De Nederlandse dichter Lucebert werd in Amsterdam geboren op 15 september 1924 onder de naam Lubertus Swaanswijk. Zie ook mijn blog van 15 september 2010 en eveneens alle tags voor Lucebert op dit blog.
de rivier
uit al haar armen brandt de rivier onder de rotsen
en onder de kleine zon boven de bossen
spuwt naar tellurische wortels naar de staart van de wolk
en met gesperde muil dwars door deinende scherven zij zwermt
met grillige warmte over de wereld
de duisternis dicht bij haar buik buigen gulzige bloemen
en daar is een hol en een poel en het kraken en zoemen
van een paar draken in de avond niet veraf op een graf
staande een uil staart naar een glazen galg daar grof
gebouwde rotsen omringen de melodische afgrond
ach altijd en altijd hangen natte tongen aan de trieste bergen
gespleten tongen getande tongen en opgeblazen
ronkende tongen en in de dalen in de stenen en lemen cocons
academisch zingende mannen manmoedig wanhopig
zingende mannen en vrouwen vaag draperend de ruimte
maar een adder de lichtgeaderde rivier spartelt en
knaagt aan het wenende vlees van de wind
wat geeft dat klagen? sneeuw sneeuwt over vervaarlijke
en ook over bedaagde ogen en alles raakt los in de nacht
voort stromende argeloos tomeloos maar niet verlost
van de klagende nacht
lente-suite voor lilith
introductie:
als babies zijn de dichters niet genezen
van een eenzaam zoekend achterhoofd
velen hebben liefde uitgedoofd
om in duisternis haar licht te lezen
in duisternis is ieder even slecht
de buidel tederheid is spoedig leeg
alleen wat dichters brengen het te weeg
uit poelen worden lelies opgedregd
kappers slagers beterpraters
alles wat begraven is
godvergeten dovenetels laat es
aan uw zwarte vlekken merken dat het niet te laat is
wie wil stralen die moet branden
blijven branden als hij liefde meent
om in licht haar duisternis op handen
te dragen voor de hele goegemeent
1
o-o-oh
zo god van slanke lavendel te zien
en de beek koert naar de keel
en de keel is van de anemonen
is van de zee de monen zingende bovengekomen
kleine dokter jij drinkende huid van bezien
zie een mond met de torens luiden de tong
een wier van geluid de libbelen tillende klei
en jij
wassen jij klein en vingers in de la in de ven
lavendel in de lente love lied
laat zij geuren
pagodegeuren
lavendelgoden
geuren
Lucebert (15 september 1924 – 10 mei 1994)
Lucebert: Prinsenpaar, 1962
De Nederlandse dichter en schrijver Jan Jacob Slauerhoff werd geboren in Leeuwarden op 15 september 1898. Zie ook mijn blog van 15 september 2010 en eveneens alle tags voor Jan Slauerhoff op dit blog.
Eer de tuin ’t vertrouwen vindt
Eer de tuin ’t vertrouwen vindt
Zich de volle bloei te geven,
Staan de meisjes er in, beven,
Willen wel, neen nog niet leven
En uit enge angsten streven
Tengre handen tegen wind.
En zij gaan met schuwe voeten,
Als door zwaar gewaad gedrukt,
Traag, bevreesd en toch verrukt,
Houdingen zoekend die zij moeten
Vinden om hun droom te ontmoeten.
Uyemo Park, Tokio
De kindren lopen uit hun kleurig spel
En laten ’t park schuw en verwaarloosd achter.
De vogels zwijgen om een oude wachter,
Alleen de krekels sjirpen snel en schel.
Het groene en rode loof wordt even vaal.
Een flakkerlicht ontwaakt in bronzen lampen.
De avond komt gedempt, gehuld in dampen
Nader, als een sluipmoordnaar in een zaal.
Maar plechtig aangetrokken klokken tampen
En langgerekte heilige tonen gonzen
Boven het dor en streng gebed der bonzen,
Beveiligd voor de nacht in ’t heiligdom.
Klaaglijk roepen de alcyonen
KLAAGLIJK roepen de alcyonen,
Schichtig fladdren de alcyonen,
Boven ’t woedend brandingklotsen
Tegen Akashiro’s rotsen,
Waar wraakgierige demonen,
Boven Akashiro’s rotsen,
Tussen gierennesten tronen.
Over Akashiro’s rotsen
Zweeft een lieflijk avondrood;
Onder, blind in ’t brandingklotsen,
Vindt de schepeling zijn dood.
Klaaglijk schreeuwen de alcyonen,
Laag en schichtig de alcyonen
Scheren over ’t brandingklotsen.
Rood zijn Akashiro’s rotsen.
Jan Slauerhoff (15 september 1898 – 5 oktober 1936)
De Colombiaanse dichter, schrijver, hoogleraar en journalist Sergio Esteban Vélez Peláez werd geboren op 15 september 1983 in Medellín. Zie ook alle tags voor Sergio Esteban Vélez op dit blog.
The soul weighs twenty-one grams
The soul weighs twenty-one grams,
say the esoteric
philosophers.
The supreme energy
chained to a body
and only two trembling
shutters
show you a
deserted
corner of the universe.
Pseudolife
subjected to time;
dreams,
a few bones,
and love,
a few atoms of smoke.
All in an ashtray.
They are only twenty-one
eternal grams.
Sergio Esteban Vélez (Medellín, 15 september 1983)
De Nigeriaanse schrijfster Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie werd geboren op 15 september 1977 in Enugu. Zie ook mijn blog van 15 september 2010 en eveneens alle tags voor Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie op dit blog.
Uit: Americanah
“Everyone she had told she was moving back seemed surprised, expecting an explanation, and when she said she was doing it because she wanted to, puzzled lines would appear on foreheads.“You are closing your blog and selling your condo to go back to Lagos and work for a magazine that doesn’t pay that well,” Aunty Uju had said and then repeated herself, as though to make Ifemelu see the gravity of her own foolishness. Only her old friend in Lagos, Ranyinudo, had made her return seem normal. “Lagos is now full of American returnees, so you better come back and join them. Every day you see them carrying a bottle of water as if they will die of heat if they are not drinking water every minute,” Ranyinudo said. They had kept in touch, she and Ranyinudo, throughout the years. At first, they wrote infrequent letters, but as cybercafés opened, cell phones spread, and Facebook flourished, they communicated more often. It was Ranyinudo who had told her, some years ago, that Obinze was getting married. “Meanwhile o, he has serious money now. See what you missed!” Ranyinudo had said. Ifemelu feigned indifference to this news. She had cut off contact with Obinze, after all, and so much time had passed, and she was newly in a relationship with Blaine, and hap-pily easing herself into a shared life. But after she hung up, she thought endlessly of Obinze. Imagining him at his wedding left her with a feeling like sorrow, a faded sorrow. But she was pleased for him, she told herself, and to prove to herself that she was pleased for him, she decided to write him. She was not sure if he still used his old address and she sent the e-mail half expecting that he would not reply, but he did. She did not write again, because she by then had acknowledged her own small, still-burning light. It was best to leave things alone. Last December, when Ranyinudo told her she had run into him at the Palms mall, with his baby daughter (and Ifemelu still could not picture this new sprawling, modern mall in Lagos; all that came to mind when she tried to was the cramped Mega Plaza she remembered)—“He was looking so clean, and his daughter is so fine,” Ranyinudo said—Ifemelu felt a pang at all the changes that had happened in his life.“Nigeria film very good now,” Aisha said again.“Yes,” Ifemelu said enthusiastically. This was what she had become, a seeker of signs. Nigerian films were good, therefore her move back home would be good.“You from Yoruba in Nigeria,” Aisha said.“No. I am Igbo.”“You Igbo?” For the first time, a smile appeared on Aisha’s face,a smile that showed as much of her small teeth as her dark gums.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Enugu, 15 september 1977)
Cover
De Britse schrijfster Agatha Christie werd geboren in Torquay (Devon) op 15 september 1890. Zie ook mijn blog van 15 september 2010 en eveneens alle tags voor Agatha Christie op dit blog.
Uit: The Murder at the Vicarage
“It is difficult to know quite where to begin this story, but I have fixed my choice on a certain Wednesday at luncheon at the Vicarage. The conversation, though in the main irrelevant to the matter in hand, yet contained one or two suggestive incidents which influenced later developments.
I had just finished carving some boiled beef (remarkably tough by the way) and on resuming my seat I remarked, in a spirit most unbecoming to my cloth, that any one who murdered Colonel Protheroe would be doing the world at large a service.
My young nephew, Dennis, said instantly:
“That’ll be remembered against you when the old boy is found bathed in blood. Mary will give evidence, won’t you, Mary? And describe how you brandished the carving knife in a vindictive manner.”
Mary, who is in service at the Vicarage as a stepping-stone to better things and higher wages, merely said in a loud, businesslike voice, “Greens,” and thrust a cracked dish at him in a truculent manner.
My wife said in a sympathetic voice: “Has he been very trying?”
I did not reply at once, for Mary, setting the greens on the table with a bang, proceeded to thrust a dish of singularly moist and unpleasant dumplings under my nose. I said, “No, thank you,” and she deposited the dish with a clatter on the table and left the room.
“It is a pity that I am such a shocking housekeeper,” said my wife, with a tinge of genuine regret in her voice.
I was inclined to agree with her. My wife’s name is Griselda — a highly suitable name for a parson’s wife. But there the suitability ends. She is not in the least meek.
I have always been of the opinion that a clergyman should be unmarried. Why I should have urged Griselda to marry me at the end of twentyfours hours’ acquaintance is a mystery to me.”
Agatha Christie (15 september 1890 – 12 januari 1976)
Cover DVD van de film uit 1986 met Joan Hickson als Miss Marple
De Turkse schrijver Orhan Kemal (eig. Mehmet Raşit Öğütçü) werd geboren op 15 september 1914 in Ceyhan. Zie ook mijn blog van 15 september 2010 en eveneens alle tags voor Orhan Kemal op dit blog.
Uit: The Idle Years (Vertaald door Cengiz Lugal)
‘Obviously. We’ll also have to invite him out as well.’
‘We could do that, you know. Take him along to a restaurant with Nejip. We ought to, really.’
‘We could order two full bottles of raki…’
‘If I get about a hundred and fifty or so, then it really won’t matter.’
‘I wouldn’t worry. Your aunt’s bound to send you at least that. Because she does know you have a friend with you as well….’
That evening Nevzat handed me the letter I had long been waiting for. I excitedly ripped open the envelope. Gazi and I leaned over and swiftly read the brief note.
I was to leave any so-called friend and come over straight away. There would be no need for me to pay the bus fare – I had only to give my uncle’s name. And when was I going to learn not to let every bum and scrounger tag along wherever I went!
Gazi had changed colour. I tore up the letter and threw it out of the window and into the smell of fried fish. First, we sold my clothes and then my suitcase.
‘Istanbul is one of a kind!’
You can hop off its trams, hop on to its taxis and entertain whom you want at the restaurant of your choice…. You can set up a factory, or stay unemployed or open a bank… Whatever you want!
‘Istanbul is one of a kind!’
Then what?
Well, then, it was first one bit of work, then another. We worked as waiters in cafés around Galata, shovelled coal, did a bit of street selling and occasionally played for some of the useless local football teams, all for no more than a square meal.
‘Istanbul is one of a kind!’
Finally one morning, half starving, we bade farewell to the bridge, to the trams, to the dirty sea, to Galata and to Beyoglu and boarded a ship back home, leaving all those beautiful women to the men of Istanbul.
Farewell, then, Istanbul!”
Orhan Kemal (15 september 1914 – 2 juni 1970)
De Zweedse dichter en schrijver Bengt Gunnar Ekelöf werd geboren op 15 september 1907 in Stockholm. Zie ook mijn blog van 15 september 2010 en eveneens alle tags voor Gunnar Ekelöf op dit blog.
The flowers doze in the window
The flowers doze in the window and the lamp gazes / light
the window gazes with thoughtless eyes out into the / dark
paintings exhibit without soul the thought confided / to then
and houseflies stand still on the walls and think
the flowers lean into the night and the lamp weaves / light
the cat in the corner weaves woolen yarn to sleep with
on the stove the coffeepot snores now and then with / pleasure
the children play quietly on the floor with words
the table set with white cloth is waiting for someone
whose feet never will come up the stairs
a train-whistle tunneling through the silence in the / distance
does not find out what the secret of things is
but fate counts the strokes of the pendulum by / decimals
Vertaald door Robert Bly
Gunnar Ekelöf (15 september 1907 – 16 maart 1968)
De Amerikaanse schrijver James Fenimore Cooper werd geboren in Burlington, New Jersey op 15 september 1789. Zie ook alle tags voor James Fenimore Cooper op dit blog.
Uit: The Last of the Mohicans
“While, in the pursuit of their daring plans of annoyance, the restless enterprise of the French even attempted the distant and difficult gorges of the Alleghany, it may easily be imagined that their proverbial acuteness would not overlook the natural advantages of the district we have just described. It became, emphatically, the bloody arena, in which most of the battles for the mastery of the colonies were contested. Forts were erected at the different points that commanded the facilities of the route, and were taken and retaken, razed and rebuilt, as victory alighted on the hostile banners. While the husbandman shrank back from the dangerous passes, within the safer boundaries of the more ancient settlements, armies larger than those that had often disposed of the scepters of the mother countries, were seen to bury themselves in these forests, whence they rarely returned but in skeleton bands, that were haggard with care or dejected by defeat. Though the arts of peace were unknown to this fatal region, its forests were alive with men; its shades and glens rang with the sounds of martial music, and the echoes of its mountains threw back the laugh, or repeated the wanton cry, of many a gallant and reckless youth, as he hurried by them, in the noontide of his spirits, to slumber in a long night of forgetfulness.
It was in this scene of strife and bloodshed that the incidents we shall attempt to relate occurred, during the third year of the war which England and France last waged for the possession of a country that neither was destined to retain.
The imbecility of her military leaders abroad, and the fatal want of energy in her councils at home, had lowered the character of Great Britain from the proud elevation on which it had been placed by the talents and enterprise of her former warriors and statesmen. No longer dreaded by her enemies, her servants were fast losing the confidence of self-respect. In this mortifying abasement, the colonists, though innocent of her imbecility, and too humble to be the agents of her blunders, were but the natural participators. They had recently seen a chosen army from that country, which, reverencing as a mother, they had blindly believed invincible–an army led by a chief who had been selected from a crowd of trained warriors, for his rare military endowments, disgracefully routed by a handful of French and Indians, and only saved from annihilation by the coolness and spirit of a Virginian boy, whose riper fame has since diffused itself, with the steady influence of moral truth, to the uttermost confines of Christendom.”
James Fenimore Cooper (15 september 1789 – 14 september 1851)
Standbeeld in New York
De Jamaicaanse dichter en schrijver Festus Claudius “Claude “McKay werd geboren op 15 september 1890 in Sunny Ville, Clarendon, Jamaica. Xie ook alle tags voor Claude McKay op dit blog.
After the Winter
Some day, when trees have shed their leaves
And against the morning’s white
The shivering birds beneath the eaves
Have sheltered for the night,
We’ll turn our faces southward, love,
Toward the summer isle
Where bamboos spire the shafted grove
And wide-mouthed orchids smile.
And we will seek the quiet hill
Where towers the cotton tree,
And leaps the laughing crystal rill,
And works the droning bee.
And we will build a cottage there
Beside an open glade,
With black-ribbed blue-bells blowing near,
And ferns that never fade.
Subway Wind
Far down, down through the city’s great gaunt gut
The gray train rushing bears the weary wind;
In the packed cars the fans the crowd’s breath cut,
Leaving the sick and heavy air behind.
And pale-cheeked children seek the upper door
To give their summer jackets to the breeze;
Their laugh is swallowed in the deafening roar
Of captive wind that moans for fields and seas;
Seas cooling warm where native schooners drift
Through sleepy waters, while gulls wheel and sweep,
Waiting for windy waves the keels to lift
Lightly among the islands of the deep;
Islands of lofy palm trees blooming white
That led their perfume to the tropic sea,
Where fields lie idle in the dew-drenched night,
And the Trades float above them fresh and free.
Claude McKay (15 september 1890 – 22 mei 1948)
Zie voor nog meer schrijvers van de 15e september ook mijn blog van 15 september 2015 en ook mijn blog van 15 september 2013 deel 2.