Ar an lá seo 4 Nollaig: cailleadh Omar Khayyám

Titeann braoinín báistí san aigéan
de ghráinnín dusta déantar cuid den domhan
cad is brí le imeacht, teacht i réim?
cuileog a d'eitil tamall is nach bhfuil ann.

Ar an 4 Nollaig, 1131, cailleadh Omar Khayyám.

Ar an lá seo 3 Nollaig

Ar an lá seo, an 3 Nollaig, 1927, thaifid Blind Willie Johnson an t-amhrán Dark was the Night. Ní gnáth-amhrán é sa mhéid nach bhfuil focail á gcanadh aige. Aithris is ea é ar an bpraeitseálaí sa séipéal agus na fíréin á fhreagairt le héagaoineadh.

Margadh na Míol in Valparaíso

Gabriel Rosenstock

File, fear haiku, drámadóir, údar aistritheoir 170 leabhar, an chuid is mó acu sa Ghaeilge. Bíonn blag á scríobh aige chomh maith: roghaghabriel.blogspot.com/

Drámaí le Yeats, Frisch agus Beckett aistrithe aige chomh maith le rogha dánta le Francisco X. Alarcón, Seamus Heaney, Rabindranath Tagore, Günter Grass, W M Roggeman, Said, Zhang Ye, Michele Ranchetti, Michael Augustin, Peter Huchel, Georg Trakl, Georg Heym, Hansjörg Schertenleib, Hilde Domin, Johann P. Tammen, Munir Niazi, Ko Un, Günter Kunert, Iqbal, Michael Krüger, Kristiina Ehin, Nikola Madzirov, Agnar Artúvertin, Walter Helmut Fritz, K. Satchidanandan, Elke Schmitter, Hemant Divate, Dileep Jhaveri, Rati Saxena, Matthias Politycki agus Martin Walser. I measc na ngradam a bronnadh air tá an bonn Tamgha-I-Khidmat ó Rialtas na Pacastáine.

Poet, novelist, playwright, author/translator of 170 books, mostly in Irish. Taught haiku at the Schule für Dichtung (Poetry Academy), Vienna, and Hyderabad Literary Festival. Also writes for children, in prose and verse, and is the Irish-language translator with Walker Éireann. Represented in Best European Fiction 2012 (Dalkey Archive Press) and Haiku in English: The First Hundred Years (W. W. Norton & Co. 2013). Books Ireland, Summer 2012, says of his novel My Head is Missing:

‘This is a departure for Rosenstock but he is surefooted as he takes on the comic genre and writes a story full of engaging characters and a plot that keeps the reader turning the page.’

Forty years of poetic excellence, and a prodigious output, a breathtaking pageant of the poetic sublime! Gabriel Rosenstock is a force of fiery nature, sweeping across the world of dispossessed cultures, languages, and voices, of disfigured and forgotten histories and landscapes, bringing them alive in the embrace of his songs from the archetypal narratives, characters, and images to the smallest and the most subtle detail of everyday experience with spellbinding lyricism and charm. Here is indeed God’s plenty.

WAQAS KHWAJA

Rosenstock is so famously difficult to pin down, that one is slow to try to describe him at all. Indeed, this foxy elusiveness may be his defining feature.

POETRY INTERNATIONAL

Gabriel Rosenstock’s poetry is unique in the aesthetic resolution it achieves between the political and the metaphysical, the regional and the universal, the identification with the victims of injustice, neglect and exploitation and the celebration of Nature’s endless mystery: there are very few poets writing today who can equal him in his range of concerns, themes and forms as well as the simplicity that he achieves in the poetic expression of his integrated vision that is a mark of a rare meditative maturity.

K. SATCHIDANANDAN

I stíl, i ndearcadh, i gcur chuige tá sé neamhchosúil le héinne eile atá ag saothrú na teanga faoi láthair.

CATHAL Ó SEARCAIGH

The greatest living Irish lyric poet.

PETER VAN DE KAMP

Rosenstock’s poems have the stillness of paintings. They depict all the joy and sorrow that is this world of wonder.

MÍCHEÁL Ó hAODHA

Every national literature on this planet should be allowed one Rosenstock! Ba chóir Rosenstock amháin a bheith ag gach litríocht náisiúnta ar an bpláinéad seo!

SEÁN MAC MATHÚNA

His greatest gift to the Irish language poem is his stance as outsider.

LIAM Ó MUIRTHILE

Filíocht dhomhanda í filíocht Gabriel Rosenstock.
Gabriel Rosenstock’s poetry is world poetry.

ROBERT WELCH

Graifítí an Lae: Pyotr Kropotkin

Tá ár n-intinn chomh camtha sin ag an oideachas a fhaighimid go léir ón Stát, ar scoil agus ina dhiaidh sin, go dtéann nóisean féin na saoirse ar strae.

Pyotr Kropotkin (1824 - 1921)

2 Nollaig: Ar an lá seo, cailleadh Odetta Holmes

Ar an lá seo, 2 Nollaig, 2008, cailleadh Odetta Holmes i Nua-Eabhrac. Éist leis an leagan aici de Mr Tambourine Man de chuid Bhob Dylan. Tá a dhraíocht féin ag baint leis: 

Anois, can an leagan Gaeilge de! Athraigh siolla thall is abhus más maith leat. Ná bac cóipcheart! Is linne an teanga. Is linne an domhan!

'Fhir an Bhodhráin, hé!

CURFÁ:
 ’Fhir an bhodhráin, hé, can amhrán deas dúinn,
Mar níl néal orm is níl fonn orm bóthar a bhualadh.
’Fhir an bhodhráin, hé, can amhrán deas dúinn
Agus leanfad tríd an maidin thú go huaigneach.


Is tá impireacht na nóna ina gaineamh cheana féin
I bhfad i bhfad i gcéin
I mo staic anseo ach fós ní thagann néal,
Táim traochta agus alltacht orm, mo chos go daingean fúm
Ní thagann éinne chugam
Is tá an tsráid ró-lom ró-ársa lena samhlú

CURFÁ


Is tóg ar imram mé ar do long atá ar strae
Táim bodhar is táim dall, níl mothú i mo lámh,
Mo mhéara táid leathmharbh, is tá ana-fhonn imeachta
Ar mo bhróga.
Soir is siar is cuma liom, táim ullamh le dul as
Im pharáidse féin go pras, seol áthas chugam go fras
Is geallaim bheith i bpáirt leis


CURFÁ

Cé go gcloisfeá sceitimíní agus gaetha geala ón ngrian
Ná ceap go bhfuilim dian, ag éalú atáim ón bpian
Seachas spéir níl fál ar bith ar Éirinn.
Is má chloiseann tú burdúinín nó dáinín nó haiku
Fear grinn ’tá ann arú, is níl uaidh gan dabht ach scriú
(Dá bhodhrán an dtuigeann tú), b’fhéidir nach bhfuil ann ach
Saoi – nó ‘b’fhéidir éigsín

CURFÁ

Beir leat mé ag rámhaillí trí aigne an cheo
Go dtí na laethanta fadó, na duilleoga is iad ag reo,
Na crainn is iad ag feo, amach go Dún an Óir,
An brón ag dul thar fóir, ag dul le báiní.
Uch! Rincimis faoin spéir gheal ghorm, leathlámh ag sméideadh léi
Na tonnta móra glé, is an gaineamh lán de ghreann
Is gach cuimhne is gach dán ’mithe síos go tóin poill
Fág slán le gach aon lá go dtí amárach.

CURFÁ

Graifítí an Lae: Rosa Parks

Ba mhaith liom go gcuimhneofaí orm mar dhuine ar theastaigh uaithi a bheith saor.

Rosa Parks (1913 -2005)

Ar an lá seo, 1 Nollaig: Rugadh Julia Moore

Éireannaigh ab ea tuismitheoirí William McGonagall, an file ba mheasa a bhí riamh ann, más fíor. Ach maíonn na Meiriceánaigh go bhfuil éigsín acu féin a bhí chomh dona leis, agus an spéis chéanna aici i dtimpistí agus i mbásanna. Julia Moore ab ainm di a rugadh ar an gcéad lá de mhí na Nollag, 1847. Is ar an 5 Meitheamh 1920 a bhuail sí leis an Léirmheastóir mór sa spéir. N’fheadar ar de phór Éireannach í? Pé scéal é, McGonagall is Moore,  is dócha gur timpistí véarsaíochta an cur síos is fearr a dhéanfá ar a gcuid dánta. Sliocht as dán léi, Ashtabula Disaster, anseo thíos.

 

 

Ashtabula Disaster

Fonn: "Gently Down the Stream of Time"

Have you heard of the dreadful fate
Of Mr. P. P. Bliss and wife?
Of their death I will relate,
And also others lost their life;
Ashtabula Bridge disaster,
Where so many people died
Without a thought that destruction
Would plunge them 'neath the wheel of tide…

Agus mar sin de. Is breá liom é 'Mr P. P. Bliss and wife', go ndéana Dia grásta orthu. Ní fhéadfá é a chumadh, mar a deir siad!

Anois, cé hé an file Gaeilge is measa a bhí riamh ann? Tá a fhios agamsa ach nílim chun mo bhéal a oscailt!