Robert Bly, Hans Tentije, Hans Kloos, Carol Ann Duffy, Volker Jehle, Tim Fountain, Donna Tartt

De Amerikaanse dichter en schrijver Robert Bly werd geboren op 23 december 1926 in Madison, Minnesota. Zie ook alle tags voor Robert Bly op dit blog.

 

A Month Of Happiness

A blind horse stands among cherry trees.
And bones shine from cool earth.
The heart leaps
Almost up to the sky! But laments
And filaments pull us back into the dark.
Night takes us. But
A paw
Comes out of the dark
To light the road. I’ll be all right.
I follow my own fiery traces through the night.

 

Living at the End of Time

There is so much sweetness in children’s voices,
And so much discontent at the end of day,
And so much satisfaction when a train goes by.

I don’t know why the rooster keeps crying,
Nor why elephants keep raising their trunks,
Nor why Hawthorne kept hearing trains at night.

A handsome child is a gift from God,
And a friend is a vein in the back of the hand,
And a wound is an inheritance from the wind.

Some say we are living at the end of time,
But I believe a thousand pagan ministers
Will arrive tomorrow to baptize the wind.

There’s nothing we need to do about John. The Baptist
Has been laying his hands on earth for so long
That the well water is sweet for a hundred miles.

It’s all right if we don’t know what the rooster
Is saying in the middle of the night, nor why we feel
So much satisfaction when a train goes by.

 

Awakening

We are approaching sleep: the chestnut blossoms in the mind
Mingle with thoughts of pain
And the long roots of barley, bitterness
As of the oak roots staining the waters dark
In Louisiana, the wet streets soaked with rain
And sodden blossoms; out of this
We have come, a tunnel softly hurtling into darkness.

The storm is coming. The small farmhouse in Minnesota
Is hardly strong enough for the wind.
Darkness, darkness in grass, darkness in trees.
Even the water in wells trembles.
Bodies give off darkness, and chrysanthemums
Are dark, and horses, who are bearing great loads of hay
To the deep barns where the dark air is moving from corners.

Lincoln’s statue, and the traffic.
From the long past Into the long present
A bird, forgotten in these troubles, warbling,
As the great wheel turns around, grinding
The living in water.
Washing, continual washing, in water now stained
With blossoms and rotting logs,
Cries, half-muffled, from beneath the earth, the living awakened
at last like the dead.

 

 
Robert Bly (Madison, 23 december 1926)

 

De Nederlandse dichter en schrijver Hans Tentije (pseudoniem van Johann Krämer) werd geboren in Beverwijk op 23 december 1944. Zie ook alle tags voor Hans Tentije op dit blog.

 

Orvieto

Een slingerende weg en haarspeldscherpe
lussen tillen langs brokkelige, overgroeide weringen
het tufstenen plateau hoger en hoger, tot voor de poorten
van een later in de middag weer ontwaakte stad

voor de kathedraal sluit je vol ongeloof
je ogen even en over je oogleden strijkt zijn schittering
het goud van een heel verleden uit

getemperd, wijngeel licht valt
door wat marmeren triten lijken, met een nervatuur
van verkoolde bliksemschichten, van eeuwen terug geronnen
levenslopen, van vloedlijnen, opgestuwd
en onderaards nagolvend bloed dat in gebergten
strandde, zich daar begroef –

iemand brengt een grafstuk, vol overdadig
groen en aronskelken, naar de zijkapel, waar hardop, iets
te loslippig bidden zelfs verboden is

een lijkwagen draait met hangende vaantjes
het domplein op, verspilt zijn enorme motorvermogen
aan het vervoer van een simpele kist, het requiem
zal dadelijk worden opgedragen

vier pilasters laten, door druivenranken
en acanthusblad omlijst, een reeks uitgehouwen
bijbelse taferelen zien – bij de jongste dag zoek je je gezicht
tussen dat van de vele, vele verdoemden –
je vindt het niet, vooralsnog

 

Semana tragica

Onderkruipers van de staking bemanden de trams
de trams van Barcelona, die later op de dag massaal
gekanteld zouden worden, meestal ver van de smorgens vroeg
nog uitgeschrobde remises vandaan

looiers en wevers, dokwerkers en werklozen stalen ’t brood
terug uit de ovens, geweren van de handelaars
en vrouwen die niks hadden als armoe, als schimmen van
kinderen, ze veegden hun angst af aan hun schort
wat overbleef waren afbrokkelende barrikaden

kerken en kloosters in brand gestoken
o, zoveel warmer dan al die geile kaarsen daar
druipend voor een madonna-beeld, een schitterend
gezicht vanaf Montjuich

lijken werden opgegraven, alsof er in de straten
niet genoeg van waren; verkleed in geplunderde priestergewaden
renden er mensen door een uitgestorven stad
toen kwamen de troepen want macht eist altijd bloed
tragiese eeuw waarin revoluties zo verlopen

fluweel van woorden over alles, steeds dunner mettertijd

 


Hans Tentije (Beverwijk, 23 december 1944)

 

De Nederlandse dichter, schrijver en vertaler Hans Kloos werd geboren in Baarn op 23 december 1960. Zie ook alle tags voor Hans Kloos op dit blog.

 

Een psalm

Er is me veel
over je verteld.
Dat deden ze goed.
Er is me vaak
verteld dat jij dat ook was,
goed. Er is me veel
bijgebleven; van soep en kwartels,
lemen voeten en een kraaiende haan,
van het licht dat er was
toen jij zei dat het er moest zijn.
Er is me veel verteld.

En zo ben ik
in je gaan geloven.
Dat deed ik goed.
En zo ging ik
je zien, dat je god was,
goed. En zo zag ik
je in nachten van het bange kind,
lichtend water en een boerend hert,
in het licht dat er was
toen ik keek naar mensen bij een bushalte.
Zo ben ik gaan geloven.

En zo ben jij
een leven gaan leiden
in mij. Dat ging goed.
En zo ben jij
groot geworden, groter dan ik,
God. En zo werd je
almachtig, de vader van het bange kind,
levend water en een kraaiende haan
en het licht dat er was
toen ik vroeg of jij met me zou zijn.
Zo ben jij een leven gaan leiden.

En zo ben ik
in jou klein geworden.
Dat ging niet goed.
En ik werd zo
weinig dat jij vlees werd,
woord. En zo ben ik
opgegaan in het zwijgen van het bange kind,
stenen tafelen en het kraaien van een haan,
in het licht dat er was
toen jij zei dat ik stil moest zijn.
Zo ben ik klein geworden.

En toen ben ik
uit je opgestaan.
Dat deed pijn.
En toen ging ik
me zien, dat ik alleen was,
vlees. En zo zag ik
me in hoofd, schouders, knie en teen,
volle handen en een kraaiend kruis,
in het licht dat er was
toen ik keek naar de zon op mijn voeten.
Zo ben ik opgestaan.

En ik heb veel
over je verteld.
Dat doe ik goed.
En ik heb vaak
verteld dat jij er niet was,
alleen. En ik heb veel
overgehouden; soep en kwartels,
hemelvoeten en een kraaiende haan
en het licht dat er is
als ik vertel van mensen bij een bushalte.
Zo ben jij mijn verhaal geworden.

 


Hans Kloos (Baarn, 23 december 1960)

 

De Britse dichteres en toneelschrijfster Carol Ann Duffy werd geboren in een rooms-katholiek gezin in de Gorbals, een arm deel van Glasgow, op 23 december 1955. Zie ook alle tags voor Carol Ann Duffy op dit blog.

 

Words, Wide Night

Somewhere on the other side of this wide night
and the distance between us, I am thinking of you.
The room is turning slowly away from the moon.

This is pleasurable. Or shall I cross that out and say
it is sad? In one of the tenses I singing
an impossible song of desire that you cannot hear.

La lala la. See? I close my eyes and imagine the dark hills I would have to cross
to reach you. For I am in love with you

and this is what it is like or what it is like in words.

 

Prayer

Some days, although we cannot pray, a prayer
utters itself. So, a woman will lift
her head from the sieve of her hands and stare
at the minims sung by a tree, a sudden gift.

Some nights, although we are faithless, the truth
enters our hearts, that small familiar pain;
then a man will stand stock-still, hearing his youth
in the distant Latin chanting of a train.

Pray for us now. Grade 1 piano scales
console the lodger looking out across
a Midlands town. Then dusk, and someone calls
a child’s name as though they named their loss.

Darkness outside. Inside, the radio’s prayer –
Rockall. Malin. Dogger. Finisterre.

 

 
Carol Ann Duffy (Glasgow, 23 december 1955)

 

De Duitse schrijver, literatuurcriticus en redacteur Volker Jehle werd geboren op 23 december 1954 in Balingen. Zie ook alle tags voor Volker Jehle op dit blog.

Uit: Hildersheimers als Trauzeugen

“Am 9. März, kurz vor 15 Uhr, betraten wir das Tübinger Hotel Krone. Hildesheimers waren noch nicht da. Während wir in der Rezeption warteten, malten wir uns aus, was wir tun sollten, falls sie nicht rechtzeitig kämen – die Hochzeit war auf 15.30 Uhr festgesetzt.
Ein Desaster wäre durchaus möglich gewesen, schließlich waren die beiden nur deshalb in Tübingen, weil Walter Jens sechzigsten Geburtstag hatte, den er aber zweimal feiern mußte, eine Feier, an der Hans Mayer teilnahm, die andere, an der Marcel Reich-Ranicki teilnahm. Nur Hildesheimer nahm an beiden teil, weil er, wie er gesagt hatte, mit beiden konnte, mit Mayer und Reich-Ranicki. Darin lag die Gefahr des Desasters aber gar nicht, sondern darin, daß Hildesheimers zwischen den beiden Feiern für uns Zeit reserviert hatten; wir hatten unsere Hochzeit extra so gelegt.
Doch kurz nach 15 Uhr kamen sie. Silvia Hildesheimer meinte, wir seien ja über­pünktlich, Wolfgang Hildesheimer fragte: „Wird schon geheiratet?“
Sie trugen den Ordner mit Reproduktionen seiner Bilder, den ich aus meinem Hildes­heimer-Archiv mitgebracht hatte, ins Zimmer hinauf. Er kam als erster wieder herunter und brachte ein flaches Päckchen mit, in rosa Seidenpapier eingeschlagen, nicht ganz quadratisch.
„Das ist mein Hochzeitsgeschenk. Wie finden Sie es?“
Er hielt es hoch, als Querformat.
„Also ich würde sagen, so hat es die beste Wirkung. Finden Sie nicht? Obwohl, Sie, als moderne Menschen, würden es eher so herum hängen.“
Er hielt es als Hochformat und fragte Silvia, die gerade gekommen war: „Was findest du? Sie würden es als moderne Menschen tatsächlich so herum bevorzugen.“
„Du hast recht, es hat so eine ganz eigene Wirkung.“
Ich nahm es und drehte es so um, daß der Tesafilm vorn war: „Wie wäre es so herum?“
Er besah sich‘s aufmerksam. „Tatsächlich – das wäre eine ausgefallene Lösung!“
Wir öffneten das Päckchen, die Zeichnung Beschwörung kam zum Vorschein. Zuerst, be­merkte er, hätte er sich für Unhaltbarer Zustand entschieden gehabt, aber das sei eben doch etwas gewagt, vor allem überm Ehebett, und daß es dorthin gehängt werde, sei selbst­verständlich. Dann füllte er den Trauzeugenzettel aus, schrieb bei sich „Schriftsteller“ und bei Silvia „Malerin“.
Zu ihr: „Das gibt dir Auftrieb.“ Zu uns: „Sie hat nämlich ein Bild begonnen, das dieses Jahr noch fertig werden könnte.“ Ohne Pause: „Haben Sie eigentlich schon Namen für das Kind ausgewählt?“
Wir zögerten. Die Namen hatten wir noch niemandem gesagt. „Für ein Mädchen Ulrike, für einen Buben Martin.“

 


Volker Jehle (Balingen, 23 december 1954)

 

De Britse schrijver Tim Fountain werd geboren op 23 december 1967 in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire. Zie ook alle tags voor Tim Fountain op dit blog.

Uit: Dandy In The Underworld

“Of all the sexual perversions I find monogamy the most un-natural. In my opinion if you say you are enjoying sex with the same person after a couple of years you’re either a liar or you’re on something. I mean even though the Ivy serves perfect Shepherds pie it doesn’t stop one occasionally craving a visit to the Wolseley does it? Variety is the spice of life after all and love is merely the delusion that one person differs from another. Were Ito remain monogamous I would make one woman happy but all the rest of the women in the world unhappy — what right have I to do that? You see I think sex has absolutely nothing to do with morals, it’s a compulsion, like murder. I’ve no doubt Henrietta will succumb to my charms today after a nice plummy Claret.
He notices a scarf on the floor.
Look, she left her scarf.
He picks it up and places it over the back of his throne.
I’ll just place it there and then after lunch she can come and collect it.
He goes to the windows and throws back the shutters, light floods in to reveal his full studio in all its glory. There is a desk and chair downstage right. On a wall is a gun mounted on velvet in a picture frame. Downstage left there is his throne. There is a painting upstage centre on an easel and covered in a sheet. Behind it on the back wall is a kind of shrine to St Sebastian. There are hundreds of photographs and pieces of publicity material dedicated to him. Welcome to the strong sad kingdom of self. (He laughs at himself) I subscribe to the Quentin Crisp school of home decoration: You must have nothing around you that does not express the kind of person you have decided to become. I’m aiming to be a self-absorbed twat — after all it takes so much finesse to fall in love with yourself. But actually I have to be surrounded by my press cuttings if I am to discover who I truly am. I’m a controversial figure. People either dislike me or hate me. This was The News of the Worldwhen I crucified myself in the Phillipines. Pointing to a front page of the News of the World pinned on the wall. It reads. ‘Art freak crucifies himself. Jesus died to save humanity. I did it to save my career. In my opinion neither of us had much success.”

 


Tim Fountain (Dewsbury, 23 december 1967)

 

De Amerikaans schrijfster Donna Tartt werd geboren in Greenwood, Mississippi, op 23 december 1963. Zie ook alle tags voor Donna Tart op dit blog.

Uit: The Secret History

“Does such a thing as “the fatal flaw,” that showy dark crack running down the middle of a life, exist outside literature? I used to think it didn’t. Now I think it does. And I think that mine is this: a morbid longing for the picturesque at all costs.
 A moi. L’histoire d’une de mes folies.
My name is Richard Papen. I am twenty-eight years old and I had never seen New England or Hampden College until I was nineteen. I am a Californian by birth and also, I have recently discovered, by nature. The last is something I admit only now, after the fact. Not that it matters.
I grew up in Plano, a small silicon village in the north. No sisters, no brothers. My father ran a gas station and my mother stayed at home until I got older and times got tighter and she went to work, answering phones in the office of one of the big chip factories outside San Jose.
Plano. The word conjures up drive-ins, tract homes, waves of heat rising from the blacktop. My years there created for me an expendable past, disposable as a plastic cup. Which I suppose was a very great gift, in a way. On leaving home I was able to fabricate a new and far more satisfying history, full of striking, simplistic environmental influences; a colorful past, easily accessible to strangers.
The dazzle of this fictive childhood—full of swimming pools and orange groves and dissolute, charming show-biz parents—has all but eclipsed the drab original. In fact, when I think about my real childhood I am unable to recall much about it at all except a sad jumble of objects: the sneakers I wore year-round; coloring books and comics from the supermarket; little of interest, less of beauty. I was quiet, tall for my age, prone to freckles. I didn’t have many friends but whether this was due to choice or circumstance I do not now know. I did well in school, it seems, but not exceptionally well; I liked to read—Tom Swift, the Tolkien books—but also to watch television, which I did plenty of, lying on the carpet of our empty living room in the long dull afternoons after school.
I honestly can’t remember much else about those years except a certain mood that permeated most of them, a melancholy feeling that I associate with watching “The Wonderful World of Disney” on Sunday nights. Sunday was a sad day—early to bed, school the next morning, I was constantly worried my homework was wrong—but as I watched the fireworks go off in the night sky, over the floodlit castles of Disneyland, I was consumed by a more general sense of dread, of imprisonment within the dreary round of school and home: circumstances which, to me at least, presented sound empirical argument for gloom. My father was mean, and our house ugly, and my mother didn’t pay much attention to me; my clothes were cheap and my haircut too short and no one at school seemed to like me that much; and since all this had been true for as long as I could remember, I felt things would doubtless continue in this depressing vein as far as I could foresee. In short: I felt my existence was tainted, in some subtle but essential way.”

 


Donna Tartt (Greenwood, 23 december 1963)

 

Zie voor nog meer schrijvers van de 23e december ook mijn vorige twee blogs van vandaag.

Robert Bly, Hans Tentije, Hans Kloos, Volker Jehle, Tim Fountain, Donna Tartt, Marcelin Pleynet, Norman Maclean, J.J.L. ten Kate

De Amerikaanse dichter en schrijver Robert Bly werd geboren op 23 december 1926 in Madison, Minnesota. Zie ook alle tags voor Robert Bly op dit blog.

 

Prayer for My Father

Your head is still
restless, rolling
east and west.
That body in you
insisting on living
is the old hawk
for whom the world
darkens.
If I am not
with you when you die,
that is just.

It is all right.
That part of you cleaned
my bones more
than once. But I
will meet you
in the young hawk
whom I see
inside both
you and me; he
will guide
you to the Lord of Night,
who will give you
the tenderness
you wanted here.

 

The Night Abraham Called to the Stars

Do you remember the night Abraham first saw
The stars?
He cried to Saturn: “You are my Lord!”
How happy he was! When he saw the Dawn Star,

He cried, “”You are my Lord!” How destroyed he was
When he watched them set. Friends, he is like us:
We take as our Lord the stars that go down.

We are faithful companions to the unfaithful stars.
We are diggers, like badgers; we love to feel
The dirt flying out from behind our back claws.

And no one can convince us that mud is not
Beautiful. It is our badger soul that thinks so.
We are ready to spend the rest of our life

Walking with muddy shoes in the wet fields.
We resemble exiles in the kingdom of the serpent.
We stand in the onion fields looking up at the night.

My heart is a calm potato by day, and a weeping
Abandoned woman by night. Friend, tell me what to do,
Since I am a man in love with the setting stars.

 

 
Robert Bly (Madison, 23 december 1926)

Lees verder “Robert Bly, Hans Tentije, Hans Kloos, Volker Jehle, Tim Fountain, Donna Tartt, Marcelin Pleynet, Norman Maclean, J.J.L. ten Kate”

Robert Bly, Hans Kloos, Norman Maclean, Sara Coleridge, Donna Tartt, Tim Fountain, Marcelin Pleynet, J.J.L. ten Kate, Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa

De Amerikaanse dichter en schrijver Robert Bly werd geboren op 23 december 1926 in Madison, Minnesota. Zie ook alle tags voor Robert Bly op dit blog.

 

Passing an Orchard by Train

Grass high under apple trees.
The bark of the trees rough and sexual
the grass growing heavy and uneven.

We cannot bear disaster like
the rocks-
swaying nakedly
in open fields.

One slight bruise and we die!
I know no one on this train.
A man comes walking down the aisle.
I want to tell him
that I forgive him that I want him
to forgive me.

 

Bach’s B Minor Mass

The Walgravian ancestors step inside Trinity Church.
The tenors, the horns, the sopranos, the altos
Say: “Do not be troubled. Death will come.”

The basses as they sing reach into their long coats
And give bits of dark bread to the poor, saying,
“Eat, eat, in the shadow of jethro’s garden.”

The Clarinets remind us of the old promise
That the orphans will be fed. The oboes reply,
“Oh, that promise is too wonderful for us!”

Don’t worry, my dears. The tidal wave that
Wipes out whole cities is merely the wood thrush
Lifting her wings to catch the morning sun.

We know that God gobbles up the Faithful.
The Harvesters on the sea floor are feeding
All of those ruined by the depth of the sea.

We know that people live and die. Even after
Their tree has splintered and fallen in the night, once
Dawn has come, the birds can do nothing but sing.

 

Watering the Horse

How strange to think of giving up all ambition!
Suddenly I see with such clear eyes
The white flake of snow
That has just fallen in the horse’s mane!

 


Robert Bly (Madison, 23 december 1926)

Lees verder “Robert Bly, Hans Kloos, Norman Maclean, Sara Coleridge, Donna Tartt, Tim Fountain, Marcelin Pleynet, J.J.L. ten Kate, Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa”

Robert Bly, Norman Maclean, Sara Coleridge, Donna Tartt, Tim Fountain, Marcelin Pleynet, Iván Mándy, J.J.L. ten Kate

De Amerikaanse dichter en schrijver Robert Bly werd geboren op 23 december 1926 in Madison, Minnesota. Zie ook alle tags voor Robert Bly op dit blog.

 

A Dream On The Night Of First Snow

I woke flour a first-day-of-snow dream.
I dreamt I met a girl in an attic,
who talked of operas, intensely.
Snow has bent the poplar over nearly to the ground,
new snowfall widens the plowing.
Outside maple leaves floated on rainwater,
yellow, matted, luminous.
I found a salamander! and held him.
When I put him down again,
he strode over a log
with such confidence, like a chessmaster,
the front leg first, then the hind
leg, he rose up like a tractor climbing
over a hump in the field
and disappeared toward winter, a caravan going deeper into
mountams,
dogs pulling travois,
feathers fluttering on the lance: of the arrogant men.

 

Poems in Three Parts

1
Oh on an early morning I think I shall live forever!
I am wrapped in my joyful flesh
As the grass is wrapped in its clouds of green.

2
Rising from a bed where I dreamt
Of long rides past castles and hot coals
The sun lies happily on my knees;
I have suffered and survived the night
Bathed in dark water like any blade of grass.

3
The strong leaves of the box-elder tree
Plunging in the wind call us to disappear
Into the wilds of the universe
Where we shall sit at the foot of a plant
And live forever like the dust.

 

Gratitude To Old Teachers

When we stride or stroll across the frozen lake,
We place our feet where they have never been.
We walk upon the unwalked. But we are uneasy.
Who is down there but our old teachers?
Water that once could take no human weight-
We were students then- holds up our feet,
And goes on ahead of us for a mile.
Beneath us the teachers, and around us the stillness.

 

 
Robert Bly (Madison, 23 december 1926)

Lees verder “Robert Bly, Norman Maclean, Sara Coleridge, Donna Tartt, Tim Fountain, Marcelin Pleynet, Iván Mándy, J.J.L. ten Kate”

Robert Bly, Norman Maclean, Sara Coleridge, Donna Tartt, Marcelin Pleynet, Iván Mándy, J.J.L. ten Kate, Tim Fountain

De Amerikaanse dichter en schrijver Robert Bly werd geboren op 23 december 1926 in Madison, Minnesota. Zie ook alle tags voor Robert Bly op dit blog.

 

For My Son Noah Ten Years Old

Nigh and day arrive and day after day goes by
And what is old remains old and what is young remains young and grows old.
The lumber pile does not grow younger nor the two-by-fours lose their darkness
but the old tree goes on the barn stands without help so many years;
the advocate of darkness and night is not lost.

The horse steps up swings on one leg turns its body
the chicken flapping claws onto the roost its wings whelping and walloping
but what is primitive is not to be shot out into the night and the dark.
And slowly the kind man comes closer loses his rage sits down at table.

So I am proud only of those days that pass in undivided tenderness
when you sit drawing or making books stapled with messages to the world
or coloring a man with fire coming out of his hair.
Or we sit at a table with small tea carefully poured.
So we pass our time together calm and delighted.

 

In Rainy September

In rainy September when leaves grow down to the dark
I put my forehead down to the damp seaweed-smelling sand.
What can we do but choose? The only way for human beings
is to choose.
The fern has no choice but to live;
for this crime it receives earth water and night.

we close the door. “I have no claim on you.”
Dusk comes. “The love I have had with you is enough.”
We know we could live apart from the flock.
The sheldrake floats apart from the flock.
The oaktree puts out leaves alone on the lonely hillside.

Men and women before us have accomplished this.
I would see you and you me once a year.
We would be two kernels and not be planted.
We stay in the room door closed lights out.
I weep with you without shame and without honor.

 

Wanting Sumptuous Heavens

No one grumbles among the oyster clans,
And lobsters play their bone guitars all summer.
Only we, with our opposable thumbs, want
Heaven to be, and God to come, again.
There is no end to our grumbling; we want
Comfortable earth and sumptuous Heaven.
But the heron standing on one leg in the bog
Drinks his dark rum all day, and is content.

 

 
Robert Bly (Madison, 23 december 1926)

Lees verder “Robert Bly, Norman Maclean, Sara Coleridge, Donna Tartt, Marcelin Pleynet, Iván Mándy, J.J.L. ten Kate, Tim Fountain”

Robert Bly, Norman Maclean, Marcelin Pleynet, Iván Mándy, J.J.L. ten Kate, Tim Fountain

De Amerikaanse dichter en schrijver Robert Bly werd geboren op 23 december 1926 in Madison, Minnesota. Zie ook alle tags voor Robert Bly op dit blog.

 

Snowfall in the Afternoon

1
The grass is half-covered with snow.
It was the sort of snowfall that starts in late afternoon
And now the little houses of the grass are growing dark.

2
If I reached my hands down near the earth
I could take handfuls of darkness!
A darkness was always there which we never noticed.

3
As the snow grows heavier the cornstalks fade farther away
And the barn moves nearer to the house.
The barn moves all alone in the growing storm.

4
The barn is full of corn and moves toward us now
Like a hulk blown toward us in a storm at sea;
All the sailors on deck have been blind for many years.

 

The Hermit

Darkness is falling through darkness
Falling from ledge
To ledge.
There is a man whose body is perfectly whole.
He stands the storm behind him
And the grass blades are leaping in the wind.
Darkness is gathered in folds
About his feet.
He is no one. When we see
Him we grow calm
And sail on into the tunnels of joyful death.

 

At Midocean

All day I loved you in a fever holding on to the tail of the horse.
I overflowed whenever I reached out to touch you.
My hand moved over your body covered
With its dress
Burning rough an animal’s hand or foot moving over leaves.
The rainstorm retires clouds open sunlight
sliding over ocean water a thousand miles from land.

 

  
Robert Bly (Madison, 23 december 1926)

Lees verder “Robert Bly, Norman Maclean, Marcelin Pleynet, Iván Mándy, J.J.L. ten Kate, Tim Fountain”

Vierde Advent, Rainer Maria Rilke, Robert Bly, Norman Maclean, Marcelin Pleynet, Tim Fountain

 

Bij de Vierde Advent

 

Rogier_van_der_Weyden,_Heimsuchung
Visitatie, Rogier van der Weyden, 1555


Mariae Heimsuchung

Noch erging sie’s leicht im Anbeginne,
doch im Steigen manchmal ward sie schon
ihres wunderbaren Leibes inne, –
und dann stand sie, atmend, auf den hohn

Judenbergen. Aber nicht das Land,
ihre Fülle war um sie gebreitet;
gehend fühlte sie: man überschreitet
nie die Größe, die sie jetzt empfand.

Und es drängte sie, die Hand zu legen
auf den andern Leib, der weiter war.
Und die Frauen schwankten sich entgegen
und berührten sich Gewand und Haar.

Jede, voll von ihrem Heiligtume,
schützte sich mit der Gevatterin.
Ach der Heiland in ihr war noch Blume,
doch den Täufer in dem Schooß der Muhme
riß die Freude schon zum Hüpfen hin.

 

Rainer Maria Rilke (4 december 1875 – 29 december 1926)
Rilke werd geboren in Praag (Hier de Staroměstské náměsti en Nicolaaskerk)

Lees verder “Vierde Advent, Rainer Maria Rilke, Robert Bly, Norman Maclean, Marcelin Pleynet, Tim Fountain”

Robert Bly, Norman Maclean, Marcelin Pleynet, Tim Fountain, Iván Mándy

De Amerikaanse dichter en schrijver Robert Bly werd geboren op 23 december 1926 in Madison, Minnesota. Zie ook mijn blog van 23 december 2008 en ook mijn blog van 23 december 2009 en ook mijn blog van 23 december 2010.

The Buried Train

Tell me about the train that people say got buried
By the avalanche–was it snow?–It was
In Colorado, and no one saw it happen.
There was smoke from the engine curling up

Lightly through fir tops, and the engine sounds.
There were all those people reading–some
From Thoreau, some from Henry Ward Beecher.
And the engineer smoking and putting his head out.

I wonder when that happened. Was it after
High School, or was it the year we were two?
We entered this narrow place, and we heard the sound
Above us–the train couldn’t move fast enough.

It isn’t clear what happened next. Are you and I
Still sitting there in the train, waiting for the lights
To go on? Or did the real train get really buried;
So at night a ghost train comes out and keeps going…

 

SOLITUDE LATE AT NIGHT IN THE WOODS

I
The body is like a November birch facing the full moon
And reaching into the cold heavens.
In these trees there is no ambition, no sodden body, no leaves,
Nothing but bare trunks climbing like cold fire!

II
My last walk in the trees has come. At dawn
I must return to the trapped fields,
To the obedient earth.
The trees shall be reaching all the winter.

III
It is a joy to walk in the bare woods.
The moonlight is not broken by the heavy leaves.
The leaves are down, and touching the soaked earth,
Giving off the odor that partridges love.

Robert Bly (Madison, 23 december 1926)

Een jonge Robert Bly

Lees verder “Robert Bly, Norman Maclean, Marcelin Pleynet, Tim Fountain, Iván Mándy”

Robert Bly, Norman Maclean, Marcelin Pleynet, Tim Fountain, Iván Mándy

De Amerikaanse dichter en schrijver Robert Bly werd geboren op 23 december 1926 in Madison, Minnesota. Zie ook mijn blog van 23 december 2008 en ook mijn blog van 23 december 2009.

 

Watching Television

 

Sounds are heard too high for ears,

From the body cells there is an answering bay;   

Soon the inner streets fill with a chorus of barks.

 

We see the landing craft coming in,   

The black car sliding to a stop,

The Puritan killer loosening his guns.

 

Wild dogs tear off noses and eyes

And run off with them down the street—

The body tears off its own arms and throws them into the air.

 

The detective draws fifty-five million people into his revolver,

Who sleep restlessly as in an air raid in London;

Their backs become curved in the sloping dark.

 

The filaments of the soul slowly separate;   

The spirit breaks, a puff of dust floats up;

Like a house in Nebraska that suddenly explodes.

 

 

Waking from Sleep

 

Inside the veins there are navies setting forth,   

Tiny explosions at the waterlines,

And seagulls weaving in the wind of the salty blood.

 

It is the morning. The country has slept the whole winter.

Window seats were covered with fur skins, the yard was full

Of stiff dogs, and hands that clumsily held heavy books.

 

Now we wake, and rise from bed, and eat breakfast!   

Shouts rise from the harbor of the blood,

Mist, and masts rising, the knock of wooden tackle in the sunlight.

 

Now we sing, and do tiny dances on the kitchen floor.   

Our whole body is like a harbor at dawn;   

We know that our master has left us for the day.

 

 

Robert Bly (Madison, 23 december 1926)

 

 

Lees verder “Robert Bly, Norman Maclean, Marcelin Pleynet, Tim Fountain, Iván Mándy”

Tim Fountain, Marcelin Pleynet, Robert Bly, Norman Maclean, J.J.L. ten Kate, Iván Mándy, Harry Shearer, Albert Ehrenstein, G.A. Sainte-Beuve, Giusepe di Lampedusa, Mathilde Wesendonck, Martin Opitz

De Britse schrijver Tim Fountain werd geboren op 23 december 1967 in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire. Zie ook mijn blog van 23 december 2008.

 

Uit: Icons: Quentin Crisp

 

„If Quentin Crisp had not existed, I doubt anyone would have had the nerve to invent him. With his rouged cheeks, painted toenails and vast ‘bird’s nest’ comb-over hair, the self-styled “stately homo” of England looked like a creature from another planet. And it wasn’t just Crisp’s appearance, which he described as “a leaflet thrust into the hands of astonished bystanders”, that marked him out from the rest of society; his views, too, often made him an outsider. Cleaning was a waste of time because “after the first four years the dust doesn’t get any worse”, sex was “the last refuge of the miserable” and Princess Diana was “trash who got what she deserved”. The celebrated writer and raconteur described himself as a man who was merely famous for wearing make-up, and yet when he died in 1999 it was headline news on the BBC and even the Daily Mail devoted two pages to the subject. But who was the real Quentin Crisp, or to use Mail parlance, “the man behind the mascara”, and what made him such an unlikely superstar?

This was the question the actor Bette Bourne and myself attempted to answer when we went to visit Crisp in New York on a freezing March day in 1999 to research Resident Alien, the play I was writing about him. It provided a fascinating insight. Despite being 90 years old at the time and globally famous (the TV version of his book, The Naked Civil Servant, starring John Hurt, played to millions of people all over the world), Crisp was still living in the tiny, filthy, one-room apartment off the Bowery that he had emigrated to in 1980. The electricity in the building was so weak that it wouldn’t power the doorbell, so Bette had to call him from the box on the corner to get him to let us in. When he did so, the ancient icon greeted us at the door in his trademark fedora hat and scarf and stars-and-stripes brooch before leading us up the narrow staircase to perhaps the most famous bedsit in the world.

Nothing, not even a lifetime of quotes about his hatred of domestic chores, could have prepared me for what I saw. The room was tiny and utterly filthy, the curtains were thick with dirt, which obscured the light, and his tiny two-ring stove was utterly coated in grime. When Crisp first moved into this apartment, someone accused him of having the dust shipped in from Fortnum and Mason; if he had, they must have stopped delivering in recent years because this dirt was real. Crisp clearly practised what he preached.“

 

TimFountain

Tim Fountain (Dewsbury, 23 december 1967)

 

 

De Franse dichter, schrijver en essayist Marcelin Pleynet werd geboren op 23 december 1933 in Lyon. Zie ook mijn blog van 23 december 2008.

Uit: Le Propre du temps

Avec cette langue-ci
bien avant l’injustice
à disposition
comme si c’était possible
je cherche dans l’histoire du temps
de la vérité dans l’erreur

J’ai rêvé…
la flotte achéenne dans le Golfe
les drapeaux tendus
l’or noir brûlant dans les déserts
la fumée épaisse sur nous
grassement payés
un océan de pétrole où flottait la navicella del nostro ingenio

Avec les deux yeux
j’ai rêvé
le grec et l’hébreu en même temps

Pensée en même temps sauvage et bornée : la fratrie universelle
cette machine de guerre du refoulement
“Qui aura le pied assez vif pour en sortir d’un bond ?”
Lequel est le chef ?
Qui commande l’armée ?
Nous sommes légion !

 

Uit: Stanze

Chant IV

Éclair ou tonnerre
Lucrèce ami de tout au monde le dit
ainsi par l’univers s’envolent les pensées de
la nature
Quant à moi en lisant je suis sans maître et sans
pensée
Et je laisse vers moi l’année perdue dans
la matière
Et ces sages roseaux ceux qui disent la science
Et les éclats de leur vie cachée selon le rythme des
héros lorsque je les rencontre dans l’histoire comme
Dante aux enfers
toujours luttant contre l’obscurité
et toujours sans repos
Sans limite là ne sachant plus ce que je peux trouver
avec joie
Et pourtant comme tant d’autres porteurs d’étincelles
dans le vide
Après des siècles ce qui n’est plus continue de chanter
dans la saveur brûlante du plais
ir et de la poésie
où il porta l’art-guerre docti furor arduus Lucreti
le premier
plus proche dans la grande douleur vidée
de l’univers et de l’océan qui l’emporte histoire opéra
de la science logique à la portée de notre histoire
ici
comme à la porte des enfers
AOI.

Pleynet

Marcelin Pleynet (Lyon, 23 december 1933)

 

De Amerikaanse dichter en schrijver Robert Bly werd geboren op 23 december 1926 in Madison, Minnesota. Zie ook mijn blog van 23 december 2008.

 

Snowbanks North of the House

 

Those great sweeps of snow that stop suddenly six

feet from the house …

Thoughts that go so far.

The boy gets out of high school and reads no more

books;

the son stops calling home.

The mother puts down her rolling pin and makes no

more bread.

And the wife looks at her husband one night at a

party, and loves him no more.

The energy leaves the wine, and the minister falls

leaving the church.

It will not come closer

the one inside moves back, and the hands touch

nothing, and are safe.

 

The father grieves for his son, and will not leave the

room where the coffin stands.

He turns away from his wife, and she sleeps alone.

 

And the sea lifts and falls all night, the
moon goes on

through the unattached heavens alone.

 

The toe of the shoe pivots

in the dust …

And the man in the black coat turns, and goes back

down the hill.

No one knows why he came, or why he turned away,

and did not climb the hill.

 

 

The Cat in the Kitchen

(For Donald Hall)

 

Have you heard about the boy who walked by

The black water? I won’t say much more.

Let’s wait a few years. It wanted to be entered.

Sometimes a man walks by a pond, and a hand

Reaches out and pulls him in.

 

There was no

Intention, exactly. The pond was lonely, or needed

Calcium, bones would do. What happened then?

 

It was a little like the night wind, which is soft,

And moves slowly, sighing like an old woman

In her kitchen late at night, moving pans

About, lighting a fire, making some food for the cat.

 

bly2

Robert Bly (Madison, 23 december 1926)

 

De Amerikaanse schrijver Norman Fitzroy Maclean werd geboren op 23 december 1902 in Clarinda, Iowa. Zie ook mijn blog van 23 december 2008.

 

Uit: Young Men and Fire

 

„Then Dodge saw it. Rumsey and Sallee didn’t, and probably none of the rest of the crew did either. Dodge was thirty-three and foreman and was supposed to see; he was in front where he could see. Besides, he hadn’t liked what he had seen when he looked down the canyon after he and Harrison had returned to the landing area to get something to eat, so his seeing powers were doubly on the alert. Rumsey and Sallee were young and they were crew and were carrying tools and rubbernecking at the fire across the gulch. Dodge takes only a few words to say what the “it” was he saw next: “We continued down the canyon for approximately five minutes before I could see that the fire had crossed Mann Gulch and was coming up the ridge toward us.”

Neither Rumsey nor Sallee could see the fire that was now on their side of the gulch, but both could see smoke coming toward them over a hogback directly in front. As for the main fire across the gulch, it still looked about the same to them, “confined to the upper third of the slope.”

At the Review, Dodge estimated they had a 150- to 200-yard head start on the fire coming at them on the north side of the gulch. He immediately reversed direction and started back up the canyon, angling toward the top of the ridge on a steep grade. When asked why he didn’t go straight for the top there and then, he answered that the ground was too rocky and steep and the fire was coming too fast to dare to go at right angles to it.

You may ask yourself how it was that of the crew only Rumsey and Sallee survived. If you had known ahead of time that only two would survive, you probably never would have picked these two—they were first-year jumpers, this was the first fire they had ever jumped on, Sallee was one year younger than the minimum age, and around the base they were known as roommates who had a pretty good time for themselves. They both became big operators in the world of the woods and prairies, and part of this story will be to find them and ask them why they think they alone survived, but even if ultimately your answer or theirs seems incomplete, this seems a good place to start asking the question. In their statements soon after the fire, both say that the moment Dodge reversed the route of the crew they became alarmed, for, even if they couldn’t see the fire, Dodge’s order was to run from one. They reacted in seconds or less. They had been traveling at the end of the line because they were carrying unsheathed saws. When the head of the line started its switchback, Rumsey and Sallee left their positions at the end of the line, put on extra speed, and headed straight uphill, connecting with the front of the line to drop into it right behind Dodge.“

 

MacLean

Norman Maclean (23 december 1902 – 2 augustus 1990)
Portret door Janet Hamlin

 

De Nederlandse dichter-dominee Jan Jakob Lodewijk ten Kate werd geboren op 23 december 1819 in Den Haag. Zie ook mijn blog van 23 december 2006 en ook mijn blog van 23 december 2007 en ook mijn blog van 23 december 2008.

 

Het nachtegaaltje.

Een woord vooraf aan de kleine Lezers.

 

In zijn groene looverzaaltje,

Waar het warme zonnestraaltje

Vriendelijkjes binnenschiet,

Zingt het vrolijk nachtegaaltje

Onvermoeid zijn lentelied.

 

Wat al deuntjes kwinkeleert hij,

Wat al trillertjes schakeert hij,

Zoet en zangrig voor ’t gehoor!

En geen ander loon begeert hij

Dan een toegenegen oor.

‘k Weet een boekje met gedichtjes,

Vol van prentjes en gezichtjes,

En van buiten marokijn:

Laat dat boekje, zoete wichtjes,

U een nachtegaaltje zijn!

 

Neemt de proef eens, lievelingen!

Kijkt het in, en ’t zal u zingen,

Mooije liedjes bij de vleet,

Snaaksche stukjes, wondre dingen,

Die ge zeker nooit vergeet!

 

Mogt ge dat de waarheid vinden,

Lieve kindren, welbeminden!

Grooter vreugde hadt ge niet,

Dan het drietal kindervrinden,

Dat u ’t nachtegaaltje biedt!

 

TenKate
J.J.L. ten Kate (23 december 1819 – 24 december 1889)
Portret van J.J.L. ten Kate, door H.F.C. Ten Kate / J.P. Lange.

 

 

De Hongaarse Iván Mándy werd geboren op 23 december 1918 in Boedapest. Zie ook mijn blog van 23 december 2006 en ook mijn blog van 23 december 2007 en ook mijn blog van 23 december 2008.

 

Uit: Sylvia Plath

 

„Why does she mean so much to me? Maybe the most since Dostoevsky? It would be hard to explain. Besides, like all explanations in general, it’s not necessary to do so. So? The Bell Jar is on my shelf. I could never part with it, not even for a day. Actually, I don’t have lots of books. I am likely, at any time, to give a book to anyone, and I don’t make a fuss if I don’t get it back. I’ll never lend this book to anybody. Does it give me strength? Encouragement? I hardly think so. It isn’t some sort of nutrient. Do I read it every day? Or at least dip into it? I don’t take it into my hands for months. I feel its presence, though, its constant presence. Even so, whenever I look up at the shelf, an icy terror grips me.

Let’s pause here.

Icy terror.

A drama like hers had never overwhelmed me before. One so sincere and without an ounce of self pity. And yes, so true. A life of torment. And all with such great humor. Once, some time ago, I thought humor was a good protective. Maybe work is. That also kills. But at least it’s a worthy death.

It’s very significant, too that Sylvia Plath never invents anything. She’s not given to speculation. She’s not even concerned about where literature stands in her time. All the while, she is fundamentally modern, however. Such a true, opulent, lively modernity. This noble, aloof talent protects her from being fashionable. No, she won’t be fashionable. Still, she permeates into our lives.

I doubt anyone had any influence on her. Of course, that in itself isn’t a virtue. But what irony and self irony! And so her humor again! For instance, in one of her attempts at suicide. She wants to hang herself, but her body resists. At such a time my body always leaves me in a lurch. We could call this catastrophic humor. But why should we? What’s the point of pasting little labels on things? This is certain: this humor is entirely her own, and inimitable.

What could her weekdays have been like?

I received that book of letters put together by her mother. Unfortunately, I don’t know English. (This is quite depressing.) And so I gaze at the pictures. I turn the pages, I stare at each picture. Just like an old detective trying to track down something. An old detective who no longer has connections anywhere and now just works on his own.

The endpapers are strewn with childhood pictures. The little girl is smiling in nearly all of them. The smile expectant but still a bit anxious. At times her face clouds over and hardens in an odd way. Behind her a garden, a veranda with white columns, a beach, an ocean. Yes, it would be possible to live. The ocean and the beach are recurring backgrounds. The sandy beach in a blazing sun. This is a considerably later picture. Blonde and apparently bronze-brown, Sylvia Plath lies stretched out on the ocean beach. Again, she’s just smiling.“

 

mandy

Iván Mándy (23 december 1918 – 26 oktober 1995)

 

De Amerikaanse schrijver en komische acteur  Harry Shearer werd geboren op 23 december 1943 in Los Angeles. Zie ook mijn blog van 23 december 2007 en ook mijn blog van 23 december 2008.

 

Uit: The Huffington Post Blog

 

Hey, Tiger, Lack of Privacy Is Part of the Deal

 

„The spectacle of near-celebrities going on Larry King Live to ask for the return of their privacy has been one of the long-running jokes of our era.  Now Tiger Woods puts a new spin on it with his profound-apology-but-give-me-my privacy press release. 

Memo to Tiger: if you really wanted your privacy, maybe you should just have played championship golf, lived on the prize money, and gone home.  Maybe you shouldn’t have inked dozens of deals with sponsors who were using your name and image to create a bond with potential consumers, a bond that’s implicitly aspirational.  The grandaddy of such advertising in the modern age, of course, is three simple words: “Be Like Mike”.  Once you’re asking people to be like you, you’re inviting them to wonder about the “you” they’re supposed to want to be like.  End of privacy.   In case your agents, lawyers, managers, and other handlers didn’t mention it, that’s the deal.“

 

Shearer

Harry Shearer (Los Angeles, 23 december 1943)

 

De Oostenrijkse expressionistische dichter en schrijver Albert Ehrenstein werd op 23 december 1886 in Wenen geboren. Zie ook mijn blog van 23 december 2006 en ook mijn blog van 23 december 2008.

 

Uit: Zigeuner

 

“Ich bin schuld. Ich habe der Feuerwehr von Motschidlan die Spritze verschafft. Schon als Kind konnte ich sehr schön schreiben und damals nützte man das aus. Der Onkel entdeckte meine kalligraphischen Fähigkeiten, der Ärger, in der Ferienzeit zu irgend einer Arbeitsleistung gepreßt zu werden, mag in das Konzept gedrungen sein, aber mein Widerstreben und meine Versuche zu entrinnen, nützten mir nicht: ich mußte heran. Während meiner republikanischen Periode betrachtete ich die Affäre als den Schandfleck meines Lebens und später – aus anderen Gründen – ebenfalls. Hätte ich doch damals dem ewigen: »Also geh, Rudolf, sei brav und schreib!« nicht gefolgt!

Es ist nicht zu verhehlen: ich war es, der das Majestätsgesuch abfaßte. Es kam ein günstiger Bescheid und bald darauf das Geld für die Spritze. Zahllose Kataloge, Utensilien und Branduniformen betreffend stellten sich ein. Nun ging es zu Ende mit den Kübeln und Feuerhaken. Unter der Dorfjugend grassierten zwar schon längst kleine Spritzen aus Hollunderholz. Aber die große Spritze der Erwachsenen funktionierte bedeutend besser. Vom Bach aus schoß der Strahl wahrhaftig über die Dorfkirche und dann war er noch so kräftig, daß ein Enterich, der ein wenig abbekam, die Muschel seiner Sehnsucht ungeöffnet liegen ließ und mit einem, die Schlechtigkeit der Welt bloßlegenden »Waat, Waat!« die Flucht ergriff.

 Das Löschgerät also war da, aber woher schnell einen Brand nehmen? Aber noch waren Zigeuner im Orte, Zigeuner, denen nichts Menschliches fremd war: sie eigneten sich alles an. Ihre Hütte stand nahe dem übelriechenden Schlachthaus, hart am Sumpf. Sie nährten sich vom Abfall und den Dingen, die sich gelegentlich zu ihnen fanden. Der Schlachttag war für sie ein Fest. Da durfte der Familienvater, der alte, graulockige Tonek dem Fleischhauer die Kuh hinrichten helfen, kleine Handreichungen fielen für ihn ab, die mit Schimpfwörtern belohnt wurden. Endlich bekam er die ersehnten Kaldaunen an den Kopf geworfen.”

 

ehrenstein

Albert Ehrenstein (23 december 1886 – 8 april 1950)

 

De Franse dichter, schrijver en criticus Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve werd geboren op 23 december 1804 in Boulogne-sur-Mer. Zie ook mijn blog van 23 december 2006 en ook mijn
blog van 23 december 2008.

 

Uit: PORTRAITS LITTÉRAIRES

 

L’ABBÉ PRÉVOST

 

„On a comparé souvent l’impression mélancolique que produisent sur nous les bibliothèques, où sont entassés les travaux de tant de générations défuntes, à l’effet d’un cimetière peuplé de tombes. Cela ne nous a jamais semblé plus vrai que lorsqu’on y entre, non avec une curiosité vague ou un labeur trop empressé, mais guidé par une intention particulière d’honorer quelque nom choisi, et par un acte de piété studieuse à accomplir envers une mémoire. Si pourtant l’objet de notre étude ce jour-là, et en quelque sorte de notre dévotion, est un de ces morts fameux et si rares dont la parole remplit les temps, l’effet ne saurait être ce que nous disons; l’autel alors nous apparaît trop lumineux; il s’en échappe incessamment un puissant éclat qui chasse bien loin la langueur des regrets et ne rappelle que des idées de durée et de vie. La médiocrité, non plus, n’est guère propre à faire naître en nous

un sentiment d’espèce si délicate; l’impression qu’elle cause n’a rien que de stérile, et ressemble à de la fatigue ou à de la pitié. Mais ce qui nous donne à songer plus particulièrement et ce qui suggère à notre esprit mille pensées d’une morale pénétrante, c’est quand il s’agit d’un de ces hommes en partie célèbres et en partie oubliés, dans la mémoire desquels, pour ainsi dire, la lumière et l’ombre se joignent; dont quelque production toujours debout reçoit encore un vif rayon qui semble mieux éclairer la poussière et l’obscurité de tout le reste; c’est quand nous touchons à l’une de ces renommées recommandables et jadis brillantes, comme il s’en est vu beaucoup sur la terre, belles aujourd’hui, dans leur silence, de la beauté d’un cloître qui tombe, et à demi couchées, désertes et en ruine. Or, à part un très-petit nombre de noms grandioses et fortunés qui, par l’à-propos de leur venue, l’étoile constante de leurs destins, et aussi l’immensité des choses humaines et divines qu’ils ont les premiers reproduites glorieusement, conservent ce privilège éternel de ne pas vieillir, ce sort un peu sombre, mais fatal, est commun à tout ce qui porte dans l’ordre des lettres le titre de talent et même celui de génie.“

 

Sainte-Beuve

G.A. Sainte-Beuve (23 december 1804 – 13 oktober 1869)

 

De Italiaanse schrijver Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa werd geboren in Palermo op 23 december 1896. Zie ook mijn blog van 23 december 2006 en ook mijn blog van 23 december 2008.

 

Uit: The Leopard (Vertaald door Archibald Colquhoun)

 

The daily recital of the Rosary was over. For half an hour the steady voice of the Prince had recalled the Glorious and the Sorrowful Mysteries; for half an hour other voices had interwoven a lilting hum from which,
now and again, would chime some unlikely word: love, virginity, death; and during that hum the whole aspect of the rococo drawing room seemed to change; even the parrots spreading iridescent wings over the silken walls appeared abashed; even the Magdalen between the two windows looked a penitent and not just a handsome blonde lost in some dubious daydream, as she usually was.
Now, as the voices fell silent, everything dropped back into its usual order or disorder. Bendicò, the Great Dane, vexed at having been shut out, came barking through the door by which the servants had left. The women rose slowly to their feet, their oscillating skirts as they withdrew baring bit by bit the naked figures from mythology painted all over the milky depths of the tiles. Only an Andromeda remained covered by the soutane of Father Pirrone, still deep in extra prayer, and it was some time before she could sight the silvery Perseus swooping down to her aid and her kiss.
Thedivinities frescoed on the ceiling awoke. The troops of Tritons and Dryads, hurtling across from hill and sea amid clouds of cyclamen pink toward a transfigured Conca d’Oro,* and bent on glorifying the House of Salina, seemed suddenly so overwhelmed with exaltation as to discard the most elementary rules of perspective; meanwhile the major gods and goddesses, the Princes among gods, thunderous Jove and frowning Mars and languid Venus, had already preceded the mob of minor deities and were amiably supporting the blue armorial shield of the Leopard. They knew that for the next twenty-three and a half hours they would be lords of the villa once again. On the walls the monkeys went back to pulling faces at the cockatoos.“

 

GiuseppeTomasidiLampedusa

Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa (23 december 1896 – 23 juli 1957)

 

De Duitse dichteres en schrijfster Mathilde Wesendonck werd geboren als Agnes Luckemeyer op 23 december 1828 in Elberfeld. Zie ook mijn blog van 23 december 2008.

 

Träume

Sag’, welch’ wunderbare Träume

Halten meinen Sinn umfangen,

Daß sie nicht wie leere Schäume

Sind in ödes Nichts vergangen?

 

Träume, die in jeder Stunde,

Jedem Tage schöner blühn,

Und mit ihrer Himmelskunde

Selig durchs Gemüte ziehn?

 

Träume, die wie hehre Strahlen

In die Seele sich versenken,

Dort ein ewig Bild zu malen:

Allvergessen, Eingedenken!

 

Träume, wie wenn Frühlingssonne

Aus dem Schnee die Blüten küßt,

Daß zu nie geahnter Wonne

Sie der neue Tag begrüßt,

 

Daß sie wachsen, daß sie blühen,

Träumed spenden ihren Duft,

Sanft an deiner Brust verglühen,

Und dann sinken in die Gruft.

 

wesendonck

Mathilde Wesendonck (23 december 1828 – 31 augustus 1902)

 

De Duitse dichter Martin Opitz von Boberfeld werd geboren op 23 december 1597 in Bunzlau (Silezië). Zie ook mijn blog van 23 december 2008.

 

Sonnet XXXV.

 

    Ich wil diß halbe mich / was wir den Cörper nennen /

Diß mein geringstes Theil / verzehren durch die Glut /

Wil wie Alcmenen Sohn mit vnverwandtem Muth’

Hier diese meine Last / den schnöden Leib / verbrennen /

    Den Himmel auff zu gehn: mein Geist beginnt zu rennen

Auff etwas bessers zu. diß Fleisch / die Handvoll Blut /

Muß außgetauschet seyn vor ein viel besser Gut /

Daß sterbliche Vernunfft vnd Fleisch vnd Blut nicht kennen.

    Mein Liecht entzünde mich mit deiner Augen Brunst /

Auff daß ich dieser Haut/ deß finstern Leibes Dunst /

Deß Kerkers voller Wust vnd Grawens / werd entnommen /

    Vnd ledig / frey vnd loß / der Schwachheit abgethan /

Weit vber alle Lufft vnd Himmel fliegen kan

Die Schönheit an zu sehn von der die deine kommen.

 

opitz1

Martin Opitz  (23 december 1597 – 20 augustus 1639)