Berichten van 4 augustus 2011 tot 5 augustus 2011

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 en ook mijn blog van 5 augustus 2009 en ook mijn blog van 5 augustus 2010.

 

Uit: The Wild Trees

 

“Steve Sillett had feathery light-brown hair, which hung out from under a sky-blue bandanna that he wore tied around his head like a cap. He had flaring shoulders, and his eyes were dark brown and watchful, and were set deep in a square face. The Sillett brothers stood shoulder to shoulder, looking at the birds. Their bodies were outlined against decks of autumn rollers coming in, giving off a continual roar. Scott handed the binoculars to his younger brother, and their hands touched for an instant. The Sillett brothers' hands had the same appearance-fine and sensitive-looking, with deft movements.

Scott turned to Marwood: "Marty, I think your car should be called the Blue Vinyl Crypt. That's what it will turn into if we fall off a cliff or get swiped by a logging truck."

"Dude, you're going to get us into a crash that will be biblical in its horror," Steve said to Marwood. "You need to let Scott drive." (Steve didn't know how to drive a car.)

Marwood didn't want Scott's help with the driving. "It's a very idiosyncratic car," he explained to the Sillett brothers. In theory, he fixed his car himself. In practice, he worried about it. Lately he had noticed that the engine had begun to give off a clattering sound, like a sewing machine. He had also become aware of an ominous smell coming from under the hood, something that resembled the smell of an empty iron skillet left forgotten on a hot stove. As Marwood contemplated these phenomena and pondered their significance, he wondered if his car needed an oil change. He was pretty sure that the oil had been changed about two years ago, in Alaska, around the time the license plates had expired. The car had been driven twenty thousand miles since then, unregistered, uninsured, and unmaintained, strictly off the legal and mechanical grids. "I'm worried you'll screw it up," he said to Scott.

Steve handed the binoculars to his brother and climbed into the back of the Blue Vinyl Crypt. "Dudes, let's go," he said. "We need to see some tall redwoods."

 

 

 

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 en ook mijn blog van 5 augustus 2009 en ook mijn blog van 5 augustus 2010..

 

Uit: Adios Muchachos (Vertaald door Mark Falcoff)

 

“And to the very end that meant all or nothing. No one had picked up a rifle to make a revolution half-way. To dethrone Somoza required as its necessary antecedent a violent revolution, not a peaceful transition to which other sectors of society might aspire. And a program of radical change required a radical power capable of defending itself and freeing itself from risks and constraints. It was, evidently, to be power in perpetuity, for one does not prevail in war to acquire power for the short term, when one is determined to sweep history aside. Under such circumstances, moderates by definition were suspicious characters.

Besides reducing the working day in the countryside by half, and doubling the minimum wage of agricultural workers, the owners of the great haciendas were obliged to introduce meat, milk and eggs into the diet of the day-laborers, something that the labor inspectors had never before been able to enforce; the price of popular transport was frozen until the subsidies became so uneconomical that they had to be suspended; we raised the pensions of the retired, opened hundreds of day-car centers, vaccinated children against polio in massive campaigns, opened a National Literacy Crusade, and began from our very first day a radical agrarian reform.

Nonetheless, at the point that we began to divide up the land expropriated by Somoza and his accomplices, and had confiscated besides those of other landowners, we found ourselves at variance with the sentiments of those who urged us to award individual titles to landless peasants, the most downtrodden class of our of national history. Instead, ideological prejudices won out, and we created something called Units of Agropastoral Production (UPE), where, according to our theories, the peasants would live and work, compensated by good wages, and provided with clinics, schools and day-care centers for their children. But the land, like that assigned to cooperatives, would remain the property of the State, so as not to call into existence a new rural petit bourgeoisie.

 

 

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 en ook mijn blog van 5 augustus 2009 en ook mijn blog van 5 augustus 2010. 

 

The Dance Of Live

 

Gracious and lovable and sweet,

She made his jaded pulses beat,

And made the glare of streets grow dim

And life more soft and hushed for him....

Over her shoulder now she smiled

Trustfully to him, like a child,

The while her fingers gayly moved

Alonge these white keys dearly loved,

Making them laugh a jocund measure,

Making them show and sing her pleasure....

A smile that dwelt upon his eyes,

To see what mood might therein rise,--

What point of soft light seen afar

Which might dilate to moon or star....

A smile that for a second space

Brooded wistfully on her face,

Opening soft her spirit's door,

Disclosing depths undreamed before:

Passionate depths of half-seen flame,

Young loveliness despising shame,

Desire that trembled to meet desire,

And fire that yearned to fuse with fire....

And lightly then she turned away,

Ironic music rippled gay,--

Subtle sarcastic flippancies

Disguising speechless ecstasies...

"Play something else..." He rose to turn

The pages, while the deep nocturne

Struck slow rich chords of plangent pain,

Beautiful, into heart and brain;

A tortured, anguished, suffering thing

That seemed at once to cry and sing;

Despairing love that strove to find

The face beloved with fingers blind.

He saw her body's slender grace,

This drooping shoulder, shadowed face;

All of her body, hidden so

In saffron satin's flush and flow,--

Its white and simple loveliness,--

Came on his heart like giddiness,

Seductive as this music came;

Until her body seemed like flame,--

Intense white flame, so swiftly moving

That it gave scarcely time for loving;

But rapid as the sun she seemed,

A blinding light that flowed and streamed

And sang and shone through roaring space....

The sun itself! for now her face,

Wherein this music's whole soul dwelt,

Drew him like helpless star, he felt

A fierce compulsion, reckless, mad,

A sweet compulsion, troubled, glad,

His trembling hands went out to her,

Her cool flesh made his senses blur;

While, head thrown backward, sinking dim,

She opened wide her soul to him....

Past his life went whirls of lights,

Chaos of music, days and nights,

Her wild eyes yearned to lure him in

And close him up in dark of sin,

To lure him in and drink him down

And all his soul in love to drown....

Her nakedness he seemed to see.

And breast to breast, and knee to knee,

Tremulous, breathless, swaying, burning,

Body to beautiful body yearning,

In joy and terror, flesh to flesh,

They flamed in passion's fine red mesh,--

Living in one short breath again

The cosmic tide's whole bliss and pain,

Darkness and ether, nebulous fire,

Vast suns whirled forth by vast desire,

Huge moons flung out with monstrous mirth

And stars in glorious hells of birth,

All jubilating, blazing, reeling,

An orgiastic splendor wheeling,

Moon torn from earth and star from sun

In screaming pain, titanic fun,

And stars whirled back to sun again

To be consumed in flaming pain!...

In them at last all life was met:

They were God's self! This earth had set.

Mad fires of life sang through their veins,

Ruinous blisses, joyous pains,

Life the destroyer, life the breaker,

And death, the everlasting maker....

 

 

Conrad Aiken (5 augustus 1889 – 17 augustus 1973)

 

 

 

De Duitse schrijver Gunter Haug werd geboren op 5 augustus 1955 in Stuttgart. Zie ook mijn blog van 5 augustus 2010.

 

Uit: So war die Zeit

 

 

“Tief duckt sich die Steinmühle unter der mächtigen Stadtkulisse von Rothenburg ob der Tauber in den Flusslauf. Es ist Samstag, der 29. Mai 1948, recht früh am Morgen, kurz vor 7 Uhr. Ein schwarz-grüner Schatten liegt über den taufeuchten Wiesen. Die Sonne schickt ihren ersten zaghaften Strahl um die Wegbiegung. Ein großer, grau gestrichener Reisebus quält sich ruckelnd durch die enge, mit zahlreichen Schlaglöchern übersäte Straße im Taubertal. Hinter der immer noch in Trümmern liegenden Doppelbrücke verlangsamt er seine Geschwindigkeit deutlich, bleibt zögerlich stehen.
Der Fahrer wirft einen forschenden Blick zum rechten Straßenrand hinüber. Dort, am Hofeingang zur Steinmühle, stehen zwei Personen. Eine ältere, schwarzgekleidete Frau und ein junges Mädchen, vielleicht 13 oder 14 Jahre alt. Fahrgäste womöglich. Doch sie machen keine Anstalten, sich dem anhaltenden Bus zu nähern. Unwirsch blies der Fahrer Luft durch die Nase. „Ja, was ist jetzt?“, brummelte er ärgerlich und zuckte mit einer fragenden Geste die Schultern, während er den Blickkontakt mit der älteren der beiden aufnahm.
Die schien jetzt verstanden zu haben und hob abwehrend ihre Hände, während sie entschieden den Kopf schüttelte. Die Folge war ein neuerliches Brummeln. „Hätte ich mir ja denken können! Wer wird auch schon ohne Koffer verreisen wollen.“ Vorsichtig legte der Fahrer den Gang ein und trat dann kräftig auf das Gaspedal. „Diesen Umweg könnten wir uns sparen. Da steigt ja sowieso nie jemand ein.“ Der Bus stieß eine mächtige dunkle Rauchwolke aus seinem Auspuff und verschwand wenig später hinter der Straßenbiegung in Richtung Gebsattel. „Wo fahren die Leute mit dem Omnibus eigentlich hin?“

 

 

 

Gunter Haug (Stuttgart, 5 augustus 1955)

Zie voor nog meer schrijvers van de 5^e augustus ook mijn vorige blog van vandaag.

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 en ook mijn blog van 5 augustus 2009 en ook mijn blog van 5 augustus 2010.

 

  

In A Motel Parking Lot, Thinking Of Dr. Williams

 

I.

 

The poem is important, but

not more than the people

whose survival it serves,

 

one of the necessities, so they may

speak what is true, and have

the patience for beauty: the weighted

 

grainfield, the shady street,

the well-laid stone and the changing tree

whose branches spread above.

 

For want of songs and stories

they have dug away the soil,

paved over what is left,

 

set up their perfunctory walls

in tribute to no god,

for the love of no man or woman,

 

so that the good that was here

cannot be called back

except by long waiting, by great

 

sorrows remembered and to come

by invoking the thunderstones

of the world, and the vivid air.

 

II.

 

The poem is important,

as the want of it

proves. It is the stewardship

 

of its own possibility,

the past remembering itself

in the presence of

 

the present, the power learned

and handed down to see

what is present

 

and what is not: the pavement

laid down and walked over

regardlessly--by exiles, here

 

only because they are passing.

Oh, remember the oaks that were

here, the leaves, purple and brown,

 

falling, the nuthatches walking

headfirst down the trunks,

crying "onc! onc!" in the brightness

 

as they are doing now

in the cemetery across the street

where the past and the dead

 

keep each other. To remember,

to hear and remember, is to stop

and walk on again

 

to a livelier, surer measure.

It is dangerous

to remember the past only

 

for its own sake, dangerous

to deliver a message

you did not get.

 

 

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 2010 en eveneens alle tags voor Guy de Maupassant op dit blog.

 

Uit: L'auberge

 

“Il passait par souffles brusques plus desséchants et plus mortels que le vent de feu du désert. Ulrich, de nouveau, cria: "Gaspard! - Gaspard! - Gaspard!"
Puis il attendit. Tout demeura muet sur la montagne! Alors une épouvante le secoua jusqu'aux os. D'un bond il rentra dans l'auberge, ferma la porte et poussa les verrous; puis il tomba grelottant sur une chaise, certain qu'il venait d'être appelé par son camarade au moment où il rendait l'esprit.
De cela il était sûr, comme on est sûr de vivre ou de manger du pain. Le vieux Gaspard Hari avait agonisé pendant deux jours et trois nuits quelque part, dans un trou, dans un de ces profonds ravins immaculés dont la blancheur est plus sinistre que les ténèbres des souterrains. Il avait agonisé pendant deux jours et trois nuits, et il venait de mourir tout à l'heure en pensant à son compagnon. Et son âme, à peine libre, s'était envolée vers l'auberge où dormait Ulrich, et elle l'avait appelé de par la vertu mystérieuse et terrible qu'ont les âmes des morts de hanter les vivants. Elle avait crié, cette âme sans voix, dans l'âme accablée du dormeur; elle avait crié son adieu dernier, ou son reproche, ou sa malédiction sur l'homme qui n'avait point assez cherché.

 

 

 

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 en ook mijn blog van 5 augustus 2008.en en ook mijn blog van 5 augustus 2009 en ook mijn blog van 5 augustus 2010

 

the nose of kim darby's double (Fragment)

 

The form of the flower
exfoliating
petals dropping away
to reveal a new, further flower
now red, now blue
each shape a perpetual
revision, this
leaf thick and milky, this
spiky, hard, this
covered with the finest fuzz
blossoms

In his dream the boy
has dug a maze through the snow
complex, magnificent
that his parents want to dig up 
(At four, to identify
the tension of generations

Glow threading
thru the woods at night,
headlights from an auto

Gamuk is kissing Ganuganuga

Resolution protocol:
song of a dot matrix printer

Casting text
across the listserv,
                          I write
until the first sight of sun
triggers morning's hunger,
voices echo elsewhere in the house

Stool
            in the form of
a sheep, black,
Dinosaur constructed
from wire and beads

A pennywhistle lies on the rug

Thru the poplars
just enough light
to cast the first silhouette.

 

 

Ron Silliman (Pasco, 5 augustus 1946)

 

 

 

De Duitse dichter en schrijver Christian Wagner werd geboren op 5 augustus 1835 in Warmbronn. Zie ook mijn blog van 5 augustus 2007 en ook mijn blog van 5 augustus 2010

 

Uit: Eigenbrötler und Kienleute

 

Doch der Eigenartigste der Gebrüder war nicht er, sondern der zweitälteste, der Hannes. – In ihm war die Pedanterie des Geschlechts zum vollsten Ausdruck gekommen. Sein Treiben wurde zum Sprichwort. Jede Arbeit, die ein wenig vonstatten ging, war bei ihm »verhudelt.« Er war ein entsetzlicher »Kümmich«, wie solche Wunderliche hier genannt werden. Waren Angersen, Rüben, Kartoffeln zu felgen oder zu häufeln, so schickte er seine Geschwister fort, weil sie ihm nicht pünktlich, das heißt nach seiner Meinung zuviel arbeiteten. Drei Reihen die Person, in einem langen Sommernachmittag, war schon zuviel für richtige Arbeit. Jede Scholle mußte genau so daliegen wie die andere, obschon der nächste Regen es nicht mehr erkennen ließ. Auch das Mähen des Klees ging ihm zu schnell; es war eben gehudelt, und er haderte fortwährend, daß man statt der Sense die Sichel nehmen und den Klee abgrasen solle. Auch mit dem Pflügen ging es ihm zu rasch, und er fing an, mit der Schaufel das Feld umzugraben. So war es natürlich, daß er in allem im Rückstand blieb, und sonderbar: die Nachbarn, die gehudelt hatten, ernteten mehr als er. Die so schlecht bearbeiteten Felder trugen mehr als die nach seiner Methode betriebenen.”

 

.

Christian Wagner (5 augustus 1835 – 15 februari 1918)

De Nederlandse dichter en schrijver Rutger Kopland (eig. Rutger Hendrik van den Hoofdakker) werd geboren in Goor op 4 augustus 1934. Zie ook mijn blog van 4 augustus 2007 en ook mijn blog van 4 augustus 2008 en ook mijn blog van 4 augustus 2009 en ook blog van 4 augustus 2010.

 

De vraag wie ze is

Intussen huist ze al zo lang in mijn hoofd
en al zo bijna overal - maar wie ze is

een zinloze vraag, je zoekt in je herinneringen
naar iets onvoorstelbaars, ik weet het, maar
ook zinloze vragen vragen een antwoord

eigenlijk is ze nog steeds die jonge vrouw
die ik ooit voevallig ergens tegenkwam
- maar wie ze is - in mijn hoofd
vind ik haar niet terug

er zijn momenten dat ik ineens weer weet
dat de mens eenzaam is, ook ik

en dat ik naar haar kijk en denk: zij daar
dat is ze, zo zichtbaar, zo sterfelijk

 

en merel

Er is iets in de zang van een merel
het is voorjaar, je wordt wakker

je ligt te denken in de nacht
het raam staat open - er is iets

waarvan de vogel zingt
en je denkt aan wat je moet opgeven

er is iets in je dat leeg is en het stroomt vol
met het zingen van die merel

 

De rode beuk

Hier staat de rode beuk
met het eindeloos grote
geduld van een boom.

Hier staat de rode beuk
hij ziet en hij hoort ons
en is ons vergeten.

Hier staat de rode beuk
voor hem is het altijd altijd
en hier is het nergens

 

 

 

 

Rutger Kopland (Goor, 4 augustus 1934)

Portret door Trudy Kramer 2002

 

 

 

De Poolse schrijver Witold Gombrowicz werd geboren in Małoszyce op 4 augustus 1904. Zie ook mijn blog van 4 augustus 2007 en ook mijn blog van 4 augustus 2008 en ook mijn blog van 4 augustus 2009.en ook blog van 4 augustus 2010.

 

Uit Pornografia (Vertaald door Danuta Borchardt)

 

“The carriage moved on. Karol sat on the driver’s seat, next to the coachman. She, in the front—and where her little head ended, there he began above her as if placed on an upper story, his back toward us, a slim contour, visible yet featureless—while his shirt billowed in the wind—and the combination of her face with the absence of his face, the complement of her seeing face with his unseeing back struck me with a dark, hot duality. . . . They were not unusually good-looking—neither he nor she—only as much as is appropriate for their age—but they were a beauty in their closed circle, in their mutual desire and rapture—something in which practically no one else had any right to take part. They were unto them-selves—it was strictly between them. And especially because they were so (young). So I was not allowed to watch, I tried not to see it, but, with Fryderyk in front of me and sitting next to her on the small seat, I was again persistently asking myself: Had he seen this? Did he know anything? And I was lying in wait to see a single glance of his, one of those supposedly indifferent ones yet sliding by surreptitiously, greedily”.

 

 

 

Witold Gombrowicz (4 augustus 1904 - 24 juli 1969)

Foto van Bohdan Paczowski

 

 

 

 

De Duitse dichter Tom Bresemann werd geboren in Berlijn op 4 augustus 1978. Zie ook mijn blog van 8 juni 2009  en ook blog van 4 augustus 2010.

 

in die pilze

osterinselurlaubsaufenthalte: studien
im lendenschurz. gefühlte freiheit
in der nahaufnahme: dann
streikt die robocam.

die sanft abhängenden hügel, truly
great monuments, riesige maulwürfe. grau-
schwarz die balken am revers.

glasmurmeln
im gepäck. augäpfelschmerzen.
die erste erwähnung der glückseligen inseln
in den magazinen der pornoindustrie:

das wegschwemmen
der vernunft unterm kolonialen blick
des nachrichtensprechers:
ausflüsse wahren lebens – so was haben sie
noch nicht gesehen, da gehen ihnen die augen über:

angesichts dieser fröhlich wuchernden kulturen
steigt die unruhe des weißen mannes:
schon sieht man die liquidatoren
und Jean Jaques, hin- und herlaufend,
saving the planet.

 

Tom Bresemann (Berlijn, 1978)

 

 

 

 

 

De Australische schrijver Timothy John Winton werd geboren op 4 augustus 1960 in Perth. Zie ook mijn blog van 4 augustus 2009.en ook blog van 4 augustus 2010.

 

Uit: Dirty Music

 

“Georgie got up and padded across to the kitchen which was separated from the living space by the glossy rampart of benches and domestic appliances. From the freezer she pulled out a bottle and poured herself a serious application of vodka. She stood a while staring back at the great merging space of the livingroom. It was big enough not to seem crowded, despite the fact that it held an eight-seater dining table, the computer station and the three sofas corralled around the TV at the other end. The whole seaward wall of this top floor was glass and all the curtains were thrown back. Between the house and the lagoon a hundred metres away there was only the front lawn and a few scrubby dunes. Georgie slugged the vodka down at a gulp. It was all sensation and no taste, exactly how a sister once described her. She smiled and put the glass down too loudly on the draining board. A little way along the hall Jim was asleep. The boys were downstairs.

She pulled back the sliding door and stepped out onto the terrace where the air was cool and thick with the smells of stewing seagrass, of brine and limey sand, of thawing bait and the savoury tang of saltbush. The outdoor furniture was beaded with dew. There wasn't breeze enough yet to stir the scalloped hems of the Perrier brolly, but dew this time of year was a sign of wind on the way. White Point sat in the teeth of the Roaring Forties. Here on the midwest coast the wind might not be your friend but it was sure as hell your constant neighbour.”

 

 

Tim Winton (Perth, 4 augustus 1960)

Zie voor nog meer schrijvers van de 4e augustus ook mijn vorige blog van vandaag en eveneens mijn eerste blog van vandaag.

De Tsjechische schrijver Jáchym Topol werd geboren op 4 augustus inPraag. Zie ook mijn blog van 4 augustus 2009 en ook mijn blog van 4 augustus 2009 en ook blog van 4 augustus 2010.

 

Uit: Transcript

 

“Ondra found the bottles and emptied them into the sink, she would take a few gulps and forget about them. The sink smelled of wine, he rinsed it with water from the tap.
Anyway, said Pinkie, when they were lying in bed.
What? asked Ondra.
Why does Mama sit in there all day staring at that photo of Eluzína?
It's not a photo. It's a drawing.
What's better? To be a boy, or a girl?
A boy, said Ondra.
So why is she always staring at Eluzína?
Go to sleep.
It was better when they both drank, said Pinkie.
Sure was, said Ondra.
On one of those distant summer afternoons, when they were all still together, Papa had made them watermills out of wood. They spent their days in a beer garden near their new house.
Before that, Papa had gone to work every morning in a suit and white shirt. Now he had a different job, in a factory. They had moved to a working class neighborhood on the outskirts of Prague.
But they always had fun in the beer garden. It was the only one around.
Would you just smell those chestnut trees! They smell of... of pure longing!
And did you know, young lady, that it was under that very same sort of chestnut tree that the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia was founded? Hm?
Often they would be joined, on those long afternoons, by Papa's new colleagues. Usually his immediate superiors, Foreman Detmar and Sergeant Dudek. The Sergeant couldn't take his eyes off Mama”.

 

 

Jáchym Topol (Praag, 4 augustus 1962)

 

 

 

 

De Amerikaans-Canadese dichteres Allison Hedge Coke werd geboren op 4 augustus 1958 in Texas. Zie ook mijn blog van 4 augustus 2009 en ook blog van 4 augustus 2010.

 

 

When the Animals Leave This Place

 

Underneath ice caps, glacial peaks

deer, elk, vixen begin to ascend.

Wild creatures camouflaged as

waves and waves receding

 

from plains pulling

 

upward slopes and snow dusted mountains.

On spotted and clear cut hills robbed of fir,

high above wheat tapestried valleys, flood plains

up where head waters reside.

 

Droplets pound, listen.

 

Hoofed and pawed mammals

pawing and hoofing themselves up, up.

Along rivers dammed by chocolate beavers,

trailed by salamanders-mud puppies.

 

Plunging through currents,

above concrete and steel man-made barriers

 

these populations of forests flee

in such frenzy, popping splash dance,

pillaging cattail zones, lashing lily pads-

the breath of life in muddy ponds and still lakes.

 

Liquid beads slide on windshield glass

 

along cracked and shattered pane,

spider-like with webs and prisms.

Look, there, the rainbow

touched the ground both ends down.

 

Full arch, seven colors showered, heed

what the indigenous know,

why long ago they said people didn’t belong here,

that this land was meant to be wet with waters

not fertile to crops and domestic grazing.

 

The old ones said,

 

When the animals leave this place

the waters will come again.

This power is beyond the strength of man.

The river will return with its greatest force

 

No one can stop her.

She was meant to be this way.

 

The rainbow tied with red and green like

that on petal rose, though only momentarily.

Colors disappear like print photograph fading.

They mix with dark grey surrounding.

 

A flurry of fowl follow

 

like strands, maidenhair falls,

from blackened clouds above

swarming inward

covering the basin and raising sky.

 

Darkness hangs over

 

the hills appear as black water crests,

blackness varying shades.

The sun is somewhere farther than the farthest ridge.

Main gravel crossroads and back back roads

 

slicken to mud, clay.

Turtles creep along rising banks, snapping jowls.

 

Frogs chug throaty songs.

The frogs only part of immense choir

heralding the downpour, the falling oceans.

Over the train trestle and suspension bridge with

 

current so slick everything slides off in sheets.

 

Among rotten stumps in dark bass ponds,

catfish reel in fins and crawl,

walking whiskers to higher waters.

Waters above and below

 

the choir calling it forth.

 

Brightly plumed jays and dull brown-headed cowbirds

fly as if hung in one place like pinwheels.

They dance toward the rain crest,

the approaching storm

 

beckoning, inviting, summoning.

 

A single sparrow sings the stroke of rain

past the strength of sunlight.

The frog chorus sings refrain,

melody drumming thunder,

 

evoked by beasts and water creatures wanting their homes.

Wanting to return to clearings and streams where

white birch woods rise and tower over

and quaking aspen stand against

dark, dark veils-sheeting rains crossing

 

pasture, meadow, mountain.

Sounds erupt.

Gathering clouds converge, push,

pull, push, pull forcing lightning

 

back and forth shaping

windy, sculptured swans, mallard ducks, and giants

from stratocumulus media.

As if they are a living cloud chamber,

As if they exist only in the heavens.

 

Air swells with dampness.

It has begun.

 

 

Allison Hedge Coke (Texas, 4 augustus 1958)

De Engelse dichter Percy Bysshe Shelley werd op 4 augustus 1792 geboren in Field Place, Sussex. Zie ook mijn blog van 21 april 2006 en mijn blog van 4 augustus 2006 en ook mijn blog van 4 augustus 2007 en ook mijn blog van 4 augustus 2008 en ook mijn blog van 4 augustus 2009.

 

TO A SKYLARK

 

 

AIL to thee, blithe Spirit!

Bird thou never wert,

That from Heaven, or near it,

Pourest thy full heart

In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

 

Higher still and higher

From the earth thou springest

Like a cloud of fire;

The blue deep thou wingest,

And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.

 

In the golden lightning

Of the sunken sun,

O'er which clouds are bright'ning,

Thou dost float and run;

Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.

 

The pale purple even

Melts around thy flight;

Like a star of Heaven,

In the broad daylight

Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight,

 

Keen as are the arrows

Of that silver sphere

Whose intense lamp narrows

In the white dawn clear

Until we hardly see -- we feel, that it is there.

 

All the earth and air

With thy voice is loud,

As, when night is bare,

From one lonely cloud

The moon rains out her beams, and Heaven is overflowed.

 

What thou art we know not;

What is most like thee?

From rainbow clouds there flow not

Drops so bright to see

As from thy presence showers a rain of melody.

 

Like a poet hidden

In the light of thought,

Singing hymns unbidden,

Till the world is wrought

To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not:

 

Like a high-born maiden

In a palace tower,

Soothing her love-laden

Soul in secret hour

With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower:

 

Like a glow-worm golden

In a dell of dew,

Scattering unbeholden

Its aërial hue

Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view:

 

Like a rose embowered

In its own green leaves,

By warm winds deflowered,

Till the scent it gives

Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy-wingèd thieves.

 

Sound of vernal showers

On the twinkling grass,

Rain-awakened flowers,

All that ever was,

Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass:

 

Teach us, Sprite or Bird,

What sweet thoughts are thine:

I have never heard

Praise of love or wine

That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.

 

Chorus Hymeneal,

Or triumphal chant,

Matched with thine would be all

But an empty vaunt,

A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want.

 

What objects are the fountains

Of thy happy strain?

What fields, or waves, or mountains?

What shapes of sky or plain?

What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain?

 

With thy clear keen joyance,

Languor cannot be:

Shadow of annoyance

Never came near thee:

Thou lovest -- but ne'er knew love's sad satiety.

 

Waking or asleep,

Thou of death must deem

Things more true and deep

Than we mortals dream,

Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream?

 

We look before and after,

And pine for what is not:

Our sincerest laughter

With some pain is fraught;

Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.

 

Yet, if we could scorn

Hate, and pride, and fear;

If we were things born

Not to shed a tear,

I know not how thy joy we ever should come near.

 

Better than all measures

Of delightful sound,

Better than all treasures

That in books are found,

Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground!

 

Teach me half the gladness

That thy brain must know,

Such harmonious madness

From my lips would flow

The world should listen then -- as I am listening now.

 

 

 

Percy Bysshe Shelley (4 augustus 1792 – 8 juli 1822) 

 

 

 

 

Zie voor onderstaande schrijvers ook mijn blog van 4 augustus 2010.

 

 

De Noorse schrijver Knut Hamsun (eig. Knut Pedersen) werd geboren in Lom, Fylke Oppland op 4 augustus 1859. Zie ook mijn blog van 4 augustus 2007  en ook mijn blog van 4 augustus 2008 en ook mijn blog van 4 augustus 2009.

 

De Surinaamse dichter Michaël Arnoldus Slory werd geboren in Totness, district Coronie in Suriname, op 4 augustus 1935. Zie ook mijn blog van 4 augustus 2007 en ook mijn blog van 4 augustus 2009.

 

De Duits-Fanse dichter, schrijver, essayist en vertaler René Schickele werd geboren op 4 augustus 1883 in Oberehnheim in de Elzas. Zie ook mijn blog van 4 augustus 2009.

 

De Duitse dichter, schrijver, vertaler en uitgever Munkepunke (pseudoniem voor Alfred Richard Meyer) werd geboren op 4 augustus 1882 in Schwerin. Zie ook mijn blog van 4 augustus 2009.

 

De Franse dichter en schrijver Georges Maurice de Guérin du Cayla werd geboren op 4 augustus 1810 in het familiekasteel Le Cayla nabij Andillac in de Languedoc. Zie ook mijn blog van 4 augustus 2007 en ook mijn blog van 4 augustus 2009.

 

De (Oost)Duitse dichter en schrijver Erich Weinert werd geboren in Magdeburg op 4 augustus 1890. Zie ook mijn blog van 4 augustus 2007 en ook mijn blog van 4 augustus 2008 en ook mijn blog van 4 augustus 2009.

 

 

Zie voor onderstaande schrijver ook mijn blog van 4 augustus 2009.

 

De Zwitserse schrijver Otto Steiger werd geboren op 4 augustus 1909 in Uetendorf bij Thun.

De Nederlandse choreograaf, balletdanser en schrijver Rudi van Dantzig werd geboren in Amsterdam op 4 augustus 1933. Van Dantzig begon zijn balletcarrière als danser. In 1950 begon hij op de relatief late leeftijd van 16 jaar met balletlessen en in 1952 engageerde Sonia Gaskell Van Dantzig bij haar gezelschap Ballet Recital. In 1955 maakte zijn eerste choreografie, Nachteiland, voor Het Nederlands Ballet, waar van Dantzig de huischoreograaf werd en met ingang van 1965 één van de drie artistiek leiders. In 1971 bleef hij nog als enige over en tot 1991 was hij de enige artistiek leider van het gezelschap. Gedurende zijn carrière creëerde hij meer dan vijftig balletten, die over de hele wereld werden uitgevoerd en nog altijd bij binnen- en buitenlandse gezelschappen op het repertoire staan. Voor de legendarische Russische danser Rudolf Noerejev maakte hij, op diens verzoek, drie balletten. Tot Van Dantzigs bekendste choreografieën behoren Vier letzte Lieder, Monument voor een gestorven jongen, Onder mijne voeten en zijn versies van de avondvullende klassieke balletten Romeo en Julia en Het Zwanenmeer. In 1986 schreef hij de roman Voor een Verloren Soldaat. Dit werd een groot succes: het kreeg verscheidene prijzen en werd verfilmd, ook onder de titel Voor een Verloren Soldaat.

 

Uit: Remembering Nureyev: The Trail of a Comet (Vertaald door Katie de Haan)

 

It was amazing how amiable and open he was in those hours, seeming to understand my creative dilemmas, how I was wrestling with the music, the large number of dancers, the laborious arrangements at the Opera which caused me to suffer from a constant lack of time, and he even seemed to understand my displeasure at his own early-morning whims.

(...)

 

“You have to adapt,” he preached to me, “that is number one. Always work everywhere, no matter how. Number two is that you must make yourself indispensable, make sure you’re always everywhere. Without even noticing, the audience must become addicted to you, first they can’t get rid of you, but later they can’t do without you.”

 

 

 

Rudi van Dantzig (Amsterdam, 4 augustus 1933)

Rudolf Noerejev en Rudi van Dantzig