believed that people could learn as much about the ways of God from paying attention to the world as they could from paying attention to scripture. What is true is what happens, even if what happens is not always right. People can learn as much about the ways of God from business deals gone bad or sparrows falling to the ground as they can from reciting the books of the Bible in order. They can learn as much from a love affair or a wildflower as they can from knowing the Ten Commandments by heart.”
De Spaanse schrijver Benito Pérez Galdós werd geboren in Las Palmas op 10 mei 1843. Zie ook alle tags voor Benito Pérez Galdós op dit blog.
Uit: Our friend Manso (Vertaald door Robert Russell)
“What had happened to that repose and marvelous equilibrium of the North European woman I had seen in her? In those fine qualities, as in others, I had got the notion that she was, among all the creatures I had seen on earth, the most perfect. Oh, those perfections were in my books, they were the product of my penchant for thinking and synthesizing, and of my too-frequent dealings with an idea of unity and with the great laws of that deadly gift for perceiving archetypes and not persons.”
(…)
“My new affliction consisted of having a vision of her bereft of all the perfections in which my ideas had clothed her, and in realizing I found her more interesting and loved her more this new way. In a word, I reached the point of feeling a burning idolization of her. A strange contradiction! When she was perfect, I loved her in a Petrachan way, with cold sentimental feeling that might have inspired me to write sonnets. Now that she was imperfect, I adored her with a new and tumultuous affection, stronger than I and all my philosophizing.“
In 1863
De Duitse dichter,schrijver, pedagoog en theoloog Johann Peter Hebel werd geboren op 10 mei 1760 in Basel. Zie ook alle tags voor Johann Peter Hebel op dit blog.
Uit: Der Zundelheiner
„Der geneigte Leser wird ermahnt, nicht alles für wahr zu halten, was in dieser Erzählung vorkommt. Doch ist sie in einem schönen Buch beschrieben, und zu Vers gebracht.
Der Zundelheiner und der Zundelfrieder trieben von Jugend auf das Handwerk ihres Vaters, der bereits am Auerbacher Galgen mit des Seilers Tochter kopuliert war, nämlich mit dem Strick; und ein Schulkamerad, der rote Dieter, hielt’s auch mit, und war der jüngste. Doch mordeten sie nicht, und griffen keine Menschen an, sondern visitierten nur so bei Nacht in den Hühnerställen, und wenn’s Gelegenheit gab, in den Küchen, Kellern und Speichern, allenfalls auch in den Geldtrögen, und auf den Märkten kauften sie immer am wohlfeilsten ein.
Wenn’s aber nichts zu stehlen gab, so übten sie sich untereinander mit allerlei Aufgaben und Wagstücken, um im Handwerk weiter zu kommen. Einmal im Wald sieht der Heiner auf einem hohen Baum einen Vogel auf dem Nest sitzen, denkt, er hat Eier, und fragt die andern: «Wer ist imstande und holt dem Vogel dort oben die Eier aus dem Nest, ohne daß es der Vogel merkt?» Der Frieder, wie eine Katze, klettert hinauf, naht sich leise dem Nest, bohrt langsam ein Löchlein unten drein, läßt ein Eilein nach dem andern in die Hand fallen, flickt das Nest wieder zu mit Moos, und bringt die Eier. «Aber wer dem Vogel die Eier wieder unterlegen kann», sagte jetzt der Frieder, «ohne daß es der Vogel merkt?» Da kletterte der Heiner den Baum hinan, aber der Frieder kletterte ihm nach, und während der Heiner dem Vogel langsam die Eier unterschob, ohne daß es der Vogel merkte, zog der Frieder dem Heiner langsam die Hosen ab, ohne daß es der Heiner merkte. Da gab es ein groß Gelächter, und die beiden andern sagten: «Der Frieder ist der Meister.»
Der rote Dieter aber sagte: «Ich sehe schon, mit euch kann ich’s nicht zugleich tun, und wenn’s einmal zu bösen Häusern geht, und der Unrechte kommt über uns, so ist’s mir nimmer angst für euch, aber für mich.» Also ging er fort, wurde wieder ehrlich, und lebte mit seiner Frau arbeitsam und häuslich.“
Portret door Adolf Glattacker, 1925
Zie voor nog meer schrijvers van de 10e mei ook mijn vorige blog van vandaag.