Tachtig jaar Remco Campert, Malcolm Lowry, Shahyar Ghanbari, Angélica Gorodischer
De Nederlandse dichter schrijver Remco Campert werd op 28 juli 1929 in Den Haag geboren. Dais is dus vandaag precies tachtig jaar geleden. Zie ook mijn blog van 28 juli 2006 en ook mijn blog van 28 juli 2007 en ook mijn blog van 28 juli 2008.
Antwerps meisje
Het was laat in de avond
regen in lamplicht gevangen
sloeg neer op het macadam
van de Mechelsesteenweg
je had een offwhite jurkje aan
ik schatte je op vijftien
je liep langs de straat
waar ook ik overging
auto's passeerden remden af
reden weer verder
je vroeg de weg naar de Muze
café waar Ferre optrad
Ferre Grignard de zanger van jouw lied
zijn stem die op de radio geklonken had
en waarheen je nu op weg was
'volg de tramrails maar
dan vind je hem vanzelf'
en ik onnnozelaar liet je gaan
Antwerps meisje
dat ik in mijn hart draag
wat heb ik toch gedaan
met mijn leven
Elementen voor een gedicht
As en ijs:
het is dinsdag en winter.
Zalen vol verkouden moeders
bespreken de voordelen van vet.
De dikke man, in tabak of textiel,
kauwt op zijn sigaar, vloekt op een fietser.
De wind, kaal als een geschoren rat,
rent langs de huizen,
knabbelt aan de kranten,
de vuilnisbakken, de rokken
van kleine meisjes.
De stad is gelukkig tezamen,
sneeuwbal in een jongenshand.
Niets hoort bij alles hoort bij niets.
Zeven kraaien vliegen
in de rijpe winterlucht.
In dunne kratten mooie ronde rode appels,
in sleetse mouwen van slag geraakte polshorloges.
As op de stoepen, ijs langs de wegen,
zeven kraaien in de lucht
Niet te geloven
Niet te geloven
dat ik knaap nog
een vers schreef over de
zilverwitheid van een berkestam
en om mij heen
grootse dronkenschap
van de bevrijding:
het water was whisky geworden.
Alles zoop en naaide,
heel Europa was een groot matras
en de hemel het plafond
van een derderangshotel.
En ik bedeesde jongeling
moest nodig
de reine berk bezingen
en zijn bescheiden bladerpracht.
Campert in 1960
De Engelse dichter, verhalen- en romanschrijver Malcolm Lowry werd geboren 28 juli 1909 in Birkenhead Merseyside. Zie ook mijn blog van 28 juli 2007 en ook mijn blog van 28 juli 2008.
Uit: Under the Volcano
“Two mountain chains traverse the republic roughly from north to south, forming between them a number of valleys and plateaus. Overlooking one of these valleys, which is dominated by two volcanoes, lies, six thousand feet above sea level, the town of Quauhnahuac. It is situated well south of the Tropic of Cancer, to be exact on the nineteenth parallel, in about the same latitude as the Revillagigedo Islands to the west in the Pacific, or very much further west, the southernmost tip of Hawaii-and as the port of Tzucox to the east on the Atlantic seaboard of Yucatan near the border of British Honduras, or very much further east, the town of Juggernaut, in India, on the Bay of Bengal.
The walls of the town, which is built on a hill, are high, the streets and lanes tortuous and broken, the roads winding. A fine American-style highway leads in from the north but is lost in its narrow streets and comes out a goat track. Quauhnahuac possesses eighteen churches and fifty-seven cantinas. It also boasts a golf course and no less than four hundred swimming pools, public and private, filled with the water that ceaselessly pours down from the mountains, and many splendid hotels.
The Hotel Casino de la Selva stands on a slightly higher hill just outside the town, near the railway station. It is built far back from the main highway and surrounded by gardens and terraces which command a spacious view in every direction. Palatial, a certain air of desolate splendour pervades it. For it is no longer a Casino. You may not even dice for drinks in the bar. The ghosts of ruined gamblers haunt it. No one ever seems to swim in the magnificent Olympic pool.The springboards stand empty and mournful. Its jai-alai courts are grass-grown and deserted. Two tennis courts only are kept up in the season.
Towards sunset on the Day of the Dead in November, 1939, two men in white flannels sat on the main terrace of the Casino drinking anis. They had been playing tennis, followed by billiards, and their racquets, rainproofed, screwed in their presses-the doctor's triangular, the other's quadrangular-lay on the parapet before them. As the processions winding from the cemetery down the hillside behind the hotel came closer the plangent sounds of their chanting were borne to the two men; they turned to watch the mourners, a little later to be visible only as the melancholy lights of their candles, circling among the distant, trussed cornstalks. Dr. Arturo Diaz Vigil pushed the bottle of Anis del Mono over to M. Jacques Laruelle, who now was leaning forward intently.”
Malcolm Lowry (28 juli 1909 - 26 juni 1957)
De Iraanse dichter, songwriter en zanger Shahyar Ghanbari werd geboren op 28 juli 1950 in Teheran. Shahyar is de zoon van de Iraanse acteur en zanger Hamid Ghanbari. Hij schrijft en zingt in het Farsi, het Engels en het Frans. Hij schrijft en componeert ook voor anderen, zoals Farhad Mehrad, Dariush Eghbali, Helen, Leila Forouhar, Googoosh, Ebi and Sattar. Hij woont tegenwoordig in Los Angeles.
Forbidden
Blue of the sea is forbidden
The desire to see, is forbidden
The love between two fish is forbidden
Alone and together is forbidden
To have a new love, you should not ask permission
To have a new love, you should not ask permission
Whispering and murmuring is forbidden
Dancing of the shadows is forbidden
Discovering the stolen kisses,
In the middle of your dream is forbidden
To have a new dream, you should not ask permission
To have a new dream, you should not ask permission
In this homely exile
Write the simplest poems
Say what you have to say
Say long live life,
Say long live life
To write a new poem, you should not ask permission
To write a new poem, you should not ask permission
To write about you, is forbidden
Even to complain is forbidden
The fragrance of a woman, is forbidden
You are forbidden, I am forbidden!
To start a new day, you should not ask permission
To start a new day, you should not ask permission
De Argentijnse schrijfster Angélica Gorodischer werd geboren in Buenos Aires op 28 juli 1928. Zij bezocht het gymnasium en studeerde daarna aan een studie letteren die zij echter niet afmaakte. In 1988 kreeg zij een beurs waarmee zij aan de University of Iowa kon studeren. In 1998 kreeg zij de prijs van de Sociedad Argentina de Escritores (SADE) voor de beste roman door een vrouw geschreven.
Uit: Portrait of the Emperor (Vertaald door Ursula K. Le Guin)
“And the play-lover will go off happy, whistling, his hands in his pockets, his heart light, and maybe before he reaches the doors of the great throne room he’ll hear the emperor shouting after him, promising to come in person to the opening of the theater, and the lord counselor clicking his tongue in disapproval of such a transgression of protocol.Well, well, I’ve let words run away with me, something a storyteller should take care to avoid; but I’ve known fear, and sometimes I need to reassure myself that there’s nothing to fear any more, and the only way I have to do that is by the sound of my own words. Now, back to what I was getting at when I began we all now have the right to use as if it were our own house, which it is—in that palace, in the south wing, in a salon that looks out on a very pretty hexagonal garden, there’s a shapeless heap of dusty, dirty old stones. Everywhere else in the building you’ll see carpets, furniture, mirrors, paintings, musical instruments, cushions and porcelains, flowers, books, plants in vases and in pots. There, nothing of the kind. The room’s empty, bare, and the marble flags don’t even cover the whole floor, but leave an area of beaten earth in the middle, where the stones are piled up. There’s nothing secret or forbidden about it, but many of you, looking for the way out, or a quiet place to sit down and rest and eat the sandwich you brought in your backpack, will have opened the door of that room and asked yourself what on earth that heap of grey rocks was doing in such a well-kept, clean, cheerful palace. Well, well, my friends, I’m going to tell you why there are storytellers in the world: not for frivolities, though we may sometimes seem frivolous, but to answer those questions we all ask, and not as the teller, but as the hearer.”
