De Duitse dichter en schrijver Walter Rheiner (eig. Walter Heinrich Schnorrenberg) werd geboren op 18 maart 1895 in Keulen. Zie ook mijn blog van 18 maart 2009 en ook mijn blog van 18 maart 2010.
Walt Whitman
Wälder. Berge. Sternfall. Ströme.
Wolken rauschen, grauer Bart.
Lager zwischen Gräsern. Tierlaut.
Gott der Wildnis. Sonne tönt!
Städte glühen. Staaten wölben.
Pflaster knistert. Straßen schwingen.
Strahlen-Augen. Himmel-Hand.
Meeresküste. Schiff im Fernen.
Baum ins Blaue mächtig kreisend.
Reise. Fischfang. Nächtiges Feuer.
Herz, draus goldene Stürme stoßen.
Ruf ins Weltall: Sieg! und: Sieg!
Vater des Planeten. Zeus.
Blitz im Auge, mildes Licht.
An den Schultern siedeln Dörfer.
– O daß deine Hand ich hielte!
Ruhst du unter meinen Schritten?
Quillst du, Erden-Leib?
Frühling blühst du, Winter sinkst du.
Welt du, Klang und Sterne.
Walter Rheiner (18 maart 1895 – 12 juni 1925)
Conrad Felixmueller: Der Tod des Dichters Walter Rheiner,1925
De Sloveense dichter en schrijver Srečko Kosove werd geboren in Sežana op 18 maart 1904. Zie ook mijn blog van 18 maart 2009 en ook mijn blog van 18 maart 2010.
An Autumn Landscape
The sun is autumn calm
as though in mourning;
behind the slender cypress trees
behind the white wall of the graveyard. –
The grass all red in the sun. –
Do you wear the clogs of dogma?
A bicycle abandoned on an autumn road.
You ride through a dying landscape.
A staid man walks the field,
he is as cold as autumn,
he is as sad as autumn.
Faith in humanity.
To me it is a sacred thought.
A speechless silence is like sorrow.
I am no longer sad
for I do not think of myself.
Vertaald door Katarina Jerin
Srečko Kosovel (18 maart 1904 – 27 mei 1926)
De Franse schrijver Jean Anglade werd geboren op 18 maart 1915 in Bonnets bij Thiers. Zie ook mijn blog van 18 maart 2009 en ook mijn blog van 18 maart 2010.
Uit: Confidences auvergnates
„Me voilà donc enfoncé jusqu’aux oreilles dans la fidélité. A moi-même et à ma province. Il ne faut pas confondre cependant fidélité et immobilisme. Je ne suis pas le lierre. Elle n’est pas la vieille muraille à laquelle je grimpe, qui s’effrite, s’émiette, et se rapproche un peu plus chaque jour de son écroulement. L’Auvergne a bien changé depuis que j’ai commencé, tardivement, à me sentir auvergnat. Parenthèse à l’usage de mes compatriotes. Pour se dire tel, il ne suffit pas d’être né en Auvergne. On peut même, à la rigueur, ne pas y être né et se parer de ce titre. Ainsi son Altesse Royale la duchesse de Berry, se promenant parmi nos montagnes, vers 1820, écrivait à ses amis parisiens: ” Je me sens devenir auvergnate !” Que faut-il donc de plus ? Compléter cette naissance par la connaissance. Justifier et enrichir cet amour en s’intéressant à la surface et à la profondeur de la province aimée, à son passé, à son présent, à son avenir. Il y a donc des Auvergnats débutants, des Auvergnats en cours de développement, des Auvergnats accomplis, sinon achevés, car on ne l’est jamais. Plusieurs de mes livres rendent compte de ce changement. Vers le mieux, vers le pis, vers le différent. Un de mes ouvrages y est même entièrement consacré: Le Pays oublié. Suite, si l’on veut, de mon roman Le Voleur de coloquintes où je narrais l’histoire de Jean-Baptiste Pascal, dit Sang-de-Chou, qui, prisonnier de guerre, avait renoncé, en 1945, à rentrer dans son Auvergne natale pour avoir trouvé en Bavière une vie campagnarde conforme à ses goûts. Chagriné de cette décision, je cherchais dans cette suite, composée de seize lettres, à convaincre Sang-de-Chou de venir, ne fût-ce que le temps d’un pèlerinage, revoir le pays de ses ancêtres; pour préparer ce retour, je lui décrivais les transformations intervenues au cours de ces quarante années d’absence et d’oubli. Le promenant du nord au sud, de l’Allier à l’Ardèche, du Cantal à la Lozère, parmi des paysages et des hommes nouveaux.“
Jean Anglade (Bonnets, 18 maart 1915)
De Amerikaanse schrijver George Ames Plimpton werd geboren op 18 maart 1927 in New York. Zie ook mijn blog van 18 maart 2009 en ook mijn blog van 18 maart 2010.
Uit: The Bogey Man
“Why don’t you try Ben Hogan?” the member asked.
He said he would call him—he was a good friend—and put in a word for me. Hogan was in the vicinity preparing for the Masters, as he did annnually at the Seminole Golf Club north of Palm Beach.
I thanked the member, and a few days later, on his say-so, I called Hogan. I explained somewhat haltingly that I wanted to write an article about commpeting against great professionals. Perhaps a match could be arranged.
I can remember his voice in reply—polite and easy. It took me awhile to realize that he was turning me down. He said, yes, our mutual friend had described the notion to him. He said he had no ojection to playing a friendly match, perhaps along with the friend who had put us in touch. A good player a former Harvard captain, did I know that? Yes, I said. But Hogan went on, if I intended to write about playing against him in a competiton, well, that was another matter. The conditions would have to be those of a tournament..
George Plimpton (18 maart 1927 – 25 septem 2003)
De Amerikaanse romancier Richard Thomas Condon werd geboren op 18 maart 1915 in New York. Zie ook mijn blog van 18 maart 2007 en ook mijn blog van 18 maart 2009 en ook mijn blog van 18 maart 2010.
Uit: The Manchurian Candidate
“Listen to that genuine, bluff sergeant version of police verso, Raymond cried out to himself. I am playing the authentic war buddy so deeply that I will have to mail in a royalty check for the stock rights. Look at that clown of a photographer trying to cope with phenomena. Any minute now he will realize that he is standing right beside Mavole’s father.
“Oh, Sergeant!” the girl said, so then he knew who she was. She wasn’t red-eyed and runny-nosed with grief for the dead hero, so she had to be the cub reporter who had been assigned to write the big local angle on the White House and the Hero, and he had probably written the lead for her with that sappy grandstand play.
“I’m Ed’s father,” the sweat manufacturer said. It was December, fuh gossake, what’s with all the dew? “I’m Arthur Mavole. I’m sorry about this. I just happened to mention at the paper that you had called all the way from San Francisco and that you had offered to stop over and see Eddie’s mother on the way to the White House, and the word somehow got upstairs to the city desk and well — that’s the newspaper business, I guess.”
Raymond took three steps forward, grasped Mr. Mavole’s hand, gripped his right forearm with his own left hand, transmitted the steely glance and the iron stare and the frozen fix. He felt like Captain Idiot in one of those space comic books, and the photographer got the picture and lost all interest in them.
“May I ask how old you are, Sergeant Shaw?” the young chick said, notebook ready, pencil poised as though she and Mavole were about to give him a fitting, and he figured reflexively that this could be the first assignment she had ever gotten after years of journalism school and months of social notes from all over. He remembered his first assignment and how he had feared the waffle-faced movie actor who had opened the door of the hotel suite wearing only pajama bottoms, with corny tattoos like So Long, Mabel on each shoulder. Inside the suite Raymond had managed to convey that he would just as soon have hit the man as talk to him and he had said, “Gimme the handout and we can save some time.” The traveling press agent with the actor, a plump, bloodshot type whose glasses kept sliding down his nose, had said, “What handout?”
Richard Condon (18 maart 1915 – 9 april 1996)
De Engelse dichter en kunstcriticus William Cosmo Monkhouse werd geboren op 18 maart 1840 in Londen. Zie ook mijn blog van 18 maart 2009 en ook mijn blog van 18 maart 2010.
The Secret
She passes in her beauty bright
Amongst the mean, amongst the gay,
And all are brighter for the sight,
And bless her as she goes her way.
And now a gleam of pity pours,
And now a spark of spirit flies,
Uncounted, from the unlock’d stores
Of her rich lips and precious eyes.
And all men look, and all men smile,
But no man looks on her as I:
They mark her for a little while,
But I will watch her till I die.
And if I wonder now and then
Why this so strange a thing should be—
That she be seen by wiser men
And only duly lov’d by me:
I only wait a little longer,
And watch her radiance in the room;
Here making light a little stronger,
And there obliterating gloom,
(Like one who, in a tangled way,
Watches the broken sun fall through,
Turning to gold the faded spray,
And making diamonds of dew).
Until at last, as my heart burns,
She gathers all her scatter’d light,
And undivided radiance turns
Upon me like a sea of light.
And then I know they see in part
That which God lets me worship whole:
He gives them glances of her heart,
But me, the sunshine of her soul.
Cosmo Monkhouse (18 maart 1840 – 20 juli 1901)
Portret door John McLure Hamilton
De Duitse schrijver Friedrich Nicolai werd geboren op 18 maart 1733 in Berlijn. Zie ook mijn blog van 18 maart 2009 en ook mijn blog van 18 maart 2010.
Auf Werthers Grabe, 1775
Ein junger Mensch, ich weiß nicht wie,
Starb einst an der Hypochondrie
Und ward denn auch begraben.
Da kam ein schöner Geist herbei,
Der hatte seinen Stuhlgang frei,
Wie’s denn so Leute haben.
Der setzt’ notdürftig sich aufs Grab
Und legte da sein Häuflein ab,
Beschaute freundlich seinen Dreck,
Ging wohl eratmet wieder weg
Und sprach zu sich bedächtiglich:
»Der gute Mensch, wie hat er sich verdorben!
Hätt er geschissen so wie ich,
Er wäre nicht gestorben!«
Friedrich Nicolai (18 maart 1733 – 8 januari 1811)