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De Amerikaanse schrijfster en feministe Marge Piercy werd geboren op 31 maart 1936 in Detroit. Zie ook mijn blog van 31 maart 2007 en ook mijn blog van 31 maart 2008 en ook mijn blog van 31 maart 2009.xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
Colors Passing Through Us
Purple as tulips in May, mauve
into lush velvet, purple
as the stain blackberries leave
on the lips, on the hands,
the purple of ripe grapes
sunlit and warm as flesh.
Every day I will give you a color,
like a new flower in a bud vase
on your desk. Every day
I will paint you, as women
color each other with henna
on hands and on feet.
Red as henna, as cinnamon,
as coals after the fire is banked,
the cardinal in the feeder,
the roses tumbling on the arbor
their weight bending the wood
the red of the syrup I make from petals.
Orange as the perfumed fruit
hanging their globes on the glossy tree,
orange as pumpkins in the field,
orange as butterflyweed and the monarchs
who come to eat it, orange as my
cat running lithe through the high grass.
Yellow as a goat's wise and wicked eyes,
yellow as a hill of daffodils,
yellow as dandelions by the highway,
yellow as butter and egg yolks,
yellow as a school bus stopping you,
yellow as a slicker in a downpour.
Here is my bouquet, here is a sing
song of all the things you make
me think of, here is oblique
praise for the height and depth
of you and the width too.
Here is my box of new crayons at your feet.
Green as mint jelly, green
as a frog on a lily pad twanging,
the green of cos lettuce upright
about to bolt into opulent towers,
green as Grand Chartreuse in a clear
glass, green as wine bottles.
Blue as cornflowers, delphiniums,
bachelors' buttons. Blue as Roquefort,
blue as Saga. Blue as still water.
Blue as the eyes of a Siamese cat.
Blue as shadows on new snow, as a spring
azure sipping from a puddle on the blacktop.
Cobalt as the midnight sky
when day has gone without a trace
and we lie in each other's arms
eyes shut and fingers open
and all the colors of the world
pass through our bodies like strings of fire.
Marge Piercy (Detroit, 31 maart 1936)
De Amerikaanse schrijfster Judith Rossner werd geboren als Judith Perelman op 31 maart 1935 in New York. Zie ook mijn blog van 31 maart 2009.
Uit: Perfidia
She was raised on a farm west of Montreal, ran away from home when she was sixteen. In 1965. She packed her knapsack with some clothes and necessities, plus she stole her favorite two of her father's 78's that the two of them listened to together on the phonograph in the kitchen. "Perfidia" and "Remember." Her mother had no use for music and they'd never bought a more modern system. She stayed with the first man who gave her a hitch until she lied about her age and got a job as a waitress. She'd changed her name a few times, but I think that she'd settled on Anita by then. She alwaysinsisted that she wasn't pretty, though I thought she was beautiful, and she was terribly sexy, with a big bosom, great legs, and a lively, teasing manner with men. She had no trouble connecting with them in those days when even the middle class had begun to think that sex was free and easy. After a couple of years in Montreal, she hitched to Toronto, which she'd say she eventually left because it was too clean. She had stories about the café and restaurant owners she worked for and slept with. She called them Pierre One, Pierre Two and so on, though they mostly weren't French. (My given name was Madeleine. She claimed it was one of the few things my father ever insisted upon. She didn't like it because it was French.) When she told the umpteenth Pierre that she was leaving Toronto, and he said she had to stay until he found another waitress, she suggested he bring in the cow who was his wife, it wouldn't hurt for her to know what it was like to work for a living.
My mother told stories like that more readily than she told ones in which she did something nice. Nor did she ever make any effort to conceal her sexual adventures from me, though she was occasionally surprised or amused that I knew as much as I did.
Judith Rossner (31 maart 1935 9 augustus 2005)
De Engelse romanschrijver en essayist John Fowles werd geboren in Leigh-on-Sea (Essex) op 31 maart 1926. Zie ook mijn blog van 31 maart 2007 en ook mijn blog van 31 maart 2008.en ook mijn blog van 31 maart 2009.
Uit: The Journals
25 September (1949)
3 a.m. Beautifully played New Orleans jazz, with clarinet in low register, and very jazzy tuba and cornet. Bessie Smith singing. This sort of stuff has in it the germ of music that will last.
Op. 55. Splendidly vigorous, with some of the secret lyricality of the last quartets.2
Writing fever. Can't get any university work done. Full of ideas for 'Cognac' and full of frustration at not having the time to do them. 'Cognac' must aim at being popular, with art overboard. The idea came all in two hours last night and this morning.
30 September
Another appalling half-hour of talk. When screaming was close. Talk of the utmost banality, on prices of mattresses, on Mrs Ramsey's daughter who married a doctor in Montreal. A few comments are made on poetry. So hopeless to try and explain. They would never understand. No mention of art can ever be developed in case we are 'highbrow' - God, how I hate that word! No philosophy is mentioned, without Thomas Hardy and Darwin getting dragged in. It is la mere. Her attitude to conversation is one of complete alertness. I must break in, and I must say something - and in she breaks and says something, whether she has any knowledge, real opinion or not. It is with great difficulty that I can keep my oyster silence. But I must not hurt. With le pere, it is partly a defence; modernity is ignored, age is suspicious of invention.
I feel violent with 'hate' against this bloody town. Least violent, now, against the geographical situation (once I longed for Devon), most against the way of life, and then the people who allow it to sap all the beauty of life out of them. All my sympathy goes out to the boy who ran away to be a bullfighter. I'm sure he must have 'felt' the complete horror of this place. This town can have as much horror mentally for a sensitive person as a blitzed city may have, physically, for a turnip. It is the unsociability, the not-knowing-anyone, the having-no-colour, that kills. No interesting people to talk to, no sincere people, no unusual things to do.
Then there is 'niceness' as a standard of judgement - God, how I hate that word, too! - 'a nice girl', 'a nice road'. Nice = colourless, efficient, with nose glued to the middle path, with middle interests, dizzy with ordinariness. Ugh!
John Fowles (31 maart 1926 - 5 november 2005)
De Engelse dichter Andrew Marvell werd geboren in Winestead, Yorkshire op 31 maart 1621 in Londen. Zie ook mijn blog van 31 maart 2007 en ook mijn blog van 31 maart 2009.
Bermudas
Where the remote Bermudas ride
In th' Oceans bosome unespy'd,
From a small Boat, that row'd along,
The listning Winds receiv'd this Song.
What should we do but sing his Praise
That led us through the watry Maze,
Unto an Isle so long unknown,
And yet far kinder than our own?
Where he the huge Sea-Monsters wracks,
That lift the Deep upon their Backs.
He lands us on a grassy stage;
Safe from the Storms, and Prelat's rage.
He gave us this eternal Spring,
Which here enamells every thing;
And sends the Fowl's to us in care,
On daily Visits through the Air,
He hangs in shades the Orange bright,
Like golden Lamps in a green Night.
And does in the Pomgranates close,
Jewels more rich than Ormus show's.
He makes the Figs our mouths to meet;
And throws the Melons at our feet.
But Apples plants of such a price,
No Tree could ever bear them twice.
With Cedars, chosen by his hand,
From Lebanon, he stores the Land.
And makes the hollow Seas, that roar,
Proclaime the Ambergris on shoar.
He cast (of which we rather boast)
The Gospels Pearl upon our coast.
And in these Rocks for us did frame
A Temple, where to sound his Name.
Oh let our Voice his Praise exalt,
Till it arrive at Heavens Vault:
Which thence (perhaps) rebounding, may
Eccho beyond the Mexique Bay.
Thus sung they, in the English boat,
An holy and a chearful Note,
And all the way, to guide their Chime,
With falling Oars they kept the time.
Andrew Marvell (31 maart 1621 - 16 augustus 1678)
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