Berichten van 24 april 2017 tot 25 april 2017

De Nederlandse dichter Erik Menkveld werd geboren op 25 april 1959 in Eindhoven. Zie ook alle tags voor Erik Menkveld op dit blog.

 

Hartegrond

Zie ons hier succesvol staan: door alle netten
gevlogen draagster van petrolblauwe rok
en lila lijfje dat haar borsten als een openstaande
bloemenkelk omhult, schijnkindermondig
in gesprek met sprankelend scherp stuk
in deux-pièce, cape'je van changéant roze-oranje organza,
verantwoord geile zijsplit, trots op haar tong -
twee kakelgrage, fraai op de kwetsbare buikzijde
uitgelichte braniekarkassen, onzelfinzichtig klaar
om tor-achtig danwel voormalig jumbolog
door te taxiën naar het gemoedelijk gekraak
van openbrekende oesterschelpen of ander gepraat.
O zelden geherbergde hartegrond! O langvervlogen
carrièrebegin met zelfverkozen damescolbert
over bureaustoel en uitzicht op kleine
door glas omgeven binnenplaats, Japanse
naaldbomen, witte keien, fonteintje...

 

 

Goede tips voor dieper zwijgen

Nuttig een maaltijd samen aan zee.
Leg de Tractatus gesloten op tafel.

Laat de intieme ovalen van jullie
longen zich enkele malen vullen

met avond en onverrichterzake
leeglopen door keel en mond.

Overdenk uitvoerig kwesties als
waarom zijn wij niet vierkant

of stom? Of: wat is, op dit
moment, de langzaamste vis?

En: moet je water dat hem bevat
maar niet kan tonen beklagen?

Beantwoord dan alle door de ander
niet gestelde vragen.

 

 
Erik Menkveld (25 april 1959 - 30 maart 2014)

 

 

De Amerikaanse dichter Ted Kooser werd geboren op 25 april 1939 in Ames, Iowa. Zie ook alle tags voor Ted Kooser op dit blog.

 

The China Painters

They have set aside their black tin boxes,
scratched and dented,
spattered with drops of pink and blue;
and their dried-up, rolled-up tubes
of alizarin crimson, chrome green,
zinc white, and ultramarine;
their vials half full of gold powder;
stubs of wax pencils;
frayed brushes with tooth-bitten shafts;
and have gone in fashion and with grace
into the clouds of loose, lush roses,
narcissus, pansies, columbine,
on teapots, chocolate pots,
saucers and cups, the good Haviland dishes
spread like a garden
on the white lace Sunday cloth,
as if their souls were bees
and the world had been nothing but flowers.

 

 

Turkey Vultures

Circling above us, their wingtips fanned
like fingers, it is as if they were smoothing

one of those tissue-paper sewing patterns
over the pale blue fabric of the air,

touching the heavens with leisurely pleasure,
just a word or two called back and forth,

taking all the time in the world, even though
the sun is low and red in the west, and they

have fallen behind with the making of shrouds.

 

 
Ted Kooser (Ames, 25 april 1939)

 

 

De Engelse dichter, schrijver, criticus en letterkundige James Fenton werd geboren op 25 april 1949 in Lincoln. Zie ook alle tags voor James Fenton op dit blog.

 

Hinterhof

Stay near to me and I’ll stay near to you -
As near as you are dear to me will do,
    Near as the rainbow to the rain,
    The west wind to the windowpane,
As fire to the hearth, as dawn to dew.

Stay true to me and I’ll stay true to you -
As true as you are new to me will do,
    New as the rainbow in the spray,
    Utterly new in every way,
New in the way that what you say is true.

Stay near to me, stay true to me. I’ll stay
As near, as true to you as heart could pray.
    Heart never hoped that one might be
    Half of the things you are to me -
The dawn, the fire, the rainbow and the day.

 

 

The Alibi

My mind was racing.
It was some years from now.
We were together again in our old flat.
You were admiring yourself adjusting your hat.
‘Oh of course I was mad then,’ you said with a forgiving smile,
‘Something snapped in me and I was mad for a while.’

But this madness of yours disgusted me,
This alibi,
This gorgeous madness like a tinkling sleigh,
It carried you away
Snug in your fur, snug in your muff and cape.
You made your escape
Through the night, over the dry powdery snow.
I watched you go.

***
Truly the mad deserve our sympathy.
And you were driven mad you said by me.

And then you drove away,
The cushions and the furs piled high,
Snug with your madness alibi,
Injured and forgiven on your loaded sleigh.

 

 
James Fenton (Lincoln, 25 april 1949)

 

 

De Engelse dichter Walter John de la Mare werd geboren op 25 april 1873 in Charlton, Kent. Zie ook alle tags voor Walter John de la Mare op dit blog.

 

The Seas Of England

The seas of England are our old delight:
Let the loud billow of the shingly shore
Sing freedom on her breezes evermore
To all earth’s ships that sailing heave in sight!

The gaunt sea-nettle be our fortitude,
Sturdily blowing where the clear wave sips;
O, be the glory of our men and ships
Rapturous, woe unheeding hardihood!

There is great courage in a land that hath
Liberty guarded by the unearthly seas;
And ev’n to find peace at the last in these
How many a sailor hath sailed down to death!

Their names are like a splendour in an old song;
Their record shines like bays along the years;
Their jubilation is the cry man hears
Sailing sun-fronted the vast deeps among.

The seas of England are our old delight:
Let the loud billow of the shingly shore
Sing freedom on her breezes evermore
To all earth’s ships that sailing heave in sight!

 

 

The Three Strangers

Far are those tranquil hills,
Dyed with fair evening's rose;
On urgent, secret errand bent,
A traveller goes.

Approach him strangers three,
Barefooted, cowled; their eyes
Scan the lone, hastening solitary
With dumb surmise.

One instant in close speech
With them he doth confer:
God-sped, he hasteneth on,
That anxious traveller….

I was that man — in a dream:
And each world's night in vain
I patient wait on sleep to unveil
Those vivid hills again.

Would that they three could know
How yet burns on in me
Love — from one lost in Paradise —
For their grave courtesy.

 

 
Walter John de la Mare (25 april 1873 – 22 juni 1956)
 

 

De Duitse dichter en schrijver Richard Anders werd geboren op 25 april 1928 in Ortelsburg, tegenwoordig Szczytno, Polen. Zie ook alle tags voor Richard Anders op dit blog.

 

Ikarus

Ikarus hob ab
0hne einen Blick zurück auf den in die Tiefe stürzenden Palast des Minos
zu werfen
Er fixierte die Sonne
Von der verschiedenartige Strahlen ausgingen
Auf deren hellsten sein Körper wie auf Schienen nach oben raste
Ein nadeldünner fuhr ihm durchs Herz das Feuer fing ohne ernsthaft zu
brennen
Andere spießten sein Gehirn auf das unter dieser plötzlichen
elektrischen Aufladung
             hemmungslos zu assoziieren begann
Die Neuuonen trieben es promiskuitiv wie Karnickel
Mal formierten sich himmlische Objekte zu Truppen von Würfeln
Oktaedern Rhomboedern
             Rhombendodekaedern
Mal suppte alles ins Grenzenlose
Sein Gehirn verdaute die Wirklichkeit unter Beimengungen pränataler
Phantasie
Aus dem Sonnenloch über ihm sprang eine Feuerfrau deren
Peitschenhaar seinen Kopf
           Auf dem Hals wie ein Kreisel rotieren ließ
Während sie ihm aus dem tropfenden Wachs die Federn rupfte
Dampf endlich ab knallte das Haar ihm in die Ohren ohne daß er
daraus Konsequenzen zog
           und seinen Kurs korrigierte
Im Gegenteil
Seine durchgeknallten Ohren schwollen zu riesigen Trichtern an um
besser die Musik der
           Sphären zu hören
Seine Extase ließ ihn nicht merken daß er nach dem Wegschmelzen
der Flügel wie ein
          Sack voller Steine nach unten stürzte
Als sein Schädel schließlich bei Samos aufs harte Wasser prallte
glaubte sein Hirn
         In die Sonne zu tauchen

 

 
Richard Anders (25 april 1928 - 24 juni 2014)

 

 

De Engelse essayist en diplomaat Sir William Temple werd geboren in Londen op 25 april 1628. Zie ook alle tags voor Willam Temple op dit blog.

Uit: Observations upon the United Provinces of the Netherland

“HOLLAND, Zealand, Friezland, and Groninguen, are seated upon the Sea, and make the Strength and Greatness of this State: The other three, with the Conquered Towns in Brabant, Flanders, and Cleve, make only the Out-works or Frontiers, ser∣ving chiefly for safety and defence of these. No man can tell the strange and mighty Changes that may have been made in the face and bounds of Maritime Countreys, at one time or other, by furious Inundations, upon the unusual concurrence of Land-Floods, Winds and Tides; And therefore no man knows whether the Province of Holland may not have been in some past Ages, all Wood and rough une∣qual ground, as some old Traditions go; And level'd to what we see, by the Sea's breaking in and continuing long upon the Land; since recovered by its recess, and with the help of In∣dustry. For it is evident, that the Sea for some space of years, advances con∣tinually upon one Coast, retiring from the opposite; and in another Age, quite changes this course, yeilding up what it had seized, and seizing what it had yeilded up, without any reason to be given of such contrary motions. But I suppose this great change was made in Holland, when the Sea first parted England from the Continent, breaking through a neck of Land be∣tween Dover and Calais; Which may be a Tale, but I am sure is no Re∣cord. It is certain, on the contrary, that Sixteen hundred years ago, there was no usual mention or memory of any such Changes; and that the face of all these Coasts, and nature of the Soil, especially that of Holland, was much as it is now, allowing only the Improvements of Riches, Time, and In∣dustry; Which appears by the descripti∣on made in Tacitus both of the limits of the Isle of Batavia, and the nature of the Soil as well as the Climate, and the very names of Rivers still remaining.”

 

 
William Temple (25 april 1628 – 27 januari 1699)

 

 

De Engelse dichter en predikant John Keble werd geboren op geboren 25 april 1792 in Fairford, Gloucestershire. Zie ook alle tags voor John Keble op dit blog.

 

Blest Are The Pure In Heart

Blest are the pure in heart,
For they shall see our God;
The secret of the Lord is theirs;
Their soul is Christ’s abode.

The Lord, Who left the heavens
Our life and peace to bring,
To dwell in lowliness with men
Their Pattern and their King.

Still to the lowly soul
He doth Himself impart;
And for His dwelling and His throne
Chooseth the pure in heart.

Lord, we Thy presence seek;
May ours this blessing be;
Give us a pure and lowly heart,
A temple meet for Thee.

 

 
John Keble (25 april 1792 - 29 maart 1866)
Portret door George Richmond, 1845

 

 

Zie voor nog meer schrijvers van de 25e april ook mijn blog van 25 april 2016 en ook mijn blog van 25 april 2015 deel 2.

De Nederlandse schrijver, essayist en criticus Frans Coenen werd in Amsterdam geboren op 24 april 1866. Zie ook alle tags voor Frans Coenen op dit blog.

Uit: De tuin der fantasie

“..Er is zoveel. dat vertelt op het ogenblik... Kijk eens naar buiten. Luister eens naar de stilte, en luister eens naar die vogel. die daar heel ver weg in avondzang zit te fluiten... En kijk eens naar de lucht. en zeg dan maar, dat de dichter van die psalm het wel geweten heeft toen hij zong: De hemelen verkondigen Gods eer, en het uitspansel Zijner handen werk... De dag aan de dag stort overvloediglijk sprake uit, de nacht aan de nacht toont weten-schap... Geen spraak, en geen woorden zijn er. waar hun stem niet wordt gehoord..." En de stem dezer stilte. de heerlijkheid van de sterrenhemel. en de wonderen der natuur in berg en bos. — dat alles is in Indië nog weer zo anders dan hier... Er is geen stilte zo stil als die van de Indische avonden. als de hemel helder en klaar is. en niets. niets beweegt rondom ons... Als er geen geluid klinkt, geen vogel zingt. geen kikvors roept... Alleen zit daar ergens in de verte een mens. en je weet niet waar. en die maakt op zijn gamelang die heel weemoedige. wonderlijke muziek bijna zonder melodie... 0 jongens. dat is onuitsprekelijk. deze stilte van de avonden in het gebergte van Sumatra of van Java..." ..Wat is er toch verschrikkelijk veel moois in de wereld." zei Tom zacht en als in zich zelf. ,.Grootvader. zou U denken. dat ik daar nog wel eens komen kon?" ..Hóór nou eens!" zei Wil plotseling luidruchtig...Dat is er nou een. die vanmiddag nog sprak van dat apenland..." Tom gaf geen antwoord. maar Grootvader zeide: ..Ja. we ver-nordeelen het allereerst wat we het allerminst kennen... Of jij er zoudt kunnen komen. Tom? Wel. natuurlijk kan dat. Als jij inge-nieur mag worden met Gods hulp, dan zijn er zeker in Indië allerlei betrekkingen voor je open... Maar, beste jongen. zolang. vooruit moeten we maar niet praten, dunkt me....er kan nog zoveel ge-beuren..." Tom zag Grootvader aan. Dat was nu de tweede maal al, dat hij dit antwoord hoorde vandaag. Kon Grootvader daarmeè iets bedoelen. iets bijzonders?”

 

 
Frans Coenen (24 april 1866 - 23 juni 1936)

 

 

De Amerikaanse schrijver en acteur Eric Bogosian werd geboren op 24 april 1953 in Woburn, Massachusetts. Zie ook alle tags voor Eric Bogosian op dit blog.

Uit: Operation Nemesis

« His conscription would become a death sentence. Within months of being drafted, Ovygin, like most of the Armenians in the Ottoman army, was disarmed, then forced into a labor battalion where Christian soldiers were worked to death. All we know is that his family never saw him again. My Grandma Lucy also lost her father, Koumjian the jeweler, who once worked in the Constantinople bazaar. As far as we know, Lucy’s father, like Ovygin, also died violently.
I understood from a young age that I was an “Armenian,” and this meant that my family, like countless other Armenian families, had lost loved ones at the hands of the Turks. But knowing this and embracing it were two different things. Most of my freckle-faced friends in Woburn, Massachusetts, were of Irish American ancestry, blissfully unaware of their own harsh history. Though I was olive-skinned and kinky-haired and attended the Armenian (not Roman Catholic) church, I saw myself, like them, as nothing more than a carefree American kid. The horrors that had touched the lives of my grandfather’s generation had not touched me. I was not an immigrant, I spoke perfect English, and I had zero interest in emphasizing anything that would exaggerate the differences between me and my classmates.
Horrible things had happened back in “the old country,” but there was a disconnect between that carnage and my sweet existence as a suburban teenager. My life growing up in a Massachusetts subdivision was filled with pot-smoking teenagers in torn jeans who barely paid attention to school and in their spare time protested the Vietnam War. In another universe, a long time ago, Kurdish tribesmen armed with pistols and knives had terrorized villagers and abducted young Christian women. My grandfather’s world was genuinely dangerous. The stories I had heard at his knee were so intense they seemed mythic, unreal, more like adventure stories than real life. These events had taken place in a land a million miles away, a place my grandfather called “Armenia.” I loved Armenian food, I loved Armenian weddings and the strange choral music sung in our churches, but I was an American kid, not an Armenian.“

 

 
Eric Bogosian (Woburn, 24 april 1953)

 

 

De Amerikaanse dichter en schrijver Robert Penn Warren werd geboren op 24 april 1905 in Guthrie, Kentucky. Zie ook alle tags voor Robert Penn Warren op dit blog.

 

The Cardinal

Cardinal, lover of shade,
Rock and gold is the land in the pulsing noon.
Lover of cedar, lover of shade .. .
Blue the shadow of cedar on grey limestone
Where the lizard, devout as an ikon,
Is carved on the stone, throat pulsing on lichen.

At the hour of noon I have seen
The burst of your wings displayed,
Vision of scarlet devised in the slumberous green .. .
Lover of cedar and shade.

What if the lizard, my cardinal,
Depart like a breath its altar, summer westward fall?
For here is a bough where you can perch, and preen
Your scarlet that from its landscape shall not fade,
Lapped in the cool of the mind's undated shade,
In a whispering tree, like cedar, evergreen.

 

 

The Garden
On a fine day in early autumn

How kind, how secretly, the sun
Has blessed this garden frost has won,
And touched again, as once it used,
The furled boughs by frost bemused.
Though summered brilliance had but room
For blossom, now the leaves will bloom
Their time, and take from a milder sun
The unreviving benison.

No marbles whitely gleam among
These paths where gilt the late pear hung;
But branches interlace to frame
An avenue of stately flame
Where yonder, far more chill and pure
Than marble, gleams the sycamore,
Of argent torso and cunning shaft
Propped nobler than the sculptor's craft.

The hand that crooked upon the spade
Here plucked the peach, and thirst allayed;
Here lovers paused upon the kiss,
Instructed of what ripeness is.
Where all who came might stand to try
The grace of this green empery,

 
Robert Penn Warren (24 april 1905 – 15 september 1989)

 

 

De Amerikaanse dichter George Oppen (eig. George Oppenheimer) werd geboren op 24 april 1908 in New Rochelle, New York. Zie ook alle tags voor George Oppen op dit blog.

 

Psalm
Veritas sequitur ...

In the small beauty of the forest
The wild deer bedding down—
That they are there!

Their eyes
Effortless, the soft lips
Nuzzle and the alien small teeth
Tear at the grass

The roots of it
Dangle from their mouths
Scattering earth in the strange woods.
They who are there.

Their paths
Nibbled thru the fields, the leaves that shade them
Hang in the distances
Of sun

The small nouns
Crying faith
In this in which the wild deer
Startle, and stare out.

 

 

The Forms of Love

Parked in the fields
All night
So many years ago,
We saw
A lake beside us
When the moon rose.
I remember

Leaving that ancient car
Together. I remember
Standing in the white grass
Beside it. We groped
Our way together
Downhill in the bright
Incredible light

Beginning to wonder
Whether it could be lake
Or fog
We saw, our heads
Ringing under the stars we walked
To where it would have wet our feet
Had it been water

 

 
George Oppen (24 april 1908 - 7 juli 1984)
Cover

 

 

De Zwitser dichter, schrijver, essayist en criticus Carl Friedrich Georg Spitteler (eig. Carl Felix Tandem) werd geboren op 24 april 1845 in Liestal bij Basel. Zie ook alle tags voor Carl Spitteler op dit blog.

 

Das Gastmahl

Mir träumt, ich säß an einem langen Tisch
In meiner Heimat, oben unterm Nußbaum.
Vor meinen Augen wuchsen aus dem Anger
Traute Gestalten, reichten mir die Hand
Zum Gruß und setzten fröhlich sich zum Mahl.
Ich sprach: »Die Zahl ist voll, laßt uns beginnen.«

Da kam verspätet eine schöne Frau.
Sie suchte, zählte und errötete.
»Ist hier für mich kein Plätzchen?« »Nein«, verbot ich.
Da senkte sie die Stirn und lief geschwind
Dem Tisch entlang hinüber nach dem Nußbaum.
Dort, auf dem Acker kauernd, streute sie
Mit vollen Händen Erde auf ihr Haupt.

Und ich ging hin zu ihr und hob sie auf
Und küßt ihr weinend das entsühnte Haupt.

 

 

Der Millionär

"Hier möcht ich wohnen!" rief ein Millionär
Und brachte seine Familie her.
Ein freies Aussichtplätzchen sucht er aus
Und baute sich ein pompejanisch Haus.

Die Eingebornen wussten wohl zu schätzen
Den werten Gast; denn jeder wollt ihn pfetzen.
Der Architekt vor allem, laut Vertrag,
Stahl ihm zweihunderttausend Mark mit einem Schlag.
Dann, um den Handel etwas auszugleichen,
Liess er ihm eine Zuschlagsrechnung überreichen,
Die forderte nachträglich ungezwungen
Zweiundeinhalbmal mehr als ausbedungen.
Der Gärtner, bei der passenden Gelegenheit,
Fand sich zu jedem Dienste gern bereit,
"Verfaulter Flor? verdorrte Bäumchen? Was Sie nur befehlen,
Gnädiger Herr, Sie brauchen bloss zu wählen."
Vom Milcher bis zum Metzger schnitt
Ein jeder seinen saftigen Profit.
Die Nachbarn links und rechts indessen
Versüssten ihm das Dasein mit Prozessen.
Und als er endlich, alles wohl erwogen,
Fluchend mit Weib und Kind davon gezogen,
Nackter
als Adam vor dem Fall: "Ein schwieriger Charakter!"
Munkten die Frommen:
"Nicht auszukommen!"

 

 
Carl Spitteler (24 april 1845 – 29 december 1924)
Liestal

 

 

De Engelse schrijver Anthony Trollope werd geboren in Londen op 24 april 1815. Zie ook alle tags voor Anthony Trollope op dit blog.

Uit: The Prime Minister

“It is certainly of service to a man to know who were his grandfathers and who were his grandmothers if he entertain an ambition to move in the upper circles of society, and also of service to be able to speak of them as of persons who were themselves somebodies in their time. No doubt we all entertain great respect for those who by their own energies have raised themselves in the world; and when we hear that the son of a washerwoman has become Lord Chancellor or Archbishop of Canterbury we do, theoretically and abstractedly, feel a higher reverence for such self-made magnate than for one who has been as it were born into forensic or ecclesiastical purple. But not the less must the offspring of the washerwoman have had very much trouble on the subject of his birth, unless he has been, when young as well as when old, a very great man indeed. After the goal has been absolutely reached, and the honour and the titles and the wealth actually won, a man may talk with some humour, even with some affection, of the maternal tub;—but while the struggle is going on, with the conviction strong upon the struggler that he cannot be altogether successful unless he be esteemed a gentleman, not to be ashamed, not to conceal the old family circumstances, not at any rate to be silent, is difficult. And the difficulty is certainly not less if fortunate circumstances rather than hard work and intrinsic merit have raised above his natural place an aspirant to high social position. Can it be expected that such a one when dining with a duchess shall speak of his father's small shop, or bring into the light of day his grandfather's cobbler's awl? And yet it is difficult to be altogether silent! It may not be necessary for any of us to be always talking of our own parentage. We may be generally reticent as to our uncles and aunts, and may drop even our brothers and sisters in our ordinary conversation. But if a man never mentions his belongings among those with whom he lives, he becomes mysterious, and almost open to suspicion. It begins to be known that nobody knows anything of such a man, and even friends become afraid. It is certainly convenient to be able to allude, if it be but once in a year, to some blood relation. »

 

 
Anthony Trollope (24 april 1815 - 6 december 1882)
Cover

 

 

De Duitse schrijver Michael Schaefer werd geboren op 24 april 1976 in Bielefeld. Zie ook alle tags voor Michael Schaefer op dit blog.

Uit: Liebe auf Raten

„Doch Geschwister sind nicht so einfach zu trennen, denn Angeline Glowing liebte ihre Schwester dennoch. Sie telefonierten mindestens einmal die Woche, wenn Edward nicht im Haus war. Und schon mehrmals hat Mary Angeline angeraten, diesen „introvertierten Tyrannen" zu verlassen, doch Angeline liebte ihren Edward und ihre Arbeit im Haus. Sie konnte sich nicht von ihm trennen. Die Tradition verlangte, dass man ein Leben lang mit einem Menschen zusammenleben muss, wenn man sich einmal das Ja-Wort gegeben hatte. Sie fand immer irgendetwas, wofür sie Edward lieben konnte, auch um sich selber nicht einzugestehen, dass die wirkliche Liebe von damals schon lange erloschen war. Angeline's liebster Satz war dann immer: „Was sollen die Leute denn von mir denken, wenn ich ihn sang und klanglos verlassen würde. Nein, ich muss da durch, auch wenn er mich oft zur Weißglut bringt." Irgendwann gab Mary es dann auf und hörte sich die wöchentlichen Klageberichte ihrer Schwester an, wenn Edward mal wieder irgend etwas falsch gemacht hatte. Angeline war halt immer schon ein Dickkopf. Umso erfreuter war Mary aber darüber, dass ihr Neffe Steve sie bald besuchen kommen würde. Auch sie kannte ihn nur von Fotos, die Angeline ihr schickte. Für Steve war es ebenso eine Überraschung, dass seine Mutter ihn zu ihrer Schwester schickte. Er konnte sich noch gut dran erinnern, wie lange diese Diskussion zwischen Angeline und Edward ging, als sie ihm offenbarte, dass sie Steve gerne zu Mary schicken wollte, damit sie sich endlich mal sehen können. Irgendwie hatte Angeline den „introvertierten Tyrannen" dann tatsächlich überreden können, so dass er sein Okay gab. Nun, an diesem besagten Abend berichtete seine Mutter von ihrer Villa und was Mary für ein Mensch war. Für Steve war schnell klar, dass sie Mary trotz allem sehr vermisste. Sie sprach von ihr in den höchsten Tönen und über ihre Offenheit jedem und allen gegenüber und wie gerne sie mit Steve tauschen würde. Allein schon aus dem Herzenswunsch seiner Mutter heraus stimmte er zu, Mary die Schokokekse zu bringen und sich etwas mit Mary zu unterhalten. Er war halt auch ein neugieriger Kerl. Und der Bericht seiner Mutter unterstützte ihn noch dabei.“

 

 
Michael Schaefer (Bielefeld, 24 april 1976)
Bielefeld, Bürgerpark

 

 

Zie voor nog meer schrijvers van de 24e april ook mijn blog van 24 april 2016 deel 2.

De Amerikaanse schrijfster Sue Grafton werd geboren in Louisville (Kentucky) op 24 april 1940 als dochter van schrijver C.W. Grafton en Vivian Harnsberger. Ze studeerde Engelse literatuur aan de universiteit van Louisville. Eind jaren zestig publiceerde ze twee niet zo succesvolle romans. Daarna legde ze zich jarenlang samen met haar echtgenoot Stephen Humphrey toe op het maken van tv-scenario's. In 1982 verscheen "A Is for Alibi" (A van alibi), haar eerste roman over de vrouwelijke privédetective Kinsey Millhone. Deze verhalen spelen zich af in Santa Teresa, een fictieve stad die gebaseerd is op Santa Barbara (Californië) en reeds voorkwam in de detectiveromans van Ross Macdonald. Grafton's romans zijn gepubliceerd in 28 landen en in 26 talen. Zij heeft altijd geweigers om de film- en televisierechten aan haar boeken te verkopen, omdat het schrijven van tv-scenario's thaar had "genezen" van de wens om met Hollywood samen te werken. Ze voegde eraan toe dat ze haar kinderen zou achtervolgen als die de filmrechten na haar dood zouden willen verkopen.

Uit: Y Is for Yesterday

“In April, Iris was dumbfounded when she received yet another summons to the vice principal’s office. What’d she do this time? She hadn’t been called out on anything and she felt put upon and unappreciated. She’d been doing her best to blend in and behave herself.
Even Mrs. Malcolm seemed surprised. “We haven’t seen you for a while. What now?”
“No clue. I’m tooling along minding my own business and I get this note that Mr. Lucas wants to see me. I don’t even know what this is about.”
“News to me as well.”
Iris took a seat on one of the wooden benches provided for the errant and unrepentant. She had her books and her binder in hand so that once she was properly dressed down, she could report to her next class, which in this case was world history. She opened her binder, pretending to check her notes. She was careful to show no interest in the secretary’s disbursement of manila envelopes, but she knew what they contained: the Benchmark California Academic Proficiency Tests. These were administered at the beginning and ending of junior year, designed to measure each student’s mastery of math and English. Poppy had been bitching for weeks about having to perform up to grade level or suffer the indignities of remedial catch-up work.
Under certain circumstances, the test results would determine whether a junior was even allowed to advance to the senior year. Iris wondered if there was a way to get her hands on a copy. Wouldn’t that be a coup? Poppy was her best friend, a diligent student, but not all that bright. Iris could see her limitations, but overlooked her deficits in the interest of her status at Climp. Poppy’s boyfriend, Troy Rademaker, was in same boat. His grades were excellent, but he didn’t dare risk anything less than top marks. He attended Climp on a scholarship it was essential to protect. In addition, he and Austin Brown were among the nominees for the Albert Climping Memorial Award, given annually to an outstanding freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior based on academic distinction, athletic achievement, and service to the community. Austin Brown was the unofficial, but equally undisputed kingpin of the junior class, much admired and equally feared for his scathing pronouncements about his classmates.”

 

Sue Grafton (Louisville, 24 april 1940)