De Nederlandse dichter en schrijver Michel van der Plas werd geboren op 23 oktober 1927 in Den Haag. Zie ook mijn blog van 23 oktober 2010 en eveneens alle tags voor Michel van der Plas op dit blog.
Heilsoldaat
Er liep een hondje tussen de soldaten,
meisjes giechelden op de laatste rij,
toen zij een lange juichende cantate
over de hemel zongen: Maakt u vrij!
Het was een straat als alle andere straten
Ik zag een heilsoldaat, hoe hij
Haast jubelend zong, of hij ’t nooit meer zou laten,
hij keek omhoog en leek onzegbaar blij.
Ik hoorde de trompet niet noch de hoorn,
ik zag alleen de wonderlijke lach
van een, die in verlangen stond verloren
en zong of hij de hemel open zag
en of hij stond tussen de engelenkoren
en of hij God zag op de jongste dag.
Ik die de moed nooit had om op een kist
van God te spreken met geheven handen
niet om in hete zon, regen en mist
met heul en troost bij pooiers te belanden–
maar ik heb nooit geweten, wat ik wist
en ik dacht koud te zijn, maar ik verbrandde,
ik ging een weg, maar ik heb slechts gegist
want ik kwam uit tegen mijn kamerwanden.
En als de dag komt, waar de heilsoldaat
haast jubelend van zong, zal ik als hij,
zo wonderlijk bereid, zo stil en vrij,
uitzien naar waar de Heer op wolken staat?
Als ik nu zing, zing ik dan niet te laat?
en waarom sta ik altijd nog terzij?
Michel van der Plas (Den Haag, 23 oktober 1927)
De Albanees-Amerikaanse schrijfster en actrice Masiela Lusha werd geboren op 23 oktober 1985 in Tirana. Zie ook mijn blog van 23 oktober 2008 en ook mijn blog van 23 oktober 2009 en ook mijn blog van 23 oktober 2010
Celestial Rumors
Last night the stars
Rumored of his defeat.
They lined a perfect
Smile across the navy
Duress
And shined a mocking
Tale of every destiny
He had disowned…
He was given the rights
To happiness—
And yet he had baffled
Even the gods.
What is it that he
Didn’t deserve
That ties his story
To the successions of failure?
And will they mock him?
Will destiny shine its sky
Mirror onto his faded pride
And reflect the face of past
Fears?
Will his faith fold, slowly
Piece by happy piece
Inside the darkest chapters
Of his world? Will
He release the hope he was promised,
The sandy world he had quickly built
With dreams?
How quiet the night seems.
He refuses to look into the presence of stars
He refuses to recount their promise
They had already deceived him once.
Masiela Lusha (Tirana, 23 oktober 1985)
De Amerikaanse schrijver Augusten Xon Burroughs werd geboren op 23 oktober 1965 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Zie ook mijn blog van 23 oktober 2008 en ook mijn blog van 23 oktober 2009 en ook mijn blog van 23 oktober 2010
Uit: Possible Side Effects
“The first time I was star-struck, the object of my affection was a glamorous Eastern Airlines stewardess. She had towering blond hair, frosted blue eyelids, and was well into her twenties. I was 8. We were thrown together when my parents put me on a flight by myself to Lawrenceville, Georgia, to visit my wealthy grandparents.
“I call them by their first names, Jack and Carolyn,” I told her with pride. “They’re my father’s parents. And my grandmother wears lots of jewelry, just like you.”
“Aren’t you precious?” the flight attendant said.
I smiled because I loved the name, precious. It reminded me of precious stones like rubies and emeralds and diamonds. And even semiprecious stones, like onyx, which was the black stone men wore, and the ugliest one of all.
The flight attendant returned to the kitchen and I looked out the window, happy to see the mundane “North” pass by, far below me.As the only member of my family for generations born above the Mason-Dixon line, I was fascinated by the impossibly exotic South.
Like, instead of dirty, gray squirrels, my grandparents had Technicolor peacocks on their lawn. And while we got hateful blizzards in the winter, my grandparents got yet more sunshine. I found it impossible to believe that snow did not cover the world but here was proof.
Though this became an annual trip for me, my grandfather traveled a lot, so I never spent much time with him. And he was gruff, so when he was around I was frightened and avoided him.”
Augusten Burroughs (Pittsburgh, 23 oktober 1965)
De Amerikaanse dichter, schrijver en journalist Nick Tosches werd geboren in 1949 in Newark, New Jersey. Zie ook mijn blog van 23 oktober 2008 en ook mijn blog van 23 oktober 2009 en ook mijn blog van 23 oktober 2010
Uit: Patti Smith: A Baby Wolf with Neon Blues
“Patricia Lee Smith hit the linen on December 30, 1946, in Chicago, and was raised, the eldest of four children, in Deptford Township, New Jersey.
She had been slapped about by tuberculosis; she was a frail-seeming punkling, skinny and daydreamy. She attended Glassboro State College, briefly, and tried doing piecework at a toy factory. Both made her carsick. In 1967 she came to New York. From there she went to Paris with her sister Linda. She wanted to be an artist, but her drawing became poems. She returned to New Jersey, then to New York, where she slowly but steadily became arch moll of rhythm’d word.
Patti co-authored a book with playwright Sam Shepard, “Mad Dog Blues & Other Plays.” She appeared in a film, Robert Mapplethorpe Gets His Nipple Pierced. Late in 1971, Telegraph Books published her first volume of poems, “Seventh Heaven,” which she dedicated to Mickey Spillane and Anita Pallenberg. She began to publish prose-poem essays about rock ‘n’ roll in such magazines as Rolling Stone and Creem. A second book of poems, “Kodak,” appeared in 1972. By the time Gotham Book Mart published her “Witt”in 1973, Patti had become a legend on the New York poetry circuit. She was feared, revered, and her public readings elicited the sort of gut response that had been alien to poetry for more than a few decades. Word spread, and people who avoided poetry as the stuff of four-eyed pedants found themselves oohing and howling at what came out of Patti’s mouth. Established poets feared for their credence. Many well-known poets refused to go on after Patti at a reading, she was that awesome.
The music, too. It had started with just Lenny Kaye on guitar, intuitively the two reinvented melic poetry. The band grew; piano, another guitar, then later drums. Finally, after all those years, rock ‘n’ roll had a poet.”
Nick Tosches (Newark, 23 oktober 1949)
Zie voor nog meer schrijvers van de 23e oktober ook mijn vorige blog van vandaag.