Rebecca West, Uwe Dick, Maurice Chappaz, Oda Schaefer, Isolde Kurz

De Britse schrijfster Rebecca West werd geboren op 21 december 1892 in Londen als Cicily Isabel Fairfield. Zie ook alle tags voor Ribecca West op dit blog. Zie ook alle tags voor Rebecca West op dit blog.

Uit: The Fountain Overflows

“When Papa and Mamma had had their presents we had ours. They were lovely. I really cannot think, looking back over a lifetime in which I have known many quite opulent Christmases, that any children have ever had much lovelier Christmas presents. We had known that Papa was making us new furniture and inhabitants for our dolls’ houses, but he had done better than that. He had given Cordelia’s Tudor palace a maze and a sunken garden and a pleached walk, like the one in Much Ado About Nothing; he had given Mary’s Queen Anne mansion a walled garden with espaliered trees all around it and a vinery outside built against the south wall; and he had given my Victorian Gothic abbey a small park with a looking-glass lake with a rocky island in it surmounted by a mock hermitage. Out of her old dresses Mother had made a pale green Mary Queen of Scots dress for Cordelia, an eighteenth-century white dress for Mary, a rose-coloured crinoline dress for me, and a Three Musketeers uniform with a cardboard sword for Richard Quin. Like everything else that Mamma did each was unique, we had never seen anything like them before, any one of them was something only she would have imagined. So enchanted were we with these big presents that we had hardly time to look at the presents Constance had sent us before we had to dress for church, except to see that for us girls she had pretty little pinafores, each with a hair-ribbon to match, and for Richard Quin a little shirt. There was an air of cool composure about the needlework which made these garments as distinctive as my mother’s wilder work.”

 
Rebecca West (21 december 1892 – 15 maart 1983)

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Uwe Dick, Rebecca West, Maurice Chappaz, Oda Schaefer, Isolde Kurz

De Duitse schrijver Uwe Dick werd geboren op 21 december 1942 in Schongau. Zie ook alle tags voor Uwe Dick op dit blog.

Uit: Sauwaldprosa

„Wortlos breche ich zwei zum Gebet gekreuzte Arme auseinander, das goldgelbe Mittelstück einer Brezel, indes mein Gegenüber vom Stamme der »Solcherne-wia-mia-de-gibts-gar-nimmer!« den daumendicken Außenbogen des Backwerks in die Joppentasche steckt, dankt und erklärt: I muaß heit no auf Schärding obe. In Allerheilign werd eikehrt und a Bier trunka.
Für da bhalt i ma den Soizriassl. Am Jüngstn Tag mach i dir an Advokatn, fallsd oan brauchst – is eh kloa! A guade Roas dawei! – Lüpft den Hut und geht.
Namen saan Schicksal … hallt es mir in den Ohren, während ich meinen Rucksack packe, ihn nach beendeter Brotzeit aufs Rad zu heben. Der Mann, der für 1500 Gulden das Versteck des
Andreas Hofer preisgab, hieß Raffl. Der »Herr Lehrer Gerts« war es, der mir unter falschem Lächeln Tatzen über die Finger brannte, mit einer Gerte, daß es nur so pfiff. Und der Name des
Verwaltungsfachmannes, der mit technokratischer Sicherheit eine noch vor Jahren erkennbare Innstadt (nachts rücken die Baumfäller-Kommandos aus: so meistert er die Bürger, die protestieren könnten!) fast in eine Steinwüste verwandelte, der Name dieses Kahlstadtoberhauptes beginnt, nomen est manchmal wirklich omen, mit Stein. Wüßte ich nicht, daß er, dessen Tot-Schlagworte, dessen Hauptarguzement die »wirtschaftliche Seite« ist, hätte ich nicht zur Kenntnis genommen, daß er und seine viel zu vielen Mitmacher anstelle des lebendigen Blickes Münzen in den Augen haben, ich führte ihn hier her, dicht unter den Sauwald, nach Schärding.“

 
Uwe Dick (Schongau, 21 december 1942)
Cover

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Ivan Blatný, Rebecca West, Maurice Chappaz, Garmt Stuiveling, Oda Schaefer

De Tsjechische dichter Ivan Blatný werd geboren op 21 december 1919 in Brno. Zie ook alle tags voor Ivan Blatnýop dit blog. Zie ook mijn blog van 21 december 2010.

 

On the Verandah

On the verandah in the rustle of old bean-pods and seed catalogues
young Everard reads old detective-stories
Edgar Wallace Agatha Christie Simenon
Twenty thousand leagues beneath the sea
The verandah sets sail like summer the last summer
with Captain Nemo dead in the sand beneath the sea

If only it were not yet the last summer
if only we could remain forever
happy in the maternal womb
in the rustle of seed catalogues.

 

Evening

In the distance the lights hatch forth the horse homeward turns
darkness rises between the dwarfs in the gardens
Highgate Wood is closed and other green cages
the station Cranley Gardens is deserted and quiet
the nineteenth century slides past on the rails

When they laid this line through the fields
fallow ploughland pasture and hillocks
the men with levelling machines theodolites banderoles
levelling-lathes and geometrical parasols
resembled a small military battalion at exercises

Three village chapels
the Anglican, the Presbyterian and the Baptist tabernacle
greet the returning strollers

Queen’s Wood
without a gate
remains open even at night

Vertaald door Martin Tharp

 

Ivan Blatný (21 december 1919 – 5 augustus 1990)

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Ivan Blatný, Maurice Chappaz, Garmt Stuiveling, Oda Schaefer, Isolde Kurz, Philipp Galen

De Tsjechische dichter Ivan Blatný werd geboren op 21 december 1919 in Brno. Zie ook mijn blog van 21 december 2006 en ook mijn blog van 21 december 2008 en ook mijn blog van 21 december 2009. 

 

The Count

 

The count left the castle
and went to the township bustle
tired of loneliness.
Tired of deer-park walking,
he wants some more noise, more talking,
tired of playing chess.

 

And when he has enough of claxons,
of motor-cars, of taxis,
he’s glad and turns round.
Again the relaxation
above the lower nation,
lucky we have a count.

 

 

Vertaald door Anna Moschovakis en Veronika Tuckerová

 

 

Wimbledon

 

Perhaps now Drobny’s playing Wimbledon
The pleasant chill that summer lawns
brings tired heads has lightly tuned
the rackets’ strings to their evening tone

 

Leaf-hued comfort, all my blessings, my salutes
The celebration now is held, Jaroslav, with your two lutes
From Wimbledon Common, from meadows yet beyond
through the television channel I hear their sound

 

If you but could in this welcome heat
find my Rapunzel-tower by some feat –
tennis-courts lie nearby, surrounded in leaf

 

Come, before these days too flee
hidden like Verlaine in the grass

 

 

Vertaald door Martin Thar

 

 

Ivan Blatný (21 december 1919 – 5 augustus 1990)

 

 

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