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De Amerikaanse dichter, schrijver en criticus Allen Hoey werd geboren op 21 oktober 1952 in Kingston, New York. Zie ook mijn blog van 21 oktober 2008 en ook mijn blog van 21 oktober 2009 en ook mijn blog van 21 oktober 2010xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
Uit: Provençal Light, a long poem
After the Orchard: "Souvenir de Mauve" (fragment)
At last! These are the days, filled with such light
a Dutchman could never dream, even steeped in absinthe,
I came seeking. If I thought my palette inadequate to the sky
damped with clouds, the fields and orchards sunk beneath
two feet of snow, how paler it seems with the sun finally streaming,
not mere atmospherics, but light, pure and intense--greens
beyond any in Holland or the chestnuts of a Paris arcade,
and cobalts and ultramarines--abandon your greys! Not pale but
chrome yellows, reds deep as the wine-colored Seine at dusk.
And you, down from Denmark, can your eyes be any less
dazzled than mine, reared under Dutch skies, soot-smudged
the year round, the close--some call them "cozy"--homes,
low-ceilinged and dark all day. No wonder Dutch painting is so murky,
all chiaroscuro and the varnished sheen applied after--nothing else
but the finish could glow. But here--the sun might burn
the eyes right out of the heads of cold-blooded painters like us,
schooled on shadow, our palettes tricked out with greys and bistre.
Earth tones? Here, the earth is tinged violet, the sky
carries the green of blossoming pears to cast heaven
azure, topaz--the chromatic scale at a sitting!
xml:namespace prefix = v ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" />The whole day
spent in the orchard--and see this peach tree, the way the earth
seems by centering strokes to rise into the tree,
the violets and pinks of the soil, the slightest trace of shadow,
mirrored--no, itself come to bloom in the blossoms that grace
each limb, pink runners of flame to the thinnest twig,
and the clouds, released blossoms riding the wind, a meringue
whipped of plain air. The whole canvas wrenched from the mistral,
wind beating the canvas like sails, the easel pegged down, dust
driven into the pigment. See how the brusque strokes convey
color seized from the turmoil of growth, the traces--here and here--
where the canvas shows through. Enough of technique.
Allen Hoey (21 oktober 1952 16 juni 2010)
De Ierse dichter Patrick Kavanagh werd geboren op 21 oktober 1904 in County Monaghan. Zie ook mijn blog van 21 oktober 2010 en eveneens alle tags voor Patrick Kavanagh op dit blog.
On An Apple-Ripe September Morning
On an apple-ripe September morning
Through the mist-chill fields I went
With a pitch-fork on my shoulder
Less for use than for devilment.
The threshing mill was set-up, I knew,
In Cassidy's haggard last night,
And we owed them a day at the threshing
Since last year. O it was delight
To be paying bills of laughter
And chaffy gossip in kind
With work thrown in to ballast
The fantasy-soaring mind.
As I crossed the wooden bridge I wondered
As I looked into the drain
If ever a summer morning should find me
Shovelling up eels again.
And I thought of the wasps' nest in the bank
And how I got chased one day
Leaving the drag and the scraw-knife behind,
How I covered my face with hay.
The wet leaves of the cocksfoot
Polished my boots as I
Went round by the glistening bog-holes
Lost in unthinking joy.
I'll be carrying bags to-day, I mused,
The best job at the mill
With plenty of time to talk of our loves
As we wait for the bags to fill.
Maybe Mary might call round...
And then I came to the haggard gate,
And I knew as I entered that I had come
Through fields that were part of no earthly estate.
Patrick Kavanagh (21 oktober 1904 30 november 1967)
Portret door Patrick Swift, 1960
De Griekse dichter en schilder Nikos Engonopoulos werd geboren op 21 oktober 1907 in Athene. Zie ook mijn blog van 21 oktober 2008 en ook mijn blog van 21 oktober 2009 en ook mijn blog van 21 oktober 2010
BOLIVÁR (Fragment)
A Greek Poem
Bolivár! You were reality, and you are, even now, you are
no dream.
When the wild hunters nail the wild eagles, and the other wild
birds and animals,
Over their wooden doors in the wild forests,
You live again, and shout, and grieve,
And you are yourself the hammer, nail and eagle.
If on the isles of coral, winds blow and the empty fishing boats
overturn,
And the parrots are a riot of voices when the day ends and
the gardens grow quiet drowned in humidity,
And in the tall trees the crows perch,
Consider, beside the waves, the iron tables of the cafeneion,
How the damp eats at them in the gloom, and far off the light
that flashes on, off, on again, turning back and forth.
And day breaks what frightful anguish after a night without
sleep,
And the water reveals nothing of its secrets. Such is life.
And the sun comes, and the houses on the wharf, with their
island-style arches,
Painted pink, and green, with white sills (Naxos, Chios),
How they live! How they shine like translucent fairies! Such is
Bolivár!
Bolivár! I cry out your name, reclining on the peak of
Mount Ere,
The highest peak on the isle of Hydra.
From here the view, enchanting, extends as far as the Saronic
isles, Thebes,
Beyond Monemvasia, far below, to august Egypt,
And as far as Panama, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras, Haiti,
San Domingo, Bolivia, Colombia, Peru, Venezuela,
Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Uraguay, Paraguay, Ecuador,
As far even as Mexico.
With hard stone I carve your name in rock, that afterwards men
may come in pilgrimage.
As I carve sparks fly such, they say, was Bolivár and I
watch my hand as it writes, gleaming in the sun.
Vertaald door David Connolly
Nikos Engonopoulos (21 oktober 1907 31 oktober 1985)
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