De Amerikaanse schrijver Richard Preston werd geboren op 5 augustus 1954 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Zie ook mijn blog van 5 augustus 2007 en ook mijn blog van 5 augustus 2008.

Uit: The Demon In The Freezer

“In the early nineteen seventies, a British photo retoucher named Robert Stevens arrived in south Florida to take a job at the National Enquirer, which is published in Palm Beach County. At the time, photo retouchers for supermarket tabloids used an airbrush (nowadays they use computers) to clarify news photographs of world leaders shaking hands with aliens or to give more punch to pictures of six-month-old babies who weigh three hundred pounds. Stevens was reputed to be one of the best photo retouchers in the business. The Enquirer was moving away from stories like “I Ate My Mother-in-Law’s Head,” and the editors recruited him to bring some class to the paper. They offered him much more than he made working for tabloids in Britain.
Stevens was in his early thirties when he moved to Florida. He bought a red Chevy pickup truck, and he put a CB radio in it and pasted an American-flag decal in the back window and installed a gun rack next to the flag. He didn’t own a gun: the gun rack was for his fishing rods. Stevens spent a lot of time at lakes and canals around south Florida, where he would spin-cast for bass and panfish. He often stopped to drop a line in the water on his way to and from work. He became an American citizen. He would drink a Guinness or two in bars with his friends and explain the Constitution to them. “Bobby was the only English redneck I ever knew,” Tom Wilbur, one of his best friends, said to me.
Stevens’s best work tended to get the Enquirer sued. When the TV star Freddie Prinze shot himself to death, Stevens joined two photographs into a seamless image of Prinze and Raquel Welch at a party together. The implication was that they had been lovers, and this sparked a lawsuit. He enhanced a photograph of a woman with a long neck: “Giraffe Woman.” Giraffe Woman sued.”

Richard Preston (Cambridge, 5 augustus 1954)

De Nicaraguaanse schrijver en politicus.Sergio Ramírez Mercado werd geboren in Masatepe op 5 augustus 1942. Zie ook mijn blog van 5 augustus 2007 en ook mijn blog van 5 augustus 2008.

Uit: A Thousand Deaths Plus One (Vertaald door Leland H. Chambers)

“Darkness had now fallen and I was obliged to move closer to the fluorescent tube installed under the bookstall’s eaves, when I discovered a snapshot of a nude which was not feminine in the least, and which was the Before to the Afterward of the cover photograph that showed Turgenev’s body on his bed at Les Frênes. One explained the other, and their relevance was mutual. At the foot of this other one was this description: The Russian writer Ivan Turgenev after being embalmed (flexible negative treated with gelatin).

The body rests on what looks like a joiner’s work bench, enveloped in a troubled light that comes from a clerestory window above. This doesn’t look like the dissection room of a hospital but rather one of the shed-like service buildings at Les Frênes, a stable perhaps, or an equipment room, with stucco walls blackened by candle smoke. There is a pail at the foot of the bench that might be used for milking, or might be there to receive the viscera from the cadaver. But that isn’t all. At one side, barely offering her profile to the camera, Pauline García-Viardot is staring at the body with religious fervor, her shoulders thrown forward—don’t forget that Ernesta Grisi found consolation in calling her “the hunchback”—and dressed severely in mourning, with a veil thrown over her face.

This is a furtive visit by Pauline to that shed after the embalmer has finished his work, as furtive as the presence of the photographer, who took the snapshot from outside, through the window. He would have been carrying his brass suitcases full of equipment along the path among the ash trees and had sat down on one of them to rest near the shed when his attention was caught by the banging of the shutters loose in the wind, and he looked in. There was Turgenev, naked on the workbench, and Pauline in her pose of motionless contemplation. He hastened to get his portable camera out of its bag, took the picture while scarcely poking his head in, and disappeared immediately from the window frame, fearful of having been betrayed by the sound of the camera’s shutter. Then he went on his way carrying his equipment cases toward the dacha to wait there for the body, now dressed, to be moved to the bed, and to go ahead with fulfilling the assignment from the Revue des Deux Mondes that had brought him to Les Frênes.”

Sergio Ramírez (Masatepe, 5 augustus 1942)

De Amerikaanse schrijver en dichter Conrad Potter Aiken werd geboren in Savannah, Georgia op 5 augustus 1889. Zie ook mijn blog van 5 augustus 2007 en ook mijn blog van 5 augustus 2008.

Red is the color of blood

Red is the color of blood, and I will seek it:

I have sought it in the grass.

It is the color of steep sun seen through eyelids.

It is hidden under the suave flesh of women–

Flows there, quietly flows.

It mounts from the heart to the temples, the singing mouth–

As cold sap climbs to the rose.

I am confused in webs and knots of scarlet

Spun from the darkness;

Or shuttled from the mouths of thirsty spiders.

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Madness for red! I devour the leaves of autumn.

I tire of the green of the world.

I am myself a mouth for blood …

Here, in the golden haze of the late slant sun,

Let us walk, with the light in our eyes,

To a single bench from the outset predetermined.

Look: there are seagulls in these city skies,

Kindled against the blue.

But I do not think of the seagulls, I think of you.

Your eyes, with the late sun in them,

Are like blue pools dazzled with yellow petals.

This pale green suits them well.

Here is your finger, with an emerald on it:

The one I gave you. I say these things politely–

But what I think beneath them, who can tell?

For I think of you, crumpled against a whiteness;

Flayed and torn, with a dulled face.

I think of you, writing, a thing of scarlet,

And myself, rising red from that embrace.

November sun is sunlight poured through honey:

Old things, in such a light, grow subtle and fine.

Bare oaks are like still fire.

Talk to me: now we drink the evening’s wine.

Look, how our shadows creep along the grave!–

And this way, how the gravel begins to shine!

This is the time of day for recollections,

For sentimental regrets, oblique allusions,

Rose-leaves, shrivelled in a musty jar.

Scatter them to the wind! There are tempests coming.

It is dark, with a windy star.

If human mouths were really roses, my dear,–

(Why must we link things so?–)

I would tear yours petal by petal with slow murder.

I would pluck the stamens, the pistils,

The gold and the green,–

Spreading the subtle sweetness that was your breath

On a cold wave of death….

Now let us walk back, slowly, as we came.

We will light the room with candles; they may shine

Like rows of yellow eyes.

Your hair is like spun fire, by candle-flame.

You smile at me–say nothing. You are wise.

For I think of you, flung down brutal darkness;

Crushed and red, with pale face.

I think of you, with your hair disordered and dripping.

And myself, rising red from that embrace.

Conrad Aiken (5 augustus 1889 – 17 augustus 1973)

 De Amerikaanse dichter, schrijver, essayist en criticus Wendell Berry werd geboren op 5 augustus 1934 in Henry County, Kentucky. Zie ook mijn blog van 5 augustus 2007  en ook mijn blog van 5 augustus 2008.

The peace of wild things

 When despair grows in me
and I wake in the middle of
the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting for their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

A Meeting

In a dream I meet

my dead friend. He has,

I know, gone long and far,

and yet he is the same

for the dead are changeless.

They grow no older.

It is I who have changed,

grown strange to what I was.

Yet I, the changed one,

ask: “How you been?”

He grins and looks at me.

“I been eating peaches

off some mighty fine trees.”

Wendell Berry (Henry County, 5 augustus 1934)

De Franse schrijver Guy de Maupassant is geboren op 5 augustus 1850 in kasteel Miromesnil bij Dieppe. Zie ook mijn blog van 5 augustus 2006 en ook mijn blog van 5 augustus 2007  en ook mijn blog van 5 augustus 2008.

Uit: Le Horla

“12 mai. – J’ai un peu de fièvre depuis quelques jours ; je me sens souffrant, ou plutôt je me sens triste.
D’où viennent ces influences mystérieuses qui changent en découragement notre bonheur et notre confiance en détresse ? On dirait que l’air, l’air invisible est plein d’inconnaissables Puissances, dont nous subissons les voisinages mystérieux. Je m’éveille plein de gaieté, avec des envies de chanter dans la gorge. – Pourquoi ? – Je descends le long de l’eau ; et soudain, après une courte promenade, je rentre désolé, comme si quelque malheur m’attendait chez moi. – Pourquoi ? – Est-ce un frisson de froid qui, frôlant ma peau, a ébranlé mes nerfs et assombri mon âme ? Est-ce la forme des nuages, ou la couleur du jour, la couleur des choses, si variable, qui, passant par mes yeux, a troublé ma pensée ? Sait-on ? Tout ce qui nous entoure, tout ce que nous voyons sans le regarder, tout ce que nous frôlons sans le connaître, tout ce que nous touchons sans le palper, tout ce que nous rencontrons sans le distinguer, a sur nous, sur nos organes et, par eux, sur nos idées, sur notre cœur lui-même, des effets rapides, surprenants et inexplicables.
Comme il est profond, ce mystère de l’Invisible ! Nous ne le pouvons sonder avec nos sens misérables, avec nos yeux qui ne savent apercevoir ni le trop petit, ni le trop grand, ni le trop près, ni le trop loin, ni les habitants d’une étoile, ni les habitants d’une goutte d’eau… avec nos oreilles qui nous trompent, car elles nous transmettent les vibrations de l’air en notes sonores. Elles sont des fées qui font ce miracle de changer en bruit ce mouvement et par cette métamorphose donnent naissance à la musique, qui rend chantante l’agitation muette de la nature… avec notre odorat, plus faible que celui du chien… avec notre goût, qui peut à peine discerner l’âge d’un vin ! »

Guy de Maupassant (5 augustus 1850 – 6 juli 1893)
Portret door François Nicolas Augustin

De Amerikaanse dichter Ron Silliman werd geboren op 5 augustus 1946 in Pasco, Washington. Zie ook mijn blog van 5 augustus 2007 en ook mijn blog van 5 augustus 2008.

the nose of kim darby’s double (Fragment)

Canyons, paths
dug thru the snow
Tunnels
the walls as high as
shoulders
The weight of it
heavier
when it begins to melt
& then, at sunset
still midafternoon
the temperature drops
wind over the ridge
so that by dawn
each surface
hardens into ice

Dams clog the drains
to turn the window
facing north
into a waterfall . . .

Driving north
past the mall turn, King
of Prussia, past Bridgeport
and the narrow brick streets of Norr’stown
the road eases up, what
was once country
into a more purely rural
suburbiana (golf course
blanketed in white

A gas station that has not yet
turned into a minmart

Swath cut
by the powerlines
right thru the old quarry, the pit
filled with water
is called a lake, each
new townhouse with its private dock
tho if you look upstairs
you will discover the doors to the closets
all made of vinyl

Someone in another room is singing the alphabet

Barely visible in the high slush
fog mixed with rain
a woman waits for her bus

Ron Silliman (Pasco, 5 augustus 1946)

Zie voor onderstaande schrijver ook mijn blog van 5 augustus 2007.

De Duitse dichter en schrijver Christian Wagner werd geboren op 5 augustus 1835 in Warmbronn.

De Amerikaanse schrijver Richard Preston werd geboren op 5 augustus 1954 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Zie ook mijn blog van 5 augustus 2007.

Uit: The Hot Zone

„The headache begins, typically, on the seventh day after exposure to the agent. On the seventh day after his New Year’s visit to Kitum cave-January 8, 1980-Monet felt a throbbing pain behind his eyeballs. He decided to stay home from work and went to bed in his bungalow. The headache grew worse. His eyeballs ached, and then his temples began to ache, the pain seeming to circle around inside his head. It would not go away with aspirin, and then he got a severe backache. His housekeeper, Johnnie, was still on her Christmas vacation, and he had recently hired a temporary housekeeper. She tried to take care of him, but she really didn’t know what to do. Then, on the third day after his headache started, he became nauseated, spiked a fever, and began to vomit. His vomiting grew intense and turned into dry heaves. At the same time, he became strangely passive. His face lost all appearance of life and set itself into an expressionless mask, with the eyeballs fixed, paralytic, and staring. The eyelids were slightly droopy, which gave him a peculiar appearance, as if his eyes were popping out of his head and half closed at the same time. The eyeballs themselves seemed almost frozen in their sockets, and they turned bright red. The skin of his face turned yellowish, with a brilliant starlike red speckles. He began to look like a zombie. His appearance frightened the temporary housekeeper. She didn’t understand the transformation in this man. His personality changed. He became sullen, resentful, angry, and his memory seemed to be blown away. He was not delirious. He could answer questions, although he didn’t seem to know exactly where he was.

When Monet failed to show up for work, his colleagues began to wonder about him, and eventually they went to his bungalow to see if he was all right. The black-and-white crow sat on the roof and watched them as they went inside. They looked at Monet and decided that he needed to get to a hospital. Since he was very unwell and no longer able to drive a car, one of his co-workers drove him to a private hospital in the city of Kisumu, on the shore of Lake Victoria. The doctors at the hospital examined Monet, and could not come up with any explanation for what had happened to his eyes or his face or his mind. Thinking that he might have some kind of bacterial infection, they gave him injections of antibiotics, but the antibiotics had no effect on his illness..”

Richard Preston (Cambridge, 5 augustus 1954)

De Nicaraguaanse schrijver en politicus.Sergio Ramírez Mercado werd geboren in Masatepe op 5 augustus 1942. Zie ook mijn blog van 5 augustus 2007.

Uit: Adios Muchachos (Vertaald door Mark Falcoff)

“Doctor Emilio Alvarez Montalván, Nicaragua’s most respected conservative ideologue, once said—when we had already been defeated in the 1990 elections—that Sandinismo had brought to Nicaraguan political culture for the very first time a sense of responsibility towards the poor.

This is, in truth, one of the irreversible legacies of the Revolution, beyond the ideological illusions that confused us at the time, beyond, too, of the bureaucratic excesses and deficiencies of Marxism in practice, beyond the inexperience and the improvisations, the poses, the cheap imitations, the rhetoric. The poor continued to be the humanist frame of references of the project that came apart, piece by piece, on the road—from the catacombs and proscription to the loss of power and an ethical catastrophe, a subterranean impulse, or one perpetually postponed, but never fully extinguished.

In identifying itself with the poor, the Revolution was radical in the purest sense of the term, and under the rubric of a search for justice, capable of being repeatedly naïve or arbitrary, many times losing a proper perspective of what was possible, or even what was just and desirable. What is just and desirable should, in fact, confront reality, and in that very sphere of reality we find economics. Nicaragua’s economic system suffered from obsolescence, and required changes. But it also represented the texture of social relations built up over centuries of tradition. It was precisely there, in fact, where we faced our greatest resistance to needed change—a resistance that we did not take seriously as we should because we believed that merely by ending poverty all Nicaragua’s traditional beliefs would disappear.

The image that dominated our imaginations was that of people with nothing to lose, the wretched of the earth represented by Leonel Rugama in his poems. The miners of Siuna terminally afflicted with silicosis; the peasants in the valleys of the Jinotega mountains, who did not have salt; or in the lost canyons of Matagalpa where vitamin deficiencies produced night blindness; the day-workers on the banana plantations in Chinandega that slept in kennel-like boxes; or the legions of ragpickers in the dumps of Acahualinca along the sewage canals of Lake Managua—mothers with their children, grandfathers and grandfathers, fighting the buzzards and other scavengers of prey for something to eat.”

Sergio Ramírez (Masatepe, 5 augustus 1942)

De Amerikaanse schrijver en dichter Conrad Potter Aiken werd geboren in Savannah, Georgia op 5 augustus 1889. Zie ook mijn blog van 5 augustus 2007.

EVENSONG

I

IN the pale mauve twilight, streaked with orange,

Exquisitely sweet,–

She leaned upon her balcony and looked across the street;

And across the huddled roofs of the misty city,

Across the hills of tenements, so gray,

She looked into the west with a young and infinite pity,

With a young and wistful pity, as if to say

The dark was coming, and irresistible night,

Which man would attempt to meet

With here and there a little flickering light. . . .

The orange faded, the housetops all were black,

And a strange and beautiful quiet

Came unexpected, came exquisitely sweet,

On market-place and street;

And where were lately crowds and sounds and riot

Was a gentle blowing of wind, a murmur of leaves,

A single step, or voice, and under the eaves

The scrambling of sparrows; and then the hush swept back.

II

She leaned upon her balcony, in the darkness,

Folding her hands beneath her chin;

And watched the lamps begin

Here and there to pierce like eyes the darkness,–

From windows, luminous rooms,

And from the damp dark street

Between the moving branches, and the leaves with rain still sweet.

It was strange: the leaves thus seen,

With the lamplight’s cold bright glare thrown up among them,–

The restless maple leaves,

Twinkling their myriad shadows beneath the eaves,–

Were lovelier, almost, than with sunlight on them,

So bright they were with young translucent green;

Were lovelier, almost, than with moonlight on them. . . .

And looking so wistfully across the city,

With such a young, and wise, and infinite pity

For the girl who had no lover

To walk with her along a street like this,

With slow steps in the rain, both aching for a kiss,–

It seemed as if all evenings were the same,

As if all evenings came

With just such tragic peacefulness as this;

With just such hint of loneliness or pain,

The quiet after rain.

III

Would her lover, then, grow old sooner than she,

And find a night like this too damp to walk?

Would he prefer to stay indoors and talk,

Or read the evening paper, while she sewed, or darned a sock,

And listened to the ticking of the clock:

Would he prefer it to lamplight on a tree?

Would he be old and tired,

And, having all the comforts he desired,

Take no interest in the twilight coming down

So beautifully and quietly on the town?

Would her lover, then, grow old sooner than she?

Conrad Aiken (5 augustus 1889 – 17 augustus 1973)

De Amerikaanse dichter, schrijver, essayist en criticus Wendell Berry werd geboren op 5 augustus 1934 in Henry County, Kentucky. Zie ook mijn blog van 5 augustus 2007.

The Man Born to Farming

The Grower of Trees, the gardener, the man born to farming,
whose hands reach into the ground and sprout
to him the soil is a divine drug. He enters into death
yearly, and comes back rejoicing. He has seen the light lie down
in the dung heap, and rise again in the corn.
His thought passes along the row ends like a mole.
What miraculous seed has he swallowed
That the unending sentence of his love flows out of his mouth
Like a vine clinging in the sunlight, and like water
Descending in the dark?

Like The Water

Like the water
of a deep stream,
love is always too much.
We did not make it.
Though we drink till we burst,
we cannot have it all,
or want it all.
In its abundance
it survives our thirst.

We enter,
willing to die,
into the commonwealth of its joy.

In this World

The hill pasture, an open place among the trees,
tilts into the valley. The clovers and tall grasses
are in bloom. Along the foot of the hill
dark floodwater moves down the river.
The sun sets. Ahead of nightfall the birds sing.
I have climbed up to water the horses
and now sit and rest, high on the hillside,
letting the day gather and pass. Below me
cattle graze out across the wide fields of the bottomlands,
slow and preoccupied as stars. In this world
men are making plans, wearing themselves out,
spending their lives, in order to kill each other.

Wendell Berry (Henry County, 5 augustus 1934)

De Franse schrijver Guy de Maupassant is geboren op 5 augustus 1850 in kasteel Miromesnil bij Dieppe. Zie ook mijn blog van 5 augustus 2006 en ook mijn blog van 5 augustus 2007. 

Uit: L’auberge

“Puis, dès qu’il sommeillait, vaincu par la fatigue, il entendait la voix qui le faisait bondir sur ses pieds.
Une nuit enfin, pareil aux lâches poussés à bout, il se précipita sur la porte et l’ouvrit pour voir celui qui l’appelait et pour le forcer à se taire.
Il reçut en plein visage un souffle d’air froid qui le glaça jusqu’aux os et il referma le battant et poussa les verrous, sans remarquer que Sam s’était élancé dehors. Puis, frémissant, il jeta du bois au feu, et s’assit devant pour se chauffer; mais soudain il tressaillit, quelqu’un grattait le mur en pleurant.
Il cria éperdu: “Va-t’en.” Une plainte lui répondit, longue et douloureuse.
Alors tout ce qui lui restait de raison fut emporté par la terreur. Il répétait: “Va-t’en” en tournant sur lui-même pour trouver un coin où se cacher. L’autre, pleurant toujours, passait le long de la maison en se frottant contre le mur. Ulrich s’élança vers le buffet de chêne plein de vaisselle et de provisions, et, le soulevant avec une force surhumaine, il le traîna jusqu’à la porte, pour s’appuyer d’une barricade. Puis, entassant les uns sur les autres tout ce qui restait de meubles, les matelas, les paillasses, les chaises, il boucha la fenêtre comme on fait lorsqu’un ennemi vous assiège.
Mais celui du dehors poussait maintenant de grands gémissements lugubres auxquels le jeune homme se mit à répondre par des gémissements pareils.
Et des jours et des nuits se passèrent sans qu’ils cessassent de hurler l’un et l’autre. L’un tournait sans cesse autour de la maison et fouillait la muraille de ses ongles avec tant de force qu’il semblait vouloir la démolir; l’autre, au-dedans, suivait tous ses mouvements, courbé, l’oreille collée contre la pierre, et il répondait à tous ses appels par d’épouvantables cris.
Un soir, Ulrich n’entendit plus rien, et il s’assit, tellement brisé de fatigue qu’il s’endormit aussitôt.
Il se réveilla sans un souvenir, sans une pensée, comme si toute sa tête se fût vidée pendant ce sommeil accablé. Il avait faim, il mangea. »

Guy de Maupassant (5 augustus 1850 – 6 juli 1893)

De Amerikaanse dichter Ron Silliman werd geboren op 5 augustus 1946 in Pasco, Washington. Zie ook mijn blog van 5 augustus 2007.

Uit: You

XXII

The sky grows lighter before it starts to rain. I stand in an empty
attic studio, wondering where to put the desk. Young poodle
lopes up to the wire fence. Fan rotates slowly over the vacant
kitchen. 

Ron Silliman (Pasco, 5 augustus 1946)

Zie voor onderstaande schrijver ook mijn blog van 5 augustus 2007.

De Duitse dichter en schrijver Christian Wagner werd geboren op 5 augustus 1835 in Warmbronn.

De Amerikaanse schrijver Richard Preston werd geboren op 5 augustus 1954 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Hij studeerde aan Pomona College in Claremont en studeerde summa cum laude af in Engels. Aansluitend studeerde hij aan Princeton University waar hij zijn doctorsbul in filosofie haalde.

Uit: The Wild Trees

“One day in the middle of October 1987, a baby-blue Honda Civic with Alaska license plates, a battered relic of the seventies, sped along the Oregon Coast Highway, moving south on the headlands. Below the road, surf broke around sea stacks, filling the air with haze. The car turned into a deserted parking lot near a beach and stopped.
A solid-looking young man got out from the driver’s side. He had brown hair that was going prematurely gray, and he wore gold-rimmed spectacles, which gave him an intellectual look. His name was Marwood Harris, and he was a senior at Reed College, in Portland, majoring in English and history. He walked off to the side of the parking lot and unzipped his fly. There was a splashing sound.
Meanwhile, thin, somewhat tall young man emerged from the passenger side of the car. He had a bony face, brown eyes, a mop of sun- streaked brown hair, and he wore a pair of bird-watching binoculars around his neck. T. Scott Sillett was a junior at the University of Arizona, twenty-one years old, visiting Oregon during fall break. He took up his binoculars and began to study a flock of shorebirds running along the surf.
The interior of the Honda Civic was made of blue vinyl, and the back seat was piled with camping gear that pressed up against the windows. The pile of stuff moved and a leg emerged, followed by a curse, and a third young man struggled out and stood up. “Mardiddy, this car of yours is going to be the death of us all,” he said to Marwood Harris. He was Stephen C. Sillett, the younger brother of Scott Sillett. Steve Sillett was nineteen and a junior at Reed College, majoring in biology. He was shorter and more muscular than his older brother.

Richard Preston (Cambridge, 5 augustus 1954)

De Nicaraguaanse schrijver en politicus.Sergio Ramírez Mercado werd geboren in Masatepe op 5 augustus 1942. In 1960 ging Ramírez rechten studeren aan de Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Nicaragua in Léon. In dat zelfde jaar was hij een van de oprichters van het tijdschrift Ventana, samen met Fernando Gordillo stond hij aan de wieg van de schrijversbeweging met die naam.

In 1963 kwam zijn eerste boek uit, Cuentas (verhalen). In 1964 studeerde hij af als advocaat, hij ontving een prijs voor de beste leerling van dat jaar. In 1977 voerde hij de “grupo de los Doce”, de groep van twaalf aan, een groep van intellectuelen, ondernemers en priesters die het FSLN, het Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional, steunden in hun strijd tegen de Nicaraguaanse dictator Somoza. In 1979, na de overwinning van de Sandinisten, trad Ramírez toe tot de tijdelijke regering, het Comité van Nationale Wederopbouw. Van 1990 tot 1995 zat Ramírez in het Nicaraguaanse parlement als fractievoorzitter van de delegatie van het FSLN. In 1995 kwamen de verschillen van inzicht tussen Ramírez en de leiding van het FSLN naar boven, met name op het vlak van de democratisering liepen de meningen uiteen. In 1995 richtte Ramírez de Movimiento de Renovación Sandinista (MRS), voor welke hij in 1996 presidentskandidaat was. Na een mislukte verkiezing trok hij zich terug uit de politiek

Uit: Hatful of Tigers

“Why, just now, a waxed floor, the secretaries’ heels clicking on the shiny boards that give off the sweetish smell of wax, and the constant patter of raindrops? The country house on the hill of San Pedro de Montes de Oca, with its countless passageways, staircases, nooks; the offices, each with its window looking out on the rain, the easy chairs upholstered in gray vinyl, my desk at the end of a dark hallway, and on my desk, among folders and regional documents of the Central American Superior University Council (CSUCA), the Argentine edition of Bestiary, brought to me from Buenos Aires by that Salvadoran friend who in those days aspired to be a cronopio but later turned into the worst kind of company man and wound up as Minister of Justice under General Molina.

Recently arrived in San José from the University of León, I was just emerging from my first methodical reading of Borges, convinced, as I closed each of those paperback volumes edited by Emece, that there was no experimental path to perfection other than perfection itself, that writing was nothing more than the linking of impeccable periodic sentences one after the other, by the magician with his hat full of snow-white rabbits.”

Sergio Ramírez (Masatepe, 5 augustus 1942)

De Amerikaanse schrijver en dichter Conrad Potter Aiken werd geboren in Savannah, Georgia op 5 augustus 1889. Hij was elf jaar toen zijn vader zijn moeder vermoordde en daarna zichzelf, vanwege geldproblemen in de
familie. Sommige verslagen van het gebeurde melden dat Aiken getuige was van de moorden, andere dat hij alleen de lichamen vond. Hij werd opgevoed door een oudtante, bezocht privéscholen en Harvard University. De invloed van het symbolisme op Aiken was groot, vooral in zijn vroege werk. Tot zijn dichtbundels behoren Earth Triumphant (1911), The Charnel Rose (1918), en.  And In the Hanging Gardens (1933).

Chance meetings

In the mazes of loitering people, the watchful and furtive,

The shadows of tree-trunks and shadows of leaves,

In the drowse of the sunlight, among the low voices,

I suddenly face you,

Your dark eyes return for a space from her who is with you,

They shine into mine with a sunlit desire,

They say an ‘I love you, what star do you live on?’

They smile and then darken,

And silent, I answer ‘You too–I have known you,–I love you!–‘

And the shadows of tree-trunks and shadows of leaves

Interlace with low voices and footsteps and sunlight

To divide us forever.

All Lovely Things

All lovely things will have an ending,
All lovely things will fade and die,
And youth, that’s now so bravely spending,
Will beg a penny by and by.

Fine ladies soon are all forgotten,
And goldenrod is dust when dead,
The sweetest flesh and flowers are rotten
And cobwebs tent the brightest head.

Come back, true love! Sweet youth, return!—
But time goes on, and will, unheeding,
Though hands will reach, and eyes will yearn,
And the wild days set true hearts bleeding.

Come back, true love! Sweet youth, remain!—
But goldenrod and daisies wither,
And over them blows autumn rain,
They pass, they pass, and know not whither.

Conrad Aiken (5 augustus 1889 – 17 augustus 1973)

De Amerikaanse dichter, schrijver, essayist en criticus Wendell Berry werd geboren op 5 augustus 1934 in Henry County, Kentucky. Berry schreef meer dan vijfentwintig dichtbundels, zestien essaybundels en elf romans en verhalenbundels. Hij schrijft in de overtuiging dat zijn werk geworteld dient te zijn in de plaats waar iemand leeft.

 What We Need Is Here

Geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye,
clear. What we need is here.

The Silence

Though the air is full of singing
my head is loud
with the labor of words.

Though the season is rich
with fruit, my tongue
hungers for the sweet of speech.

Though the beech is golden
I cannot stand beside it
mute, but must say

“It is golden,” while the leaves
stir and fall with a sound
that is not a name.

It is in the silence
that my hope is, and my aim.
A song whose lines

I cannot make or sing
sounds men’s silence
like a root. Let me say

and not mourn: the world
lives in the death of speech
and sings there

Wendell Berry (Henry County, 5 augustus 1934)

De Duitse dichter en schrijver Christian Wagner werd geboren op 5 augustus 1835 in Warmbronn. De zoon van een timmerman / keuterboer werkte op de boerderij van zijn vader die hij na diens dood overnam. In de jaren 1871 tot 1885 werkte hij in de winter als dagloner en houthakker. In 1870 stierf zijn eerste vrouw, in 1892 zijn tweede. Met beiden had hij vier kinderen, maar die uit het eerste huwelijk stierven ook allemaal al als zuigeling. Bovenregionale bekendheid kreeg de boerendichter door de in 1913 in München verschenen bundel Gedichte die Hermann Hesse uitgaf en van een voorwoord voorzag. Geïnspireerd door het boeddhisme en het brahmanisme staat in zijn denken het atomisme en de zielsverhuizing centraal.

Uit: Eigenbrötler und Kienleute

„In meiner Jugendzeit, das ist in den vierziger und fünfziger Jahren des vorigen Jahrhunderts, waren mehrere hier; vier, fünf, sechs ledige Geschwister die, nachdem ihre Eltern gestorben waren, beieinander blieben und einen gemeinschaftlichen Haushalt führten.

Da waren zunächst des Fritzejakobles. Das waren neun, wovon sich jedoch drei noch verheirateten. Der Fritz, ich kann ihn mir gar nicht anders vorstellen als in gelben Lederhosen im Hof stehend, oder auch den Pflug regierend auf einem Acker, nie anders als mit selbstzufriedenem Lächeln auf dem glatten Gesicht. Er als der Älteste beanspruchte und genoß auch väterliche Gewalt. Dann kam der Hannes, auf den ich später zurückzukommen gedenke, ein Philipp und ein Christian. Dann drei Schwestern: s’ Meile, Luise und Christine. Auch das räudige Schaf fehlte nicht: Es war dies ein Schneider, der lange in der Schweiz gewesen, in Genf und Zürich atheistische Lehren, revolutionäre Ideen in sich aufgenommen hatte und der Milch frommer Denkart, den Anschauungen der Heimat entfremdet worden war Wenn er einmal bei seinen Wanderfahrten auf einige Tage bei ihnen einkehrte, wurde er in ein Kämmerlein eingewiesen, das er wie ein Pestkranker nicht verlassen durfte. Zuletzt sägten sie ihm, um ihm das Wiederkommen ganz zu entleiden, die Stollen seiner Bettlade ab.“

Christian Wagner (5 augustus 1835 – 15 februari 1918)

De Franse schrijver Guy de Maupassant is geboren op 5 augustus 1850 in kasteel Miromesnil bij Dieppe. Zie ook mijn blog van 5 augustus 2006.

Uit: Boule de suif

    Pendant plusieurs jours de suite des lambeaux d’armée en déroute avaient traversé la ville. Ce n’était point de la troupe, mais des hordes débandées. Les hommes avaient la barbe longue et sale, des uniformes en guenilles, et ils avançaient d’une allure molle, sans drapeau, sans régiment. Tous semblaient accablés, éreintés, incapables d’une pensée ou d’une résolution, marchant seulement par habitude, et tombant de fatigue sitôt qu’ils s’arrêtaient. On voyait surtout des mobilisés, gens pacifiques, rentiers tranquilles, pliant sous le poids du fusil; des petits moblots alertes, faciles à l’épouvante et prompts à l’enthousiasme, prêts à l’attaque comme à la fuite; puis, au milieu d’eux, quelques culottes rouges, débris d’une division moulue dans une grande bataille; des artilleurs sombres alignés avec ces fantassins divers; et, parfois, le casque brillant d’un dragon au pied pesant qui suivait avec peine la marche plus l
gère des lignards.
Des légions de francs-tireurs aux appellations héroïques: “les Vengeurs de la défaite – les Citoyens de la tombe – les Partageurs de la mort” – passaient à leur tour, avec des airs de bandits.
Leurs chefs, anciens commerçants en drap ou en graines, ex-marchands de suif ou de savon, guerriers de circonstance, nommés officiers pour leurs écus ou la longueur de leurs moustaches, couverts d’armes, de flanelle et de galons, parlaient d’une voix retentissante, discutaient plans de campagne , et prétendaient soutenir seuls la France agonisante sur leurs épaules de fanfarons; mais ils redoutaient parfois leurs propres soldats, gens de sac et de corde, souvent braves à outrance, pillards et débauchés.
Les Prussiens allaient entrer dans Rouen, disait-on.
La Garde nationale qui, depuis deux mois, faisait des reconnaissances très prudentes dans les bois voisins, fusillant parfois ses propres sentinelles, et se préparant au combat quand un petit lapin remuait sous des broussailles, était rentrée dans ses foyers. Ses armes, ses uniformes, tout son attirail meurtrier, dont elle épouvantait naguère les bornes des routes nationales à trois lieues à la ronde, avaient subitement disparu.”

Guy de Maupassant (5 augustus 1850 – 6 juli 1893)

De Amerikaanse dichter Ron Silliman werd geboren op 5 augustus 1946 in Pasco, Washington. Tussen 1979 en 2004 schreef Silliman een enkel gedicht: The Alphabet. Nu schrijft hij aan een nieuw gedicht: Universe. Silliman ziet zijn poezie als deel van een enkel gedicht of levenswerk dat hij Ketjak noemt. Ketjak is ook de naam van het eerste gedicht van The Age of Huts. Als en wanneer het complete werk voltooid is zal het bestaan uit The Age of Huts (1974-1980), Tjanting (1979-1981), The Alphabet (1979-2004), and Universe (2005- ).

Uit: You

XIX

Moment in which I realize I’m not wearing my glasses. Old stone
house. Blue plastic wrap of the New York Times. Impact of red
wine on white fur of the dog. Sunrise.

Poem as gradual as weather. Hotel art (pseudo-Hoffman softened,
retro-Rothko as filigree in pastel). What Trenton makes, the world
takes. What Nixon knew when Nixon knew it.

First compulsive songbird, pre-dawn, abruptly halts. The air
conditioner is constant (unnoticed but never silent). You can hear
the electricity in lightbulbs, faint crackling. Motivation: man in hotel
conference room throws football to the sales reps.

Too bleary to imagine. How the river carves the city (lost at night,
trying to find my way across). Dog leaps for the stick, her own
ballet, then loses interest, wanders off to sniff the grass. History as
a function of curiosity.

Of the forbidden, my three-year-old says “That makes me sad.”
Impossible to discern the ice from the shards of broken glass. A
table of contents from which I’ve been omitted. Room in which
toupees outnumber beards. The firestorm sweeps left across the
screen: we only imagine the men, women and children inside. I’m
walking in a world you cannot imagine, having died so long ago.

Dream of real estate. Amato’s tomatoes. The sun emerges
gradually through the woods. (The son emerges gradually through
the woods.) The present has not become a perfect copy, but
rather an uneditable one. The boat sinks rapidly in the text. Try to
capture the shape and impact of your cheekbones in words.

From an airplane, the spokes of suburban mall (this one in
Princeton is T-shaped) are indistinguishable from those of a
minimum security prison but for the immense parking lot. But for.
When the hard drive on the PC that controls the security system
crashes, every fire door in the hotel–each held open by electrically
controlled magnets–slams shut. Cardinals will take some getting
used to. Dark-toned palette of The X-Files. 

Ron Silliman (Pasco, 5 augustus 1946)