Nou ja, toe. Via ‘n skakel op die Poetry Foundation se webblad land ek op die weblog Wonkette waar ek ‘n berig oor Jimmy Carter as digter van erotiese verse raaklees. Slaan my met ‘n verlepte aronskelk! Dat dié voormalige grondboontjieboer uit Georgia – en een van die mees ongewilde presidente in die VSA óóít – hom nou waaragtig tot die publikasie van ‘n digbundel, Always a reckoning, begeef het, is omtrent verpletterende nuus … Boonop met gedigte wat deur die betrokke beriggewer as “eroties” beskryf word.
Ek haal aan: “Jimmy Carter has been writing poetry for years now, and you can find many examples in a book titled Always a Reckoning and Other Poems. The former President would have you believe that he writes poems on topics like ‘People,’ ‘Places,’ and ‘Politics’ in a style that is more or less plain, earnest prose broken up into lines.
The reality is that most of the poems are allegories about deviant sex.
The collection opens with an ode to some sex goddess named ‘Rachel.’ It begins:
My young life, shaped by those I loved,
felt the gentle touch of Rachel Clark,
our neighbor on the farm, whose husband, Jack,
cared for the barn and did the kind of work
that we boys most admired.
I know. You can already see where this is going. While Jack is away minding the ho’s, Rachel begins an affair with the young poet, and the whole thing ends with Rachel and Jack turning the poor lad into a round-the-clock concubine, feeding him an endless stream of Turkish coffee to keep him awake and forcing him to engage in all manner of dildo performance art.”
Vreemd genoeg is dié bundel nie beskikbaar vir verspreiding buite die grense van die VSA nie … En ek wonder hoekom nie? Miskien as ‘n gebaar van skadebeheer? Of is dit dalk om ‘n voormalige ikoon teen homself te beskerm ten opsigte van sy internasionale reputasie en aansien? Hoe dit ook al sy, vir jou leesplesier plaas ek ‘n gedig uit die genoemde bundel onder aan vanoggend se Nuuswekker.
Sug. Wat’s volgende?
***
Vanoggend kan ons darem weer op twee bydraes fokus: Vrouwkje Tuinman vertel van haar leesgewoontes terwyl Desmond Painter dit weer oor spanningsverhaalskrywers het.
Hê pret met hierdie dag.
Mooi bly.
LE
Why We Get Cheaper Tires from Liberia
The miles of rubber trees bend from the sea.
Each of the million acres cost a dime
nearly two Liberian lives ago.
Sweat, too,
has poured like sap from trees, almost free,
from men coerced to work by poverty
and leaders who had sold the people’s fields.
The plantation kiln’s pink bricks
made the homes of overseeing whites
a corporation’s pride
Walls of the same polite bricks divide
the worker’s tiny stalls
like cells in honeycombs;
no windows breach the walls,
no pipes or wires bring drink or light
to natives who can never claim this place as theirs
by digging in the ground.
No churches can be built,
no privy holes or even graves
dug in the rolling hills
for those milking Firestone’s trees, who die
from mamba and mosquito bites.
I asked the owners why.
The cost of land, they said, was high.
© Jimmy Carter (Uit: Always a Reckoning, Crown Publishers)