P.C. Hooft-Prijs 2012 voor Tonnus Oosterhoff

 

 

De Nederlandse dichter Tonnus Oosterhoff krijgt de P.C. Hooft-Prijs 2012 voor zijn oevre. Dat heeft het bestuur van de Stichting P.C. Hooft-prijs voor Letterkunde dinsdag bekendgemaakt. Oosterhoff debuteerde in 1990 met de gedichtenbundel Boerentijger. Voor die bundel kreeg hij de C. Buddingh'-prijs. Zie ook mijn blog van 18 maart 2011.

 

 

 

Het water

Het water begon zich te schamen
voor wat het was en altijd gedaan had.
Namens iedereen kwam een vis aan land
om een regeling te treffen.

 

De vis rechtte zijn rug:
"Mensen: drie wensen."

 

Het strand was leeg, alleen de schelpen
hadden de vorm van mutsen met oren eronder.
Het uitgekookte dier moest zijn lachen inhouden.

 

Ik kan beloven wat ik wil, dacht het.
Dit kost me geen stuiver. De geschiedenis is ja nog niet begonnen.
Ik moest maar eens gaan teruglopen door de branding.

 

Of zal ik hier nog wat blijven? Droog ben ik nu toch.
Het is wel heerlijk, die zeewind.

 

 

 

 

Tonnus Oosterhoff (Leiden, 18 maart 1953)

 

 

 

 

Zie voor schrijvers van de 20e december ook mijn vorige blog van vandaag en ook mijn tweede blog van vandaag en eveens mijn eerste blog van vandaag.

De Oostenrijkse dichteres en schrijfster Friederike Mayröcker werd op 20 december 1924 in Wenen geboren. Zie ook alle tags voor Friederike Mayröcker op dit blog.

 

Mysterium

 

Das Heiligenbild hat

einen blauen Dorn. Jesus wird orangefarben

getauft. Beinah jenseits

immer wieder das Jüngste Gericht.

Selige die lächeln und

Chöre bilden. Lichtgrün

geht die Erde unter, aber

die Himmel stillen sich bald.

Lichter wehn wie silberne

Fahnen die sich langsam bewegen,

und die höchste Kerze duftet

und strebt.

Ich bin vor Dir im kalten Staub

ich bin vor Dir irgendwoher

aus einer erstarrten Dunkelheit

ich bin vor Dir und lobsinge:

preisende Blicke haben mich aus

den müden Steigbügeln meiner

Empfindung gehoben geräuschlos.

 

 

*

 

wie ich dich nenne

wenn ich an dich denke

und du nicht da bist:

 

meine Walderdbeere

meine Zuckerechse

meine Trosttüte

mein Seidenspinner

mein Sorgenschreck

meine Aurelia

meine Schotterblume

mein Schlummerkind

meine Morgenhand

mein Vielvergesser

mein Fensterkreuz

mein Mondverstecker

mein Silberstab

mein Abendschein

mein Sonnenfaden

mein Rüsselhase

mein Hirschenkopf

meine Hasenpfote

mein Treppenfrosch

mein Lichterkranz

mein Frühlingsdieb

mein Zittergaul

meine Silberschnecke

mein Tintenfasz

mein Besenfuchs

mein Bäumefäller

mein Sturmausreiszer

mein Bärenheger

mein Zähnezeiger

mein Pferdeohr

mein Praterbaum

mein Ringelhorn

meine Affentasche

meine Winterwende

meine Artischocke

meine Mitternacht

mein Rückwärtszähler

 

(da capo!)

 

 

 

 

Friederike Mayröcker (Wenen, 20 december 1924)

 

 

 

 

De Canadese dichter, schrijver en acteur Sky Gilbert werd geboren op 20 december 1952 Norwich,  Connecticut. Zie ook mijn blog van 20 december 2009 en ook mijn blog van 20 december 2010.

 

 

Thoughts on "Bringing up Baby"

 

It was a sad Sunday
And I didn't like it at first
I was all prepared to be cranky about Howard Hawkes
I mean let's face it
It's all a set up really
Katherine Hepburn's little voice is very annoying and fake
And Cary Grant's coke bottle glasses are so obvious
It wasn't delightful at all, to me
As I struggled awake through Saturday night's hangover
and memories of bad sex
the night before
And then somewhere, I think it was when I realized
she was carrying a butterfly net to catch a leopard
yes, it was there, I think
that I realized that this movie had absolutely nothing to do with reality
and that's what made it so fabulous
So I was gone
And when they're singing
"I can't give you anything but love, baby"
to the leopard outside the psychiatrist's window
and the leopard is howling along, and so is the dog
and the psychiatrist's wife says to Katherine Hepburn
with the condescension of the sane:
"You just keep on singing dear"
and Katherine Hepburn doesn't miss a beat when she says "Oh, I will!"
And that is, of course, what we all have to do, in the midst of all the
insanity and death
(sorry, I didn't mean to mention death)
we have to keep on singing
And before long, everyone is in jail, and no one knows their names anymore,
and Katherine Hepburn is acting butch, and this is what we've been waiting
for, the whole movie, for her to drop that plummy accent and the femmy
gestures and just get down to business
And the point isn't merely that the insane are more sane or that power
structures must be toppled (hence the dinosaur skeleton falling at the end)
no it's that there, within insanity lies truth, beauty
Yes beauty
or else why would I have been at the baths the other night
with a boy I love
watching him screw other people?
I can't explain why I love him
It's like when David says he just has to get fucked up the bum
or else he thinks the guy doesn't really love him
It's like when Pasolini explains that he is obsessed with boys
because their body hair keeps on growing until they're twenty-five
One tries to categorize and organize one's love, one's desire
And then one realizes that one is using a butterfly net to catch a leopard
isn't one?
For there is a certain blessedness in being hysterical
Forgetting who we are is perhaps the only answer
And for certain we will find out if there's a "good leopard"
or a "bad leopard"
at the end of that rope
It will either tear us to pieces or purr
But as Katherine Hepburn reminds us
at the end of the movie
all the time we were merely searching for a good bone
a good hard clean bone that might finish off that dinosaur skeleton
Watch out!
The skeleton is shaking...
But oh, what a fall

 

 

 

 

Sky Gilbert (Norwich, 20 december 1952)

 

 

 

 

De Amerikaanse schrijfster Hortense Calisher werd geboren in New York op 20 december 1911. Zie ook mijn blog van 20 december 2008 en ook mijn blog van 20 december 2009 en ook mijn blog van 20 december 2010.

 

Uit: Tattoo for a Slave

 

„As she lay there, the feather mattress she would never discard floated her high, as if it meant to keep her at center still, not just a tiny person who had had a fall. Nowadays we know that the hip breaks before the fall, but this was before. A word that would always have a special sound to me. This is 1924. Born just before the end of 1911, I am twelve.

"Ninety-seven," my one aunt had said, the other one adding softer, "Though out of vanity she only admitted to ninety-four."

Even now a flutter of smiles, though my father, head bent, had not joined in.

"They were married in 1852," an uncle said. "Pa came over from England in '27, we were always told. That book he and his crowd are in lists him as an elder-in 1832. But neither one ever spoke age."

"We could look it up," the second uncle had said. "Maybe time we should."

My father had raised his head, silencing them with a look I already knew the meaning of. Pay respect.

Our family doctor, who usually ran in at the slightest, had come and gone, respecting us. As for hospitals, those were for bloody events, like my tonsils. "Will she have to go?" My father's proud smile had reassured me days ago. "We were all born at home. Including you. We die there."

But that, too, had been before. His fists are at his forehead now. She is floating on her pillow. I have never seen her in disarray. Death-please don't do that to her. He must feel the same.

But that was the moment when my mother had glided toward me-so much younger than they, she was never quite of their circle. Whispering, "Wait in Granma's sitting room."

 

  

 

Hortense Calisher (20 december 1911 – 15 januari 2009)

 

 

 

 

De Zwitserse schrijver Jürg Laederach werd geboren op 20 december 1945 in Basel. Zie ook mijn blog van 20 december 2008 en ook mijn blog van 20 december 2009 en ook mijn blog van 20 december 2010.
 

Uit: Depeschen nach Mailland

 

Gesendet: Montag, 18. März 2002 18:15

Ich fand dein neuestes Mail glänzend. Was schreibst du denn so, und wo schreibst du rum? Die verdichteten satirischen Beobachtungen sind, ich sagte es, glänzend.Wir müßten uns mal kurz über Technik unterhalten, d. h. Taylorismus, wie schafft man was mit wieviel Aufwand. Du mußt, Horror, etwas entdichten, etwas normalisieren, ichmeine,wenn du public goest.

Und du mußt eine überzeugende, manchmal durchaus pedestrische Linie in die Sequenz deiner Glanzpunkte reinbringen, sonst hüpft’s zu sehr; womit man nur kurze Sachen schreiben kann. Du müßtest dich für einen slightly banaleren Mettler zu interessieren anfangen, am besten fängst du gleich mal mit dem ganz banalen an. Insbesondere mußt du Frau Rosa Prosa dann untersuchen, wenn du mal alle Pointen wegläßt, also schutzloser du selber bist. Du mußt, mit einemWort, eine Art

Produktionsform finden, die deine Identität dennoch transportiert.

Ich wollte mich ganz ernsthaft bedanken, daß du mich in die Sendung geholt hast. Wer so wenig an die Öffentlichkeit geht wie ich, ist an einem konzentrierten Auftritt mit gesicherter Publikumsquote

interessiert. Mir ging erst nachher auf, daß die Jazzsendung diese Bedingungen ideal erfüllt: zudem erscheint man zweimal hintereinander: als PR fabelhaft. Heute sprach mich bereits ein Mitpatient darauf an: also, bis so einer dich irgendwo hört oder liest . . . Perfekt, vielen Dank, ich kann lange in der Eremitenhütte bleiben. Im übrigen: Ich brenne locker weiter und schreibe keine innerlichen Dissertationen, ehe ich dir was schicke. Ab, weg ist es, gib’s einfach weiter, wenn’s nicht paßt.

 

 

 

Jürg Laederach (Basel, 20 december 1945)

 

 

 

 

De Turkse dichter en schrijver Aziz Nesin werd geboren op 20 december 1915 in Istanbul. Zie ook mijn blog van 20 december 2008 en ook mijn blog van 20 december 2009 en ook mijn blog van 20 december 2010.
 

Uit: Istanbul Boy (Vertaald door Joseph S. Jackson)

 

„Someday, somehow, I will take the final rest--but what a pity--then, I won't be able to know I am at rest.
When someone asks me, "How can you write so much?" really, I feel an anger that can't be shown.
''After all, do I write for pleasure? I am forced to, for I am in dire straits.''
But if I were to be born again (something I don't believe in at all), if again I came to this world, I would choose no other path; I would like to be exhausted and go in the same way, in the same happy fatigue of such work.
If I write in very different genres, novel forms, and treat varied subjects, I think it is because of my living together with mixed people of different levels of our society and from different circles. Well, here are a few of the jobs I've done up to now: peddler, shepherd, soldier, accountant, painter, newsboy, bookstore, private teacher, photographer, writer, newspaperman, groceryman, convict (that's a job too, and one of the most difficult), unemployed (that's the hardest job of all), shoeshine boy, barber and other jobs.
My memories are not great; I know that they don't ever have the smallest importance in themselves. But from the view of the lives of all of you, as a reflection of our society and the period in which we have lived, with the hope that this may attract your interest, I will relate my recollections to you, without falsehood or deceit.“

 

 

 

Aziz Nesin (20 december 1915 – 6 juli 1995)



Zie voor nog meer schrijvers van de 20e december ook mijn vorige blog van vandaag en eveneens mijn eerste blog van vandaag.

De Schotse schrijver Peter May werd geboren op 20 december 1951 in Glasgow. Zie ook mijn blog van 20 december 2009 en ook mijn blog van 20 december 2010.

 

Uit: Freeze Frame

 

„Munich, Germany, December 20, 1951

Erik Fleischer was a man who counted his blessings. His wife was an attractive woman, hair cascading in golden waves over square shoulders, a smile that lit her inner soul, and spellbinding blue eyes. Still adoring after five turbulent years. He had two wonderful children, blond, blue-eyed clones of their mother. Magda’s genes had predominated over his own Mediterranean looks.
He had survived the war virtually unscathed, inheriting his parents’ Bavarian villa in this leafy suburb, establishing a lucrative practice among the new, burgeoning middle class rising now out of the ashes of Hitler’s madness.
The good life stretched ahead toward an unbroken horizon. How could he have known that this night he would lose everything?
As he sat reading the evening newspaper, he absorbed, almost unconsciously, the peals of laughter emanating from the dining room. Mother and children playing a simple board game. He dipped his head to peer over his glasses and glanced through the door toward them. And with the seeds of arousal sown by the merest glance at Magda, rose ambition for a third, or even a fourth.
He glanced at his watch, folded his paper and laid it aside. “I’ll be back down in fifteen.”
Magda half-turned her head toward the living room. “Dinner will be ready in twenty.”

  

 

 

Peter May (Glasgow, 20 december 1951)

 

 

 

De Oostenrijkse schrijver Gernot Wolfgruber werd geboren op 20 december 1944 in Gmünd. Zie ook mijn blog van 20 december 2008 en ook mijn blog van 20 december 2009 en ook mijn blog van 20 december 2010.

 

Uit: Die Nähe der Sonne

 

“Man wird das Haus ungern verlassen. Man ist in der Stadt bekannt. Jetzt überhaupt. Ständig werden einem Leute begegnen, denen die Neugier die Hälse verbiegt, wird man Bekannte treffen, die das ihnen Peinliche: einem über den Weg gelaufen zu sein, nur loswerden können, indem sie einem die Hand hinstrecken und ein paar Worte murmeln, einen also anstecken mit ihrer Peinlichkeit, während man ihnen schon dankbar wäre, wenn sie von nichts weiter als vom schönen Wetter, vom schönen Herbst reden würden oder wie andere plötzlich die Straßenseite gewechselt oder angelegentlich in ein Schaufenster gestarrt hätten, bis man vorbei wäre.

Es ist ganz leicht vorstellbar.

Man wird zusammensitzen, ehe man sich auf den Weg macht. Acht bis zehn Leute, die Kinder nicht gerechnet, vielleicht auch zwölf, Stefan Zell unter ihnen. Im Wohnzimmer Evas, der Schwester, wird man sich versammelt haben, um den ausziehbaren Eßtisch. Eine gute Stunde ist noch Zeit. Man

hat schon gegessen. Es ist viel auf den Tellern, in den Schüsseln geblieben. Man hat gesagt, daß man überhaupt nichts essen kann. Und man hat sich gewundert, daß man konnte.”

 

 

 

Gernot Wolfgruber (Gmünd, 20 december 1944)

 

 

 

 

De Zwitserse schrijver en filosoof Alain de Botton werd geboren in Zürich op 20 december 1969. Zie ook alle tags voor Alain de Botton op dit blog.

 

Uit: How Proust can change your Life

 

„In the preface to his translation of Ruskin’s Sesame and Lilies, Proust had written enough to turn the Illiers-Combray tourist industry into an absurdity had anyone bothered to listen:

‘We would like to go and see the field that Millet…shows  us in his Springtime, we would like Claude Monet to take us to Giverny, on the banks of the Seine, to that bend of the river which he hardly lets us distinguish through the morning mist.  Yet in actual fact, it was the mere chance of a connection or family relation that give…Millet or Monet occasion to pass or to stay nearby, and to choose to paint that road, that garden, that field, that bend in the river, rather than some other.  What makes them appear other and more beautiful than the rest of the world is that they carry on them, like some elusive reflection, the impression they afforded to a genius, and which we might see wandering just as singularly and despotically across the submissive, indifferent face of all the landscapes he may have painted.’

It should not be Illiers-Combray that we visit:  a genuine homage to Proust would be to look at our world through his eyes, not look at his world through our eyes.

To forget this may sadden us unduly.  When we feel interest to be so dependent on the exact locations where certain great artists found it, a thousand landscapes and areas of experience will be deprived of possible interest, for Monet only looked at a few stretches of the earth, and Proust’s novel, though long, could not comprise more than a fraction of human experience.  Rather than learn the general lesson of art’s attentiveness, we might seek instead the mere objects of its gaze, and would then be unable to do justice to parts of the world which artists had not considered.  As a Proustian idolater, we would have little time for desserts which Proust never tasted, for dresses he never described, nuances of love he didn’t cover and cities he didn’t visit, suffering instead from an awareness of a gap between our existence and the realm of artistic truth and interest.“

 

 

 

Alain de Botton (Zürich, 20 december 1969)

 

 

 

 

De Amerikaanse dichteres en schrijfster Sandra Cisneros werd geboren op 20 december 1954 in Chicago. Zie ook mijn blog van 20 december 2008 en ook mijn blog van 20 december 2009 en ook mijn blog van 20 december 2010..

 

 

 

Love Poem for a Non-Believer

 

Because I miss
you I run my hand
along the flat of my thigh
curve of the hip
mango of the ass Imagine
it your hand across
the thrum of ribs
arpeggio of the breasts
collarbones you adore
that I don’t

 

My neck is thin
You could cup it with one hand
Yank the life from me
if you wanted

 

I’ve cut my hair
You can’t tug
my hair anymore
A jet of black
through the fingers now

 

Your hands cool
along the jaw

 

skin of the eyelids
nape of the neck
soft as a mouth

 

And when we open like apple
split each other in half and
have seen the heart
of the heart
of the heart that part
you don’t I don’t
show anyone the part
we want to reel

 

back as soon as it
is suddenly unreeled like silk
flag or the prayer call
of a Mohammed we won’t
have a word for this except
perhaps religion

 

 

 

 

Sandra Cisneros (Chicago, 20 december 1954)

De Nederlandse schrijver Ramon Stoppelenburg werd geboren in Leiden op 20 december 1976. Zie ook mijn blog van 20 december 2008 en ook mijn blog van 20 december 2009 en ook mijn blog van 20 december 2010.

 

Uit: My Stupidities of 2010

 

„I was driving the car on a one-lane road that was sided by lush green trees. That’s basically driving through rural Australia. If there are no trees, there isn’t anything else. And with driving through Australia you always have to keep in mind that traffic is different here. So are the signs on the road. If a sign says T-crossing ahead it actually says that pretty much AT the T-crossing. If you even don’t see that sign, you will be in for a surprise.

And what a surprise I experienced. The road just stopped! We could only go right or left, but the car was still going 95 km/hour and we were very close to the crossing already! So Antal screamed STOP!!! and I hit the brakes immediately.

And of course the van didn’t just stop. It screeched and slipped, but there wasn’t a real signal or an upcoming full stop. I pushed the brakes to avoid slipping even more and heard this sound of the horn of a truck.

There was a fuel truck coming from our right! A fuel truck!

The end of the road was coming very near us, but also did that truck and there was no way that that honking truck driver could stop his road train for us. Ever. (Road trains never stop, actually. It takes them minutes to get going again.).“

 

 

 

Ramon Stoppelenburg (Leiden, 20 december 1976)

 

 

 

 

De Finse schrijver Väinö Linna werd geboren op 20 december 1920 in Urjala, bij Tampere. Zie ook mijn blog van 20 december 2006 en ook mijn blog van 20 december 2008 en ook mijn blog van 20 december 2009.

 

Uit: The Unknown Soldier (Vertaald door David McDuff)

 

„Kariluoto was in high spirits. He felt a kind of gratuitous friendliness, even towards this lieutenant who was a complete stranger to him. This morning he was experiencing one of the greatest moments in his life. He knew that the breakthrough had taken place, and that now preparations were being made for the advance towards Karelia. He plied the lieutenant with questions about everything under the sun, so eagerly that he did not notice the gravity of the other man’s expression. The lieutenant was taciturn because of the task that lay before him, but in spite of this Kariluoto tried to donate some of his enthusiasm to him.
The Jaegers leaned on their bicycles and looked at the infantrymen, who were lying by the side of the road. Rahikainen approached with an air of tentative exploration.
‘You haven’t got a field kitchen with you, have you, by any chance?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, each man seems to have a pot on his head.’
‘Didn’t they give you helmets, then?’
‘Not us. All we’ve got is empty bellies. I suppose you have bread, too?’
‘A little. We were given dry rations last night before we set off.’
Rahikainen dug about in his pocketbook.
‘How many slices for a cockade?’
The Jaeger put his hand in his pocket. A fistful of red stars came into view:
‘You must think we’re new recruits.’
‘Look at all those. I’ve been too busy to collect as many as that. I’ve had to do a bit of fighting now and then. How about an officer’s tabs? What will you give for those?’

 

 

Väinö Linna (20 dezember 1920  - 21 april 1992)

 

 

 

 

De Engelse dichter en schrijver John Fletcher werd geboren in Rye (Sussex) en gedoopt op 20 december 1579. Zie ook mijn blog van 20 december 2009 en ook mijn blog van 20 december 2010.

 

 

Beauty Clear and Fair

 

Where the air

Rather like a perfume dwells;
   Where the violet and the rose

   Their blue veins and blush disclose,

And come to honour nothing else:

 

   Where to live near

   And planted there

Is to live, and still live new;

   Where to gain a favour is

   More than light, perpetual bliss--

Make me live by serving you!

 

Dear, again back recall

   To this light,

A stranger to himself and all!

   Both the wonder and the story

   Shall be yours, and eke the glory;

I am your servant, and your thrall.

 

 

 

 

John Fletcher (20 december 1579 - 29 augustus 1625)

Anoniem Portret, National Portrait Gallery, Londen

 

 

 

 

Zie voor onderstaande schrijvers ook mijn blog van 20 december 2010.

 

 

De Duitse dichter en activist Ferdinand Avenarius werd geboren in Berlijn op 20 december 1856. Zie ook mijn blog van 20 december 2008 en ook mijn blog van 20 december 2009.

 

De Wit-Russische, jiddische, schrijver Mendele Mojcher Sforim werd geboren op 20 december 1835 in Kpyl bij Minsk. Zie ook mijn blog van 20 december 2009.