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De Amerikaanse dichter en schrijver Paul Engle werd geboren op
12 oktober 1908 in Cedar Rapids. Zie ook alle tags voor Paul Engle
op dit blog en ook mijn
blog van 12 oktober 2010.
Uit: A Lucky American Childhood
The name Paul Engle trembles on his tongue.
Should it be bellowed, sneered, whined, bleated, sung?
Look at his broken (football) crooked nose,
His shifty way of letting his eyes close
When they look into your own eyes. Too
grim.
How could you buy an old used car from him?
Yet as a father what he
gave was love.
Yet as a husband what he gave was love.
He likes his liquor, but
his hands dont shake.
He talks too much, merely for
talkings sake.
He seldom bores you, but he makes you mad.
He is not really evil, only bad.
He likes all animals, dog, cat and woman
(For whom his love is humanall-too-human).
Some think him worse, now, than he really is.
Some think him better than he really is.
His hands still calloused from his working youth,
His brain is calloused bending too much truth.
Eyeball to eyeball, he
and his memory stare
As glittering mirrors into mirrors glare.
Let it be said of Engle
in his praise:
He loved his life-crammed, people-crowded days,
The rough of rock, the autumns hovering haze,
Skin rubbed on skin, the loving, living blaze,
Bird wing far brighter than the air it beats,
Cabbageworm greener than the leaf it eats,
The high hysteria that lies behind
The howling horror of the manic mind.
Let it be stated clearlyhe was cruel,
But only to the cruel and to the fool.
He liked to laugh, and yet he laughed too
loud.
He loathed the selfish, greedy, and proud
And told them so in
language of too much lip.
Each day his eyes run the fast razors track,
But see the radiant mirror sneering back.
Paul Engle (12 oktober 1908 25 maart 1991)
In 1961
De Amerkaanse schrijfster Ann Petry werd geboren op 12
oktober 1908 in Old Saybrook, Connecticut. Zie ook alle tags voor Ann Petry
op dit blog en ook mijn
blog van 12 oktober 2010.
Uit: The Street
The snow fell softly on the street. It
muffled sound. It sent people scurrying homeward, so that the street was soon
deserted, empty, quiet. And it could have been any street in the city, for the
snow laid a delicate film over the sidewalk, over the brick of the tired, old
buildings; gently obscuring the grime and the garbage and the ugliness.
(
)
She got off the
train, thinking that she never felt really human until she reached Harlem and
thus got away from the hostility in the eyes of the white women who stared at
her on the downtown street and in the subway. Escaped from the openly
appraising looks of the white men whose eyes seemed to go through her clothing
to her long brown legs. On the trains their eyes came at her furtively from
behind newspapers, or half-concealed under hatbrims or partly shielded by their
hands. And there was a warm, moist look about their eyes that made her want to
run.
These other folks feel the same way, she thought-that once they are freed from
the contempt in the eyes of the downtown world, they instantly become
individuals. Up here they are no longer creatures labeled simply 'colored' and
therefore all alike. She noticed that once the crowd walked the length of the
platform and started up the stairs toward the street, it expanded in size. The same people who had made themselves small
on the train, even on the platform, suddenly grew so large they could hardly
get up the stairs to the street together. She reached the street at the very
end of the crowd and stood watching them as they scattered in all directions,
laughing and talking to each other.
Ann
Petry (12 oktober 1908 28 april 1997)
De Franse schrijver Louis
Hemon werd geboren op 12 oktober 1880 in Brest in Bretagne. Zie ook alle tags voor Louis Hemon
op dit blog en eveneens mijn
blog van 12 oktober 2010.
Uit:
Maria Chapdelaine
Eh bien, monsieur Larouche, ça
marche-t-il toujours de lautre bord de leau ?
Pas pire, les jeunesses. Pas pire !
Chacun tirait de sa poche sa pipe et la vessie de porc pleine de feuilles de
tabac hachées à la main et commençait à fumer dun air de contentement,
après une heure et demie de contrainte. Tout en aspirant les premières
bouffées ils causaient du temps, du printemps qui venait, de létat de la
glace sur le lac Saint-Jean et sur les rivières, de leurs affaires et des
nouvelles de la paroisse, en hommes qui ne se voient guère quune fois la
semaine à cause des grandes distances et des mauvais chemins.
Le lac est encore bon, dit Cléophas Pesant, mais les rivières ne sont
déjà plus sûres. La glace sest fendue cette semaine à ras le banc de sable
en face de lîle, là où il y a eu des trous chauds tout lhiver.
Dautres commençaient à parler de la récolte probable, avant même que la
terre se fût montrée.
Je vous dis que lannée sera pauvre, fit un vieux, la terre avait gelé
avant les dernières neiges.
Puis les conversations se ralentirent et lon se tourna vers la première
marche du perron, doù Napoléon Laliberté se préparait à crier, comme
toutes les semaines, les nouvelles de la paroisse.
Il resta immobile et muet quelques instants, attendant le silence, les mains à
fond dans les poches de son grand manteau de loup-cervier, plissant le front et
fermant à demi ses yeux vifs sous la toque de fourrure profondément enfoncée
; et quand le silence fut venu, il se mit à crier les nouvelles de toutes ses forces,
de la voix dun charretier qui encourage ses chevaux dans une côte.
Louis Hemon (12
oktober 1880 - 8 juli 1913)
De Oostenrijkse dichteres en schrijfster Paula von Preradović
werd geboren op 12 oktober 1887 in Wenen. Zie ook alle tags voor Paula von Preradović op dit blog.
Requiem
Ach, Bruder, von den Buchten her die Brandung
schwoll,
Vom Hügel uns ein Duften schwer herüberquoll
Nach Thymian und Ginster und blauem Salbeikraut,
Aus finstergrüner Kiefer, da schrie ein Käuzchen
laut.
Zu Häupten hoch die Sterne, die flammten ohne
Zahl,
Sie schüttelten von ferne hernieder Strahl um
Strahl.
Uns fächelte die Wangen salziger Wind von weit,
Da wir zur Nacht gegangen gaßauf, gaßab zu zweit.
Wir redeten und glühten von Liebe, Gott und Tod,
Wir grübelten und mühten uns bis ans Morgenrot,
Und durch die Stille schmetterten hell unsre
Stimmen jung,
Da wir durchs Dickicht kletterten auf steiniger
Wanderung.
Verschwunden und versunken ist uns die Heimat
lang.
Es ist im Meer ertrunken, was leicht in Lüften
schwang.
Das himmlische Geflimmer verlosch im Nebelgrund,
Und, Bruder, ach, auf immer ist mir verstummt dein
Mund.
Paula von Preradović (12 oktober 1887 25 mei
1951)
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