De Amerikaanse dichter en schrijver Ted Hughes werd geboren op 17 augustus 1930 in Mytholmroyd, Yorkshire. Zie ook mijn blog van 17 augustus 2010 en eveneens alle tags voor Ted Hughes op dit blog.
The Harvest Moon
The flame-red moon, the harvest moon,
Rolls along the hills, gently bouncing,
A vast balloon,
Till it takes off, and sinks upward
To lie on the bottom of the sky, like a gold doubloon.
The harvest moon has come,
Booming softly through heaven, like a bassoon.
And the earth replies all night, like a deep drum.
So people can’t sleep,
So they go out where elms and oak trees keep
A kneeling vigil, in a religious hush.
The harvest moon has come!
And all the moonlit cows and all the sheep
Stare up at her petrified, while she swells
Filling heaven, as if red hot, and sailing
Closer and closer like the end of the world.
Till the gold fields of stiff wheat
Cry `We are ripe, reap us!’ and the rivers
Sweat from the melting hills.
Work and Play
The swallow of summer, she toils all the summer,
A blue-dark knot of glittering voltage,
A whiplash swimmer, a fish of the air.
But the serpent of cars that crawls through the dust
In shimmering exhaust
Searching to slake
Its fever in ocean
Will play and be idle or else it will bust.
The swallow of summer, the barbed harpoon,
She flings from the furnace, a rainbow of purples,
Dips her glow in the pond and is perfect.
But the serpent of cars that collapsed on the beach
Disgorges its organs
A scamper of colours
Which roll like tomatoes
Nude as tomatoes
With sand in their creases
To cringe in the sparkle of rollers and screech.
The swallow of summer, the seamstress of summer,
She scissors the blue into shapes and she sews it,
She draws a long thread and she knots it at the corners.
But the holiday people
Are laid out like wounded
Flat as in ovens
Roasting and basting
With faces of torment as space burns them blue
Their heads are transistors
Their teeth grit on sand grains
Their lost kids are squalling
While man-eating flies
Jab electric shock needles but what can they do?
They can climb in their cars with raw bodies, raw faces
And start up the serpent
And headache it homeward
A car full of squabbles
And sobbing and stickiness
With sand in their crannies
Inhaling petroleum
That pours from the foxgloves
While the evening swallow
The swallow of summer, cartwheeling through crimson,
Touches the honey-slow river and turning
Returns to the hand stretched from under the eaves –
A boomerang of rejoicing shadow.
Ted Hughes (17 augustus 1930 – 28 oktober 1998)
De Duitse dichter en schrijver Theodor Däubler werd geboren op 17 augustus 1876 in Triëst. Zie en ook mijn blog van 17 augustus 2009 en ook mijn blog van 17 augustus 2010.
Auf sonniger See
Ein Segel wird zur Meereswanderblüte,
Mit Plätscherblättern silbert es dahin,
Dir kommen Lotosblumen in den Sinn,
Doch plötzlich untertulpt sich eine Tüte.
Dir wird, als ob das Meer sich blau beglühte,
Die Silbertaster werden blaß wie Zinn,
Ein Wind bringt dieser Pflanzlichkeit Gewinn.
O welches Blühen, welche Mittagsgüte!
So wandern Wunderblumen rotverschlossen
Und golden bloß wie Knospen aus der Flut,
Nur eine Lilie ist verzückt entsprossen.
Ihr Segeln sonnt sich in der Silberhut
Gespiegelter und flackerschwanker Kelche,
Ein bleiches Suchen wellt sich: Welche?
Theodor Däubler (17 augustus 1876 – 13 juni 1934)
De Zweedse schrijfster Frederika Bremer werd geboren op 17 augustus 1801 in Tuorla bij Piikkiö. Zie en ook mijn blog van 17 augustus 2009 en ook mijn blog van 17 augustus 2010.
Uit: Hertha or the Story of a Soul(Vertaald door Mary Howitt)
“And we shall always continue to be minors, if we do not go to law with our father, because it is his will that we should ever be dependent upon him, and the laws of our country forbid us to act as if we were rational, independent beings! Look, Alma, it is this injustice towards us, as women, which provokes me, not merely with my father, but with the men who make these my country’s unjust laws, and with all who contrary to reason and justice maintain them, and in so doing contribute to keep us in our fettered condition. We have property which we inherit from our mother; yet can we not dispose of one single farthing of it. We are old enough to know what we desire, and to be able to take care of ourselves and others, yet at the same time we are kept as children under our father and guardian, because he chooses to consider us as such, and treat us as such. We are prohibited every action, every thought which would tend to independent activity or the opening of a future for ourselves, because our father and guardian says that we are minors, that we are children, and the law says, ‘it is his right; you have nothing to say!'”
“Yes,” said Alma, “it is unjust, and harder than people think. But, nevertheless, our father means well by us, and manages our property justly and prudently with regard to our best interests.”
“And who will be the better for it? We? When we are old and stupid, and no more good for anything? See, I shall soon be twenty-seven, you are twenty-nine already, and for what have we lived?”
Fredrika Bremer (17 augustus 1801 – 31 december 1865)
Portret doorJohan Gustaf Sandberg
Zie voor onderstaande schrijvers ook mijn blog van 17 augustus 2010.
De Ethiopische dichter en schrijver Tsegaye Gabre-Medhinwerd geboren op 17 augustus 1936 in Boda bij Ambo. Zie ook mijn blog van 17 augustus 2007 en ook mijn blog van 17 augustus 2008 en ook mijn blog van 17 augustus 2009.
De Franse schrijver en diplomaat Roger Peyrefitte werd geboren op 17 augustus 1907 in Castres. Zie ook mijn blog van 17 augustus 2007 en ook mijn blog van 17 augustus 2008 en ook mijn blog van 17 augustus 2009.
De Amerikaanse schrijfster Nicola Kraus werd geboren op 17 augustus 1974 in New York. Zie ook mijn blog van 7 februari 2009.
De Franse dichter en schrijver Robert Sabatier werd geboren op 17 augustus 1923 in Parijs. Zie ook mijn blog van 17 augustus 2008 en ook mijn blog van 17 augustus 2009.
De Russische dichter Anton Delvig werd geboren op 17 augustus 1798 in Moskou. Zie ook mijn blog van 17 augustus 2008 en ook mijn blog van 17 augustus 2009.
De Poolse dichter en schrijver Józef Wittlin werd geborern in Podolien op 17 augustus 1896 in het toenmalige Oostenrijk-Hongarije. Zie en ook mijn blog van 17 augustus 2009.