May 8
Events:
Exeter- - 6:30 p.m. - Water Street Bookstore, Poetry Reading with featured readers-High School Poets, followed by open mic. Contact John Ferguson, 778 9731.
Durham (every Wednesday night) The Freedom Cafe open mic--music and poetry ;7-10 pm. Sean.freedomcafenetwork.org.
https://www.facebook.com/TheFreedomCafeatUNH).
Born:
0508
Francis Quarles (1592 – 09/08/1644) Eng Clark/ writer
http://www.poemhunter.com/francis-quarles/
Edward Gibbon (1737 – 01/16/1794) English historian The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776-1788).
http://kirjasto.sci.fi/egibbon.htm
http://www.edwardgibbonstudies.com/Decline-Fall5.htm
Charles Wadsworth (1814 – 04/01/1882) US clergy[muse of Emily Dickinson]
http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/a_f/dickinson/bio.htm
Frank Wheaton 1833 -1903 Brevet Major General (Union Army),
Bryan Morel 1836 -07/16/1905 Thomas Brigadier General (Confederate Army),
Harry S Truman (1884 – 12/26/1972) US President (33), VP (34)
http://millercenter.org/president/truman
Arnold Hauser (1892-01/28/1978) Hungarian-born British writer on the history of art and film. The Social History of Art.
http://kirjasto.sci.fi/hauser.htm
Bishop Fulton J. Sheen (1895 – 12/10/1979) America's Bishop
http://www.archbishopsheencause.org/
Edmund Wilson (1895 – 06/12/1972) US literary critic, journalist, and polyglot
http://webpage.pace.edu/dcastronovo/edmundwilson/
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/04/books/review/04TOIBIN.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Irene Hunt (1907-2001) children and YA author
http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/h/irene-hunt/
George Woodcock (1912 – January 28, 1995) Canadian writer of political biography and history, an anarchist thinker, an essayist and literary critic- also a poet, and published several volumes of travel writing.
http://canlit.ca/woodcock
http://www.amazon.com/George-Woodcock/e/B001HOPBTS
Saima Harmaja (1913-04/21/37) Finnish poet
http://kirjasto.sci.fi/harmaja.htm
http://www.booksfromfinland.fi/author/saimaharmaja/
Romain Gary (1914-12/2/1980) French writer (Nothing Important Ever Dies (1960).)
http://kirjasto.sci.fi/rgary.htm
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0308900/
Sloan Wilson (1920 – 05/25/2003) US writer (Man In The Grey Flannel Suit)1955
http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/w/sloan-wilson/
Saul Bass (1920 – April 25, 1996) American graphic designer and Oscar winning filmmaker, design of motion picture title sequences, film posters, and corporate logos.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000866/
http://www.aiga.org/medalist-saulbass/
Mona Van Duyn (1921-12/02/2004 ) US Poet; Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, Poet Laureate of the United States
http://allpoetry.com/Mona_Van_Duyn
A Kind of Music
When consciousness begins to add diversity to its intensity,
its value is no longer absolute and inexpressible. The felt variations
in its tone are attached to the observed movement of
its objects; in these objects its values are embedded. A world
loaded with dramatic values may thus arise in imagination;
terrible and delightful presences may chase one another
across the void; life will be a kind of music made by all the
senses together. Many animals probably have this kind of
experience.
--Santayana
Irrelevance characterizes the behavior of our puppy.
In the middle of the night he decides that he wants to play,
runs off when he's called, when petted is liable to pee,
cowers at a twig and barks at his shadow or a tree,
grins at intruders and bites us in the leg suddenly.
No justification we humans have been able to see
applies to his actions. While we go by the time of day,
or the rules, or the notion of purpose or consistency,
he follows from moment to moment a sensuous medley
that keeps him both totally subject and totally free.
I'll have to admit, though, we've never been tempted to say
that he jumps up to greet us or puts his head on our knee
or licks us or lies at our feet irrelevantly.
When it comes to loving, we find ourselves forced to agree
all responses are reasons and no reason is necessary.
http://www.randomhouse.com/knopf/authors/vanduyn/poem.html
Louise Meriwether (1923-); US writer of juvenile biographies
http://www.bookrags.com/biography/louise-meriwether-dlb/
http://www.amazon.com/Louise-Meriwether/e/B001HORGZ0
Don Rickles (1926 – ) US comic
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0725543/
George Lamming 1927- Barbadian novelist, critic, and social commentator
http://www.amazon.com/George-Lamming/e/B000AQTEII/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/lamming.htm
Theodore Chaikin "Ted" Sorensen 1928– October 31, 2010) American presidential advisor, lawyer and writer, best known as President John F. Kennedy’s special counsel, adviser and legendary speechwriter. author (1000 Days)
http://www.ontheissues.org/Sorensen_Kennedy.htm
Gary Snyder , 1930- US Ren / Environmentalist , Zen Poet; Pulitzer Prize for poetry
http://www.garysnyderart.com/
http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/1323/the-art-of-poetry-no-74-gary-snyder
Sonny Liston (1932 – 12/30/1970) US boxer
http://boxrec.com/list_bouts.php?human_id=9031&cat=boxer
Françoise Cachin (1936 –02/04/2011 ) French writer and museum director
http://everymorningatnine.typepad.com/blog/2011/02/impression-and-impressionism-fran%C3%A7oise-cachin-and-the-mus%C3%A9e-dorsay.html
Thomas (Ruggles) )Pynchon, (1937- ) US novelist- V. (1963), Gravity's Rainbow (1973), and Against the Day (2006), Inherent Vice (2009).
http://isthistomorrow.com/archive/pynchon.html
Mœbius Jean Henri Gaston Giraud (1938 – 10 March 2012) French comics artist, working in the French tradition of bandes dessinées.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0320786/
Peter Benchley (1940-2006) US novelist
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001940/
Lawrence Raab 1946- American poet
http://www.speechlessthemagazine.org/raab%20poems.htm
Beth Elizabeth Becker Henley (1952 – ) US playwright /writer
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0377107/bio
Naomi Klein, 1970- writer and journalist
http://www.thenation.com/authors/naomi-klein
Roddy Doyle, 1958- Irish novelist Booker Prize Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha. 1993; the Barrytown Trilogy: The Commitments (1987), The Snapper (1990), and The Van (1991)
http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/d/roddy-doyle/
Passed:
0508
John Lovewell (Oct 14, 1691 -1725) US Indian fighter /between the English and the Abenakis of Maine
http://www.hwlongfellow.org/poems_poem.php?pid=2095
Richard Jago (October 1, 1715 –1781) English poet
http://theotherpages.org/poems/jago01.html#roundelay
John Stuart Mill (05/20/1806 –1873) English philosopher, economist
http://www.bartleby.com/224/0107.html
Jones Very (Aug [22 or ] 28, 1813 - 1880) American essayist, poet, clergymen, and mystic associated with the American Transcendentalism movement.
Columbine
Still, still my eye will gaze long fixed on thee,
Till I forget that I am called a man,
And at thy side fast-rooted seem to be,
And the breeze comes my cheek with thine to fan.
Upon this craggy hill our life shall pass, —
A life of summer days and summer joys, —
Nodding our honey-bells mid pliant grass
In which the bee, half-hid. his time employs ;
And here we '11 drink with thirsty pores the rain,
And turn dew-sprinkled to the rising sun,
And look when in the flaming west again
His orb across the heaven its path has run ;
Here left in darkness on the rocky steep,
My weary eyes shall close like folding flowers in sleep.
http://archive.org/stream/jonesvery00very/jonesvery00very_djvu.txt
Gustave Flaubert (12/12/1821 –1880) French writer Madame Bovary (1857)
http://kirjasto.sci.fi/flaubert.htm
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0281306/
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2413/2413-h/2413-h.htm
Madame Helene Petrovna Blavatsky (08/12/1831 –1891) Russian writer, mystic
http://www.crystalinks.com/blavatsky.html
Paul Gauguin (06/07/1848 –1903) French painter
http://www.notablebiographies.com/Fi-Gi/Gauguin-Paul.html
Oswald Spengler (05/29/1880-1936) German philosopher The Decline of the West (1918-1922)
http://kirjasto.sci.fi/spengle.htm
http://archive.org/search.php?query=creator%3A%22Oswald+Arnold+Gottfried+Spengler%22
Gilles Villeneuve January 18, 1950 -1982 Canadian auto racer
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/18690210
Theodore Sturgeon (02/26/1918 –1985) US writer
http://www.physics.emory.edu/~weeks/sea/bibliography.html
Robert A. Heinlein (07/07/1907 –1988) US writer
http://www.heinleinsociety.org/
Guadalupe "Pita" Amor, 1918-2000 Mexican poet
http://redescolar.ilce.edu.mx/redescolar/publicaciones/publi_quepaso/pita_amor.htm
Maurice Bernard Sendak (June 10, 1928 –2012) American illustrator and writer of children's books. Where the Wild Things Are, 1963.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/dec/22/maurice-sendak-obituary-tony-kushner
Sites:
http://www.nepoetryclub.org/events.htm
http://press.uchicago.edu/index.html
http://www.scribd.com/doc/41197555/41131059-MoC-Memo-What-to-Tell-Your-Constituents-in-Answer-to-Obama-Eligibility
http://www.arlo.net/
http://palomapottery.com/
http://post.queensu.ca/~smartc/writings.html
http://io9.com/watch-what-happens-when-you-wring-out-a-washcloth-in-sp-476159356
History:
0508
1846- General Zachary Taylor defeated a detachment of the Mexican army
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/today/today.html
1886- at Jacob's Pharmacy in Atlanta, Georgia,Dr. John S. Pemberton sold the first Coca-Cola
http://us.coca-cola.com/
http://www.whiterocking.org/santa.html#article
1933- Dylan Thomas "And death shall have no dominion," by Dylan Thomas appeared in New English Weekly New English Weekly.
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/32673/32673-h/32673-h.htmDylan Thomas
1958- President Eisenhower orders National Guard out of Central HS, Little Rock
http://www.americaslibrary.gov/aa/eisenhower/aa_eisenhower_littlerock_1.html
Bonus Poem:
A Bonus
That day i finished
A small piece
For an obscure magazine
I popped it in the box
And such a starry elation
Came over me
That I got whistled at in the street
For the first time in a long time.
I was dirty and roughly dressed
And had circles under my eyes
And far far from flirtation
But so full of completion
Of a deed duly done
An act of consummation
That the freedom and force it engendered
Shone and spun
Out of my old raincoat.
It must have looked like love
Or a fabulous free holiday
To the young men sauntering
Down Berwick Street.
I still think this is most mysterious
For while I was writing it
It was gritty it felt like self-abuse
Constipation, desperately unsocial.
But done done done
Everything in the world
Flowed back
Like a huge bonus.
Elizabeth Smart
http://www.poemhunter.com/elizabeth-smart/poems/
http://www.poetsgraves.co.uk/smart.htm
This is a book of free verse poetry that addresses the seven main tests in life and offers some sensible solutions to passing those tests with minimal discomfort.
WHISPERS OF THE HEART is artist and author J. Allen Wilson's second book of poetry.It can be autographed and shipped within 48 hours of order. NO LONGER AVAILABLE.