De Amerikaanse dichter Richard Wilbur werd geboren op 1 maart 1921 in New York. Zie ook alle tags voor Richard Wilbur op dit blog.
Orchard Trees, January
It’s not the case, though some might wish it so
Who from a window watch the blizzard blow
White riot through their branches vague and stark,
That they keep snug beneath their pelted bark.
They take affliction in until it jells
To crystal ice between their frozen cells,
And each of them is inwardly a vault
Of jewels rigorous and free of fault,
Unglimpsed until in May it gently bears
A sudden crop of green-pronged solitaires.
Exeunt
Piecemeal the summer dies;
At the field’s edge a daisy lives alone;
A last shawl of burning lies
On a gray field-stone.
All cries are thin and terse;
The field has droned the summer’s final mass;
A cricket like a dwindled hearse
Crawls from the dry grass.
Richard Wilbur (New York, 1 maart 1921)
Eind jaren 1940
De Afro-Amerikaanse schrijver Ralph (Waldo) Ellison werd geboren in Oklahoma City op 1 maart 1913. Zie ook alle tags voor Ralph Ellison op dit blog.
Uit: Invisible Man
“I spoke automatically and with such fervor that I did not realize that the men were still talking and laughing until my dry mouth, filling up with blood from the cut, almost strangled me. I coughed, wanting to stop and go to one of the tall brass, sand-filled spittoons to relieve myself, but a few of the men, especially the superintendent, were listening and I was afraid. So I gulped it down, blood, saliva and all, and continued. (What powers of endurance I had during those days! What enthusiasm! What a belief in the rightness of things!) I spoke even louder in spite of the pain. But still they talked and still they laughed, as though deaf with cotton in dirty ears. So I spoke with greater emotional emphasis. I closed my ears and swallowed blood until I was nauseated. The speech seemed a hundred times as long as before, but I could not leave out a single word. All had to be said, each memorized nuance considered, rendered. Nor was that all. Whenever I uttered a word of three or more syllables a group of voices would yell for me to repeat it. I used the phrase “social responsibility” and they yelled:
“What’s that word you say, boy?”
“Social responsibility,” I said.
“What?”
“Social…”
“Louder.”
“… responsibility.”
“More!”
“Respon-“
“Repeat!”
“-sibility.”
The room filled with the uproar of laughter until, no doubt distracted by having to gulp down my blood, I made a mistake and yelled a phrase I had often seen denounced in newspaper editorials, heard debated in private.
“Social…”
“What?” they yelled.
“… equality-“
Ralph Ellison (1 maart 1913 – 16 april 1994)
De Amerikaanse schrijver Steven Barnes werd geboren op 1 maart 1952 in Los Angeles. Zie ook alle tags voor Steven Barnes op dit blog.
Uit: Lion’s Blood
„The sun was a molten eye, gazing down from the heavens without malice or mercy, unfettered by clouds. It baked against Aidan’s skin. In a few minutes he would dip beneath the Lady’s waves again, seeking the shelter of her embrace.
Mahon lifted his flute to his lips and coaxed it softly, gently, as if afraid of scaring away the fish. His eyes glowed with humor.
“What have you, boyo?” his father asked, taking his pipe from his lips. Aidan leaned farther out, pressing his thin arms against the coracle’s rim. He peered more carefully now, straining to see through the chop. “Something shining in the water, Da.”
The Lute River, usually referred to as the Lady, was clear as glass here. Upstream a bit, clouds of silt from an inland mudslide darkened her depths. Here, fed by a thousand eastern tributaries, the waters had healed themselves, as if loathing the idea of gifting the distant ocean with less than her best. The Lady’s blue ribbon had fed and nurtured the O’Deres for three hundred years.
Mahon gazed up at the sky, shielding his eyes with one broad hand. “Well, it’s a hot one. Maybe time for another dip?” Aidan needed no further encouragement. He slipped off his rough wool shirt and clambered over the side, careful not to tip the boat.
The water parted to receive him then closed over his head, sealing away the music of air and bird and flute, replacing them with the Lady’s eternal rushing murmur. She was cool and bracing.
Aidan was a strong swimmer—half eel and half boy, his mother claimed—and oriented himself quickly in the water. Avoiding the nets was easy if you kept your eyes open. It would be humiliating to be caught in them; his father might be forced to draw him up and free him by knife, possibly endangering the day’s catch.“
Steven Barnes (Los Angeles, 1 maart 1952)
De Franse schrijver Jean-Edern Hallier werd geboren op 1 maart 1936 in Saint-Germain-en-Laye. Zie ook alle tags voor Jean-Edern Hallier op dit blog.
Uit: Le Refus ou la leçon des ténèbres
“«… J’avoue ici ma faiblesse. A la fondation Rothschild où j’étais soigné, sous perfusion, quand mes visiteurs me quittaient je me retrouvais seul, le visage baigné de larmes. J’ai pleuré pendant quinze jours. Mon œuvre romanesque était arrivée à maturité. J’avais encore des dizaines de livres à écrire que je n’écrirais plus jamais. J’ai songé à me suicider, et une nuit, je suis resté plusieurs heures sur le rebord de la fenêtre, prêt à me jeter dans le vide. Je ne suis pas mort. Je suis ici. Grâce à de fidèles compagnons qui m’ont aidé, qui m’assistent tous les jours, je peux m’habiller, trouver les quelques objets dont j’ai besoin, ou dicter quelques pages. Je ne peux plus traverser une rue, les couleurs du ciel et la » verdure se sont définitivement éteintes. Pour combattre l’adversité, je me suis mis à peindre dans la nuit…”
Jean-Edern Hallier (1 maart 1936 – 12 januari 1997)
Hier in 1991 met Fidel Castro
Zie voor nog meer schrijvers van de 1e maart ook mijn blog van 1 maart 2011 deel 3.