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R e s p o n d e z !
Respondez! Respondez!
(The war is completed the price is paid the title is settled beyond recall;)
Let every one answer! let those who sleep be waked! let none evade!
Must we still go on with our affectations and sneaking?
Let me bring this to a close I pronounce openly for a new distribution of roles;
Let that which stood in front go behind! and let that which was behind advance to the front and speak;
Let murderers, bigots, fools, unclean persons, offer new propositions!
Let the old propositions be postponed!
Let faces and theories be turn’d inside out! let meanings be freely criminal, as well as results!
Let there be no suggestion above the suggestion of drudgery!
Let none be pointed toward his destination! (Say! do you know your destination?)
Let men and women be mock’d with bodies and mock’d with Souls!
Let the love that waits in them, wait! let it die, or pass stillborn to other spheres!
Let the sympathy that waits in every man, wait! or let it also pass, a dwarf, to other spheres!
Let contradictions prevail! let one thing contradict another! and let one line of my poems contradict another!
Let the people sprawl with yearning, aimless hands! let their tongues be broken! let their eyes be discouraged! let none descend into their hearts with the fresh lusciousness of love!
(Stifled, O days! O lands! in every public and private corruption!
Smother’d in thievery, impotence, shamelessness, mountain-high;
Brazen effrontery, scheming, rolling like ocean’s waves around and upon you, O my days! my lands!
For not even those thunderstorms, nor fiercest lightnings of the war, have purified the atmosphere;)
Let the theory of America still be management, caste, comparison! (Say! what other theory would you?)
Let them that distrust birth and death still lead the rest! (Say! why shall they not lead you?)
Let the crust of hell be neared and trod on! let the days be darker than the nights! let slumber bring less slumber than waking time brings!
Let the world never appear to him or her for whom it was all made!
Let the heart of the young man still exile itself from the heart of
the old man! and let the heart of the old man be exiled from that of the young man!
Let the sun and moon go! let scenery take the applause of the audience! let there be apathy under the stars!
Let freedom prove no man’s inalienable right! every one who can tyrannize, let him tyrannize to his satisfaction!
Let none but infidels be countenanced!
Let the eminence of meanness, treachery, sarcasm, hate, greed, indecency, impotence, lust, be taken for granted above all! let writers, judges, governments, households, religions, philosophies, take such for granted above all!
Let the worst men beget children out of the worst women!
Let the priest still play at immortality!
Let death be inaugurated!
Let nothing remain but the ashes of teachers, artists, moralists, lawyers, and learn’d and polite persons!
Let him who is without my poems be assassinated!
Let the cow, the horse, the camel, the garden-bee let the mudfish, the lobster, the mussel, eel, the sting-ray, and the grunting pig-fish let these, and the like of these, be put on a perfect equality with man and woman!
Let churches accommodate serpents, vermin, and the corpses of those who have died of the most filthy of diseases!
Let marriage slip down among fools, and be for none but fools!
Let men among themselves talk and think forever obscenely of women! and let women among themselves talk and think obscenely of men!
Let us all, without missing one, be exposed in public, naked, monthly, at the peril of our lives! let our bodies be freely handled and examined by whoever chooses!
Let nothing but copies at second hand be permitted to exist upon the earth!
Let the earth desert God, nor let there ever henceforth be mention’d the name of God!
Let there be no God!
Let there be money, business, imports, exports, custom, authority, precedents, pallor, dyspepsia, smut, ignorance, unbelief!
Let judges and criminals be transposed! let the prison-keepers be put in prison! let those that were prisoners take the keys! Say! why might they not just as well be transposed?)
Let the slaves be masters! let the masters become slaves!
Let the reformers descend from the stands where they are forever bawling! let an idiot or insane person appear on each of the stands!
Let the Asiatic, the African, the European, the American, and the Australian, go armed against the murderous stealthiness of each other! let them sleep armed! let none believe in good will!
Let there be no unfashionable wisdom! let such be scorn’d and derided off from the earth!
Let a floating cloud in the sky let a wave of the sea let growing mint, spinach, onions, tomatoes let these be exhibited as shows, at a great price for admission!
Let all the men of These States stand aside for a few smouchers! let the few seize on what they choose! let the rest gawk, giggle, starve, obey!
Let shadows be furnish’d with genitals! let substances be deprived of their genitals!
Let there be wealthy and immense cities but still through any of them, not a single poet, savior, knower, lover!
Let the infidels of These States laugh all faith away! If one man be found who has faith, let the rest set upon him!
Let them affright faith! let them destroy the power of breeding faith!
Let the she-harlots and the he-harlots be prudent! let them dance on, while seeming lasts! (O seeming! seeming! seeming!)
Let the preachers recite creeds! let them still teach only what they have been taught!
Let insanity still have charge of sanity!
Let books take the place of trees, animals, rivers, clouds!
Let the daub’d portraits of heroes supersede heroes!
Let the manhood of man never take steps after itself!
Let it take steps after eunuchs, and after consumptive and genteel persons!
Let the white person again tread the black person under his heel! (Say! which is trodden under heel, after all?)
Let the reflections of the things of the world be studied in mirrors! let the things themselves still continue unstudied!
Let a man seek pleasure everywhere except in himself!
Let a woman seek happiness everywhere except in herself! (What real happiness have you had one single hour through your whole life?)
Let the limited years of life do nothing for the limitless years of death! (What do you suppose death will do, then?)
Walt Whitman
(1819 – 1892)
Respondez!
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The Prisoner
All day I lie beneath the great pine tree,
Whose perfumed branches wave and shadow me.
I hear the groaning of its straining heart
As in the breeze its thin leaves meet and part
Like frantic fingers loosened and entwined;
I hear it whisper to the sighing wind,
“What of the mountain peaks, where I was born?”
As sharp tears drop I feel its falling thorn.
I see in the far clouds the wild geese fly,
Homeward once more, free, in the storm-swept sky.
Back to the land they loved, all, all, have gone,
How swift the flight by joy and hope led on.
“What of the mountain land where I was born?”
I cry, they pass, glad in the dawning morn,
Home to the moon-pale lake, the heath-clad hill,
And give no thought for one imprisoned still
All day I lie beneath the sad pine tree,
Whose groaning branches wave and shadow me,
Chained to the earth, the dark clay of the grave,
In helpless fashion feel its wild heart rave.
“Free, set free,” I hear its moaning breath,
Where liberty means naught, alas, but death
Ah, freedom is but death.
Dora Maria Sigerson Shorter
(1866 – 1918)
The Prisoner
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Sick I am and sorrowful
Sick I am and sorrowful, how can I be well again
Here, where fog and darkness are, and big guns boom all day,
Practising for evil sport? If you speak humanity,
Hatred comes into each face, and so you cease to pray.
How I dread the sound of guns, hate the bark of musketry,
Since the friends I loved are dead, all stricken by the sword.
Full of anger is my heart, full of rage and misery;
How can I grow well again, or be my peace restored?
If I were in Glenmalure, or in Enniskerry now,
Hearing of the coming spring in the pinetree’s song;
If I woke on Arran Strand, dreamt me on the cliffs of Moher,
Could I not grow gay again, should I not be strong?
If I stood with eager heart on the heights of Carrantuohill,
Beaten by the four great winds into hope and joy again,
Far above the cannons’ roar or the scream of musketry,
If I heard the four great seas, what were weariness or pain?
Were I in a little town, Ballybunion, Ballybrack,
Laughing with the children there, I would sing and dance once more,
Heard again the storm clouds roll hanging over Lugnaquilla,
Built dream castles from the sands of Killiney’s golden shore.
If I saw the wild geese fly over the dark lakes of Kerry
Or could hear the secret winds, I could kneel and pray.
But ’tis sick I am and grieving, how can I be well again
Here, where fear and sorrow are—my heart so far away?
Dora Maria Sigerson Shorter
(1866 – 1918)
Sick I am and sorrowful
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Op 9 maart 1941 begint de dan 27-jarige Etty Hillesum een dagboek. Terwijl de nazi’s haar als Joodse vrouw in Amsterdam steeds openlijker vervolgen, getuigt zij van een imponerende geestelijke vrijheid.
Haar aantekeningen over de liefde, erotiek, familierelaties, vriendschap, geloof, zinloze haat en lotsverbondenheid zijn hoogstpersoonlijk, zeldzaam eerlijk, en tegelijkertijd volstrekt universeel.
Sinds de eerste publicatie van haar dagboeken en brieven hebben de geschriften van Etty Hillesum (1914-1943) wereldwijd miljoenen lezers geïnspireerd. Maar wie was zij eigenlijk? Welke vrouw van vlees en bloed gaat schuil achter haar mooie woorden?
Judith Koelemeijer wist een schat aan nog onbekend materiaal te verzamelen. In deze biografie geeft zij een verrassend nieuw perspectief op Etty’s rusteloze jeugd, haar linkse studentenjaren, en haar uiteindelijke keuze om ‘het lot van haar volk te delen’ en niet onder te duiken. Etty Hillesum blijkt iemand met vele gezichten, getekend door een beladen familiegeschiedenis, waaraan zij zich tenslotte tóch weet te ontworstelen.
Etty Hillesum – Het verhaal van haar leven is de meeslepende geschiedenis van een jonge, gepassioneerde vrouw die ook onder de meest gruwelijke omstandigheden trouw bleef aan haar idealen en zichzelf.
Judith Koelemeijer (1967) is schrijver van literaire non-fictie. Zij brak in 2001 door met haar familiegeschiedenis Het zwijgen van Maria Zachea, waarvan meer dan 350.000 exemplaren werden verkocht. Ook haar volgende boeken, Anna Boom (2008) en het autobiografische Hemelvaart – Op zoek naar een verloren vriendin (2013) werden bestsellers. Haar werk werd onder meer bekroond met de NS Publieksprijs en het Gouden Ezelsoor/best verkochte literaire debuut.
Etty Hillesum Het verhaal van haar leven
Auteur: Judith Koelemeijer
ISBN: 9789463821742
512 pagina’s
Uitgever Balans
paperback
€34,95
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Loud Shout
The Flaming Tongues of war
Ta’n Sionac Ar Sraidib Ag Faire Go Caocrac
Air—“The West’s Asleep.”
Loud shout the flaming tongues of war.
The cannon’s thunder rolls afar
While Empires tremble for their fall.
Thou art alone amongst them all.
Where is the friend who for thy sake
Will on his sword thy freedom take?
The son who holds thy right alone
Above an Empire or a throne?
Ah, Grannia Wael, thy stricken head
Is bowed in sorrow o’er thy dead,
Thy dead who died for love of thee,
Not for some foreign liberty.
Shall we betray when hope is near,
Our Motherland whom we hold dear,
To go to fight on foreign strand,
For foreign rights and foreign land?
The Lion’s fangs have sought to kill
A Nation’s soul, a Nation’s will;
From tooth and claw thy wounded breast
Has held them safe, has held them blest.
About thy head great eagles are,
They fly with scream and storm of war,
Their shadows fall, we do not know
If they be friend,—if they be foe.
For Lion’s roar we have no fears,
We fought him down the restless years.
We watch the Eagles in the sky,
Lest they should land—or pass us by.
But, yet beware! the Lion goes
To strike our friends—to charm our foes.
By hamlet small, by hill and dale
The creeping foe is on our trail;
His face is kind, his voice is bland,
He prates of faith and fatherland;
Shall we go forth to die and die
For Belgium’s tear, and Serbia’s sigh?
Oh, Volunteers, through field and town
He seeks his prey, he tracks thee down
His voice is soft, his words are fair,
It is the creeping foe, Beware!
Ah, Grannia Wael, in blood and tears
We fought thy battles through the years,
That thou shouldst live we’re glad to die
In prison cell or gallows high.
Oh, cursed be he ! who to our shame
Drives forth thy manhood in thy name,
O, WHILE THE LION LAPS YOUR BLOOD
SHALL WE UNITE IN SERVITUDE.
Dora Maria Sigerson Shorter
(1866 – 1918)
Loud Shout The Flaming Tongues of war
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Sixteen Dead Men
Hark! in the still night. Who goes there?
“Fifteen dead men” Why do they wait?
“Hasten, comrade, death is so fair.”
Now comes their Captain through the dim gate.
Sixteen dead men! What on their sword?
“A nation’s honour proud do they bear.”
What on their bent heads? “God’s holy word;
All of their nation’s heart blended in prayer.”
Sixteen dead men! What makes their shroud?
“All of their nation’s love wraps them around.”
Where do their bodies lie, brave and so proud?
“Under the gallows-tree in prison ground.”
Sixteen dead men! Where do they go?
“To join their regiment, where Sarsfield leads;
Wolfe Tone and Emmet, too, well do they know.
There shall they bivouac, telling great deeds.”
Sixteen dead men! Shall they return?
“Yea, they shall come again, breath of our breath.
They on our nation’s hearth made old fires burn.
Guard her unconquered soul, strong in their death.”
Dora Maria Sigerson Shorter
(1866 – 1918)
Sixteen Dead Men
From The Tricolour: Poems of the Irish Revolution (1922)
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Ourselves Alone*
One morning, when dreaming in deep meditation,
I met a sweet colleen a-making her moan.
With sighing and sobbing she cried and lamented;
“Oh, where is my lost one, and where has he flown?
“My house it is small, and my field is but little,
Yet round flew my wheel as I sat in the sun,
He crossed the deep sea and went forth for my battle:
Oh, has he proved faithless—the fight is not won?”
And then I said: “Kathleen, ah! do you remember
When you were a queen, and your castles were strong,
You cried for the love of a cold-hearted stranger,
And in your fair island you planted the wrong?
“And oh,” I cried, “Kathleen, I once heard you weeping
And sighing and sobbing and making your moan.
You sang of a lost one, a dear one, a false one—
‘Oh, gone is my blackbird, and where has he flown?’
“Ah! many came forth to the sound of your crying,
And fought down the years for the freedom you pined.
How many lie still, in their cold exile sleeping,
Who sought in far lands your lost blackbird to find?
“And many are caught in the net of the stranger,
And all but forgotten the sound of your name,
For other loves call them to help and to save them:
They fell to dishonour—we hold them in shame.
“Oh, why drive me forth from your hearth into exile
And into far dangers? Your house is my own.
Faithful I serve, as I ever did serve you,
Standing together, ourselves—and alone.”
*Sinn Fein Amhain
Dora Maria Sigerson Shorter
(1866 – 1918)
Ourselves Alone
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Love In A Mist
Beneath an Ilfracombe machine,
While thunderstorms were raging,
Strephon and Chloe found the scene
Exceedingly engaging;
Though Mother Earth reproached the skies
With flinging pailfuls at her,
When Strephon looked in Chloe’s eyes
The weather didn’t matter.
When ‘Arry up on ‘Ampstead ‘Eath
Performed a double shuffle,
The rain above, the mud beneath,
His spirits failed to ruffle;
For ‘Arriet was by his side
In maddened mazes whirling
And little cared his promised bride
To see her plumes uncurling.
For one resplendent Summer morn
Young Edwin fondly waited,
Till Angelina grew forlorn
And quite emaciated.
When Hampton Court was like a sponge,
With mists their way beguiling,
He seized her hand and took the plunge,
And came up wet and smiling.
Jessie Pope
(1868 – 1941)
Love In A Mist
From: War Poems
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Captive Conquerors
OH! Stuttgart Frauleins, and capacious Fraus,
What shocking news is this that filters through?
Have you been fostering domestic rows
By casting, naughtily, glad eyes of blue
At poor old Tommy in his prison-house?
Tut! tut! This is a pretty how-d’ye do!
Anna and Gretchen, where’s your strength of mind?
Think of that khaki crowd whose force of arms
Bustles your goose-step legions from behind ;
These very captives should inspire alarms.
You are indeed disloyal and unkind .
To fall a prey to their dishevelled charms.
The gods have come among you, I admit,
To make your jealous Herren fume and fuss.
Unkempt, unshaven, rather short of kit,
The prisoners attract you even thus.
But, Fraus and Frauleins, what’s the use of it?
Their hearts, please understand, belong to us !
Jessie Pope
(1868 – 1941)
Captive Conquerors
From: War Poems
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The armed conflict in the east of Ukraine in 2017 brought about an emergence of a distinctive trend in contemporary Ukrainian poetry: the poetry of war.
Directly and indirectly, the poems collected in this volume engage with the events and experiences of war, reflecting on the themes of alienation, loss, dislocation, and disability; as well as justice, heroism, courage, resilience, generosity, and forgiveness.
In addressing these themes, the poems also raise questions about art, politics, citizenship, and moral responsibility. The anthology brings together some of the most compelling poetic voices from different regions of Ukraine. Young and old, female and male, somber and ironic, tragic and playful, filled with extraordinary terror and ordinary human delights, the voices recreate the human sounds of war in its tragic complexity.
Oksana Maksymchuk is an author of two award-winning books of poetry in the Ukrainian language, and a recipient of Richmond Lattimore and Joseph Brodsky-Stephen Spender translation prizes. She works on problems of cognition and motivation in Plato’s moral psychology. Maksymchuk teaches philosophy at the University of Arkansas.
Max Rosochinsky is a poet and translator from Simferopol, Crimea. His poems had been nominated for the PEN International New Voices Award in 2015. With Maksymchuk, he won first place in the 2014 Brodsky-Spender competition. His academic work focuses on twentieth century Russian poetry, especially Osip Mandelshtam and Marina Tsvetaeva.
Published by Academic Studies Press (Boston, MA) and Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute (Cambridge, MA), Words for War: New Poems from Ukraine is available in hardback, paperback, and digital ebook formats.
New Poems from Ukraine by:
Anastasia Afanasieva
Vasyl Holoborodko
Borys Humenyuk
Yuri Izdryk
Aleksandr Kabanov
Kateryna Kalytko
Lyudmyla Khersonska
Boris Khersonsky
Marianna Kiyanovska
Halyna Kruk
Oksana Lutsyshyna
Vasyl Makhno
Marjana Savka
Ostap Slyvynsky
Lyuba Yakimchuk
Serhiy Zhadan
# new poetry
Words for War: New Poems from Ukraine
Edited by Oksana Maksymchuk & Max Rosochinsky
with an introduction by Ilya Kaminsky and an afterword by Polina Barskova
Publisher: Academic Studies Press
Series: Ukrainian Studies
Pages: 242 pp.
16 illus. (color)
Publication Date: December 2017
English
ISBN: 9781618116666 (cloth) 32,99 euro
ISBN: 9781618118615 (paper) 24,99 euro
More information: https://www.wordsforwar.com/
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Sinds de Russische invasie in Oekraïne zijn duizenden burgers en militairen omgekomen en miljoenen Oekraïners hun land ontvlucht. Het Russische leger trekt op naar Oekraïense steden, waaronder hoofdstad Kyiv.
Het einde van deze oorlog is nog niet in zicht. Komende zondag betuigt PAX opnieuw haar solidariteit met het Oekraïense volk. Kom ook en sta zij aan zij met PAX tegen het oorlogsgeweld.
PAX is de grootste vredesorganisatie van Nederland. Zij werken aan de bescherming van burgers tegen oorlogsgeweld, aan het beëindigen van gewapend geweld en het opbouwen van inclusieve vrede. Dit doen ze in conflictgebieden wereldwijd, samen met lokale partners en mensen die, net als PAX, vinden dat iedereen recht heeft op een menswaardig leven in een vreedzame samenleving.
Steun Oekraïne en loop op zondag 6 maart 2022 om 14.00 uur mee vanaf de Dam in Amsterdam
PAX doet oproep aan alle strijdende partijen in Oekraïne om burgers te beschermen
Inzet kernwapens groot risico rond conflict Oekraïne
PAX roept op om het gebruik van clustermunitie te stoppen om burgerslachtoffers te voorkomen
# WEBSITE PAX NEDERLAND
https://paxvoorvrede.nl/wat-wij-doen
PAX strijdt zij aan zij met burgers voor vrede in conflictgebieden.
PAXVOORVREDE
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Coo-Ee
“Down under” boys on furlough are in town
Discharged from hospital, repaired and braced,
Their faces still retain, their native brown,
Their millinery captivates our taste.
They’ve proved themselves a terror to the Turk,
Of cut and thrust they bear full many a token,
But though they’ve been through grim, heartbreaking work,
The Anzac spirit never can be broken.
Their talk is picturesque, their manner frank,
A little hasty, what they think— they say—
They’ve got a down on arrogance and swank,
Passive submission doesn’t come their way.
Risk and adventure are their fondest joys,
If there’s a fight around, well, they’ll be in it—
To tell the truth, they really are “some” boys—
You get quite friendly with them in a minute.
Quite friendly, yes, no harm in being friends,
They must not find their furlough dull and tame,
But, girls, see to it there the matter ends,
And show thatLondongirls can play the game,
While of good comradeship you take your fill
Don’t use your power to make their hearts your plunder,
But let them pause, and hear when nights are still
The other girl who coo-ees from “down under.”
Jessie Pope
(1868 – 1941)
Coo-Ee
From: War Poems
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