MONDAY, 18 FEBRUARY 2002
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Poem: "In the Ancient Tradition," and "Dilemma," by David Budbill from Moment to Moment: Poems of a Mountain Recluse (Copper Canyon Press).

In the Ancient Tradition

I live within the ancient tradition:
the poet as mountain recluse,
withdrawn and hidden,
a life of genteel poverty,
a quiet life of meditation,

which gives me lots of time
to gnash my teeth and worry over
how I want to be known and read
by everyone and have admirers
everywhere and lots of money!

Dilemma

I want to be
famous
so I can be
humble
about being
famous.

What good is my
humility
when I am
stuck
in this
obscurity?

It's the birthday of novelist Toni Morrison, born Chloe Anthony Wofford, in Lorain, Ohio (1931), who won the Nobel Prize for Literature (1993). Her first novel, The Bluest Eye (1970), was about a black teenage girl who's obsessed with white standards and longs to have blue eyes. Beloved, winner of the Pulitzer Prize (1987), was based on a true story of a runaway slave who, just as she is recaptured, kills her baby daughter to spare her from slavery. Toni Morrison, who said: "I always get up and make a cup of coffee while it is still dark-it must be dark-and then I drink the coffee and watch the light come. …Writers all devise ways to approach that place where they expect to make the contact, where they become the conduit, or where they engage in this mysterious process. For me, light is the signal in the transition. It's not being in the light, it's being there before it arrives. It enables me, in some sense."

It's the birthday of editor and writer Helen Gurley Brown, born in Green Forest, Arkansas (1922). Her first book, Sex and the Single Girl (1962), was an immediate hit. In brief, her advice to single women was, "Be smart, be charming, and be good in bed." Three years later (1965), Brown was named editor of the languishing women's magazine Cosmopolitan, which she quickly revamped into a slick, extended advice column for young, single, urban working women.

It's the birthday of novelist Wallace Stegner, born in Lake Mills, Iowa (1909). His novels were mostly set in the American West: Angle of Repose (1971-Pulitzer Prize); Big Rock Candy Mountain (1943); The Spectator Bird (1976-National Book Award); and Crossing to Safety (1987). He also wrote several works of historical nonfiction set in the Western United States, including Mormon Country (1942) and Beyond the Hundredth Meridian (1954). He died in Santa Fe in 1993. He said, "I may not know who I am, but I know where I'm from."

It's the birthday of Surrealist writer André Breton, born in Tinchebray, France (1896). In his novel Nadja (1928), Breton defined Surrealist thought as "Pure psychic automatism, by which it is intended to express, whether verbally or in writing, or in any other way, the real process of thought."

It's the birthday of Yiddish humorist and writer Sholem Aleichem, born Sholem Yakov Rabinowitz, in Pereyaslav, Ukraine (1859). At 24 he published his first book in Yiddish, and would produce more than 40 such volumes during the remaining 33 years of his life. He was a great supporter of all things Yiddish including other Yiddish writers and a newspaper he edited. He also wrote Yiddish stories for children, and helped found the Yiddish Art Theater in New York, two years before he died. A collection of his short stories was adapted as the libretto for the musical comedy The Fiddler on the Roof (1964).

TUESDAY, 19 FEBRUARY 2002
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Poem: "Home Again," by Billy Collins from Picnic, Lightning (University of Pittsburgh Press).

Home Again

The black porcelain lamp
painted with boughs of cherry blossoms
still stands on its end table,
unlit, the little chain untouched,
just the way I left it,

just the way it remained while I was off
leaning into the prow of a boat,
doused with spray, heading for a limestone island,
or sitting at the base of a high Celtic cross
eating a green apple.

While I balanced a pan of hot water on a stone wall
and shaved outside a cottage
overlooking the Irish Sea,
this stack of books, this chair, and paperweight
were utterly still, as they are now.

And you, red box of matches on the floor,
you waited here too, faithful as Penelope,
while I saw the tiny fields
disappear under the wing of my plane,
or swam up and down the flowing Corrib River.

As I lay in a meadow near Ballyvaughan,
ankles crossed, arms behind my head,
watching clouds as they rolled in-
billowing, massive, Atlantic-fresh-

you all held your places in these rooms,
stuck to your knitting,
waited for me to stand here again,
bags at my feet, house key still in hand,
admiring your constancy,
your silent fealty, your steadfast repose.

It's the birthday of novelist Amy Tan, born in Oakland, California (1952). When she was thirty-five years old, she took her mother to China to visit her half-sisters and to learn more about her heritage. Out of that experience came Tan's first novel, The Joy Luck Club (1989). Other novels followed, including The Kitchen God's Wife (1991), The Hundred Secret Senses (1995), and The Bonesetter's Daughter (2001).

It's the birthday of novelist and short-story writer Carson McCullers, born in Columbus, Georgia (1917). Her original intention was to study music, and she came to New York at the age of 17 to attend Julliard. But she lost her wallet and her tuition fees, so she got a job and took writing classes at Columbia University. Her first and most critically acclaimed novel, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (1940), concerns four lonely misfits in a small town in Georgia. Her best-known work, The Member of the Wedding (1946), is the story of a thirteen-year-old girl who is jealous of her brother's impending wedding. Other works include Reflections in a Golden Eye (1941), and The Ballad of the Sad Café (1951). She suffered from poor health all her life, and had several strokes that left her partially paralyzed.

It's the birthday of writer Kay Boyle, born in St. Paul, Minnesota (1902), who spent much of her childhood in Europe, her teenage years in the United States, and then returned to Europe when she was twenty-one. She won two O. Henry Memorial Awards for her short stories "The White Horses of Vienna" (1936), and "Defeat" (1941), and was a foreign correspondent for The New Yorker after World War Two.

It's the birthday of astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus, born in Torun, Poland (1473). He laid the foundation for modern astronomy by disputing the widely held belief that the earth was the center of the universe. Instead, he pronounced that Earth, and the other planets, revolved around the Sun. This theory caused profound shock and a revolution in scientific and philosophical thought.

WEDNESDAY, 20 FEBRUARY 2002
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Poem: "The Instrument," by Robert Winner from The Sanity of Earth and Grass (Tilbury House).

The Instrument

I've seen the mahogany grow pale
under the huge shoulders of pianists,
the curved beams brace themselves.

Such an army, so many games of chess
on the infinity of the keyboard, so much
access and self-disclosure…

It's like climbing in a forest
formed by your own hands, or singing
with your armpits, groin and heels…
it's playing Mozart in the Amazon
to a naked wondering people.

Music-the world that might be,
and yet the world as it is. The heart
comes out of hiding, saying to us:
"Listen, you can say anything you want now.
Here is the instrument."

It's the birthday of South African writer Alex La Guma, born in Cape Town, South Africa (1925). He grew up in an impoverished black neighborhood, the son of a political activist. He wrote dozens of novels, short stories, and essays, combining pieces of his own life story with criticisms of his country's policies. Imprisoned for several years in South Africa, he spent his later life in London and in Cuba as the representative of the African National Congress.

It's the birthday of novelist and short-story writer Pierre Boulle, born in Avignon, France (1912). Boulle was on an intelligence mission in Indochina in World War Two when he was captured by the Japanese and sentenced to forced labor. This experience was the inspiration for one of his best-known works, The Bridge over the River Kwai (1952; filmed in 1957). At the end of the film, the bridge is destroyed, which does not happen in the novel. Boulle was not pleased. He said, "For three years I fought them over this change. In the end I gave up. Now I don't bother. I just take the money and shrug." He also took the money for the filming of his novel, Planet of the Apes (1963; filmed 1968).

It's the birthday of bacteriologist René Dubos, born in Saint-Brice, France (1901). In 1939 he discovered tyrothricin, the first commercially produced antibiotic.

It's the birthday of boogie-woogie pioneer Jimmy Yancey (James Edward Yancey), born in Chicago (1898). He was a mainstay in the jazz and blues circles in Chicago, playing at after-hours joints and rent parties. Piano pieces such as "Yancey Stomp," and "State Street Special," were his signature songs. No matter what key he played in, he ended every song in the key of E flat. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986, but, despite his success as a musician, he earned his living for 26 years as a groundskeeper at Comiskey Park for the Chicago White Sox.

It's the birthday of playwright and producer Russel Crouse, born in Findlay, Ohio (1893). His writing partnership with Howard Lindsay lasted twenty-eight years. They first teamed up to salvage the book for Cole Porter's musical "Anything Goes." Perhaps most famous as the librettists for "The Sound of Music," they also adapted Clarence Day's "Life with Father."

It's the birthday of novelist Georges Bernanos, born in Paris, France (1888). His best-known work was The Diary of a Country Priest (1937). He also wrote a number of pamphlets attacking the Fascists during the Spanish Civil War, and a play, Dialogues of the Carmelites (1938).

THURSDAY, 21 FEBRUARY 2002
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Poem: "Inscription for a War," A.D. Hope from Collected Poems: 1930-1970 (Harper Collins Australia).

Inscription for a War

Stranger, go tell the Spartans
we died here obedient to their commands.
-Inscription at Thermopylae

Linger not, stranger; shed no tear;
Go back to those who sent us here.

We are the young they drafted out
To wars their folly brought about.

Go tell those old men, safe in bed,
We took their orders and are dead.

It's the birthday of newspaper columnist and best-selling author Erma Bombeck, born in Dayton, Ohio (1927). After graduating college she became a columnist for the Dayton Journal Herald. She soon left that position to stay home and raise her children. When her third child started school, Bombeck returned to her writing because she was, as she put it, "too old for a paper route, too young for Social Security, and too tired for an affair." She went on to write several best-selling books, including The Grass is Always Greener over the Septic Tank (1976) and If Life is a Bowl of Cherries-What Am I Doing in the Pits? (1978). Bombeck, who said: "It goes without saying that you should never have more children than you have car windows."

On this day in 1925, the first issue of the New Yorker magazine came out.

It's the birthday of poet W(ystan) H(ugh) Auden, born in York, England (1907). He moved to America in the late 1930s and became an American citizen. He wrote many, many poems and was the librettist for Benjamin Britton's opera Paul Bunyan, as well as for Igor Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress.

It's the birthday of writer and diarist Anais Nin, born in Neuilly, France (1903), who is probably most famous for writings that were never intended for public viewing. During her lifetime, Nin wrote more than thirty-five thousand pages of diaries, spanning the years from 1914 to 1974. Even though she had published essays, criticism, and fiction since the 1930s, she came to literary prominence in America in 1966 when the first volume of her diary was published. She was a woman who had a good deal to write in her diaries: she had passionate love affairs with both Henry Miller (author of Tropic of Cancer) and his wife, June.

It's the birthday of writer Raymond Queneau, born in Le Havre, France (1903). Influenced by the Surrealist movement in the 1920s, Queneau was the first French novelist to write language the way it was spoken on the street, regardless of syntax and grammar. His book, Exercises in Style (1947), recounts a brief and ordinary encounter on a bus ninety-nine different ways, including in prose, in free verse, as a sonnet, and as a play. His best-known work is Zazie (1959; filmed by Louis Malle in 1960).

It's the birthday of publisher Charles Scribner, born in New York City (1821). With Isaac Baker he founded the publishing firm of Baker and Scribner, which was called Charles Scribner's Sons from 1878. The firm published such prominent American authors as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Edith Wharton, Ernest Hemingway, and Thomas Wolfe.

FRIDAY, 22 FEBRUARY 2002
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Poem: "Spring," by Edna St. Vincent Millay from Collected Poems (Harper Collins).

Spring

To what purpose, April, do you return again?
Beauty is not enough.
You can no longer quiet me with the redness
Of little leaves opening stickily.
I know what I know.
The sun is hot on my neck as I observe
The spikes of the crocus.
The smell of the earth is good.
It is apparent that there is no death.
But what does that signify?
Not only under ground are the brains of men
Eaten by maggots.
Life in itself
Is nothing,
An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs.
It is not enough that yearly, down this hill,
April
Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.

It's the birthday of humorist and cartoonist Edward Gorey, born in Chicago, Illinois (1925). He's known for his macabre pen and ink drawings and stories such as The Gashlycrumb Tinies which included the lines:

A is for Amy who fell down the stairs
B is for Basil assaulted by bears…
U is for Uma who slipped down a drain
V is for Victor squashed under a train.

It's the birthday of novelist, playwright, and short-story writer Jane Bowles, born in New York City (1917). She suffered from depression and drank heavily, so she didn't publish a great deal. Her best known work is probably her play In the Summer House (1953).

It's the birthday of writer Seán O'Faoláin, born in Cork, Ireland (1900). He's known especially for his short stories about Ireland's working class, and for his early novels: A Nest of Simple Folk (1933) and Bird Alone (1936).

It's the birthday of writer Meridel Le Sueur, born in Murray, Iowa (1900). She was an icon of feminist, left-wing fiction for books such as Harvest (1977) and Ripening (1982).

It's the birthday of poet and playwright Edna St. Vincent Millay, born in Rockland, Maine (1892). She was as famous for her bohemian lifestyle in Greenwich Village as for her work. Millay was the author of the famous lines: "My candle burns at both ends / It will not last the night / But, ah, my foes, and, oh, my friends / It gives a lovely light." She wrote steadily until her death in 1950 at her home in upstate New York, called Steepletop, now a National Historic Landmark. Since 1973, it has housed the Millay Colony for the Arts, a retreat for writers and composers.

It's the birthday of the first editor of the Atlantic Monthly, poet and critic James Russell Lowell, born in Cambridge, Massachusetts (1819).

It's the birthday of philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, born in Danzig, Prussia-now Gdansk, Poland (1788). He was a rival of Hegel's, and wrote works refuting Hegel's philosophy. Schopenhauer believed that we live in a world of continual strife and that the "will," our inner nature, inevitably leads to pain and suffering unless we are able to renounce desire and assume an attitude of resignation. He was a great influence on the literature of Thomas Mann, the music of Richard Wagner, and the psychology of Sigmund Freud.

SATURDAY, 23 FEBRUARY 2002
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Poem: "Wifery," by Suzanne Matson from Durable Goods (Alice James Books).

Wifery

After the gentle click of the latch behind him
the house readjusts to a new order,
its details trembling on a string of lists:
walk to the market, walk to the cleaners, start stew.
She is testing a life as readymade for her
as love, how the shape of someone's
shoulders suddenly come to mean this much;
this far and no farther. With utter
certainty she crushes the iced slush underfoot
in a morning as wide-open and delicate as
the mouth of a teacup: she must have
twelve small white onions, she must have
bleeding cubes of stewing beef, and cream
of tartar for biscuits. The summer night they met
she said, I can't cook, I don't cook.
Now in winter the blade makes neat work
of her lie, quartering potatoes
glistening in their nudity, filling the simmering
pot to its fragrant hissing lip.

On this day in 1997, scientists in Scotland announced they had succeeded in cloning an adult mammal, producing a sheep they named Dolly.

It's the birthday of William L. Shirer, born in Chicago, Illinois (1903). After graduating from college, he expected to spend two months in Europe. He stayed for more than twenty years, and became one of America's most outstanding war correspondents. He spent much of his early career in Vienna, Berlin, and Prague, reporting on the Nazis' rise to power. Back in the United States after the war, Shirer was blacklisted during the McCarthy era. This gave him time to write one of the most famous chronicles of World War Two, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (1959), which won the National Book Award.

It's the birthday of writer, educator, and activist W(illiam) E(dward) B(urghardt) DuBois, born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts (1868), one of the founders of the N.A.A.C.P., and author of The Souls of Black Folk (1903).

It's the birthday of author and educator Emma Hart Willard, born in Berlin, Connecticut (1787). At the age of thirteen, she taught herself geometry - a subject then thought to be beyond the capacity of women. She became the director of a girls' academy in Middlebury, Vermont. Later, she opened the Troy Female Seminary in upstate New York, which included classes in mathematics and science, courses offered at no other women's school in the United States.

It's the birthday of baroque composer George Friederic Handel, born in Halle, Germany (1685). He's best known for his oratorio The Messiah, which premiered in Dublin in 1741.

It's the birthday of diarist Samuel Pepys, born in London, England (1633). He was a prominent man of his day in England: a member of Parliament, Secretary of the Admiralty, president of the Royal Society, and friend of such notables as Sir Christopher Wren and Sir Isaac Newton. However, he's best remembered for the diaries he kept between the ages of twenty-seven and thirty-six-a personal record of the largest events and the smallest customs of Restoration England.

SUNDAY, 24 FEBRUARY 2002
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Poem: "Spring," by Gerard Manley Hopkins.

Spring

Nothing is so beautiful as spring -
When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;
Thrush's eggs look little low heavens, and thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush
The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush
With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.

What is all this juice and all this joy?
A strain of the earth's sweet being in the beginning
In Eden garden. - Have, get, before it cloy,
Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,
Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,
Most, O maid's child, thy choice and worthy the winning.

On this day in 1942, The Voice of America went on the air for the first time, in response to the need for reliable news broadcasting in war-torn Europe. On the first broadcast the announcer proclaimed, "Here speaks a voice from America. Every day at this time we will bring you news of the war. The news may be good. The news may be bad. We shall tell you the truth."

It's the birthday of poet and writer August Derleth, born in Sauk City, Wisconsin (1909). He wrote many books about his home town, which he called "Sac Prairie" in his fiction.

It's the birthday of educator and writer Mary Ellen Chase, born in Blue Hill, Maine (1887). Most of her novels deal with the seafaring life of the inhabitants of rural Maine. Chase taught literature at Smith College for almost thirty years.

It's the birthday of "The Flying Dutchman," baseball great Honus Wagner (John Peter Wagner), born in Carnegie, Pennsylvania (1874). Wagner was a sensational hitter, a brilliant base runner, a flawless fielder, and an outstanding shortstop for the Pittsburgh Pirates, hitting one hundred and one home runs between 1897 and 1917. One of the first five players to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame (1936), many people still consider him to be baseball's greatest player. There are only about fifty original prints of his baseball card still in existence. A mint-condition card recently sold at auction to an anonymous bidder for 1.1 million dollars.

It's the birthday of novelist and critic George Augustus Moore, born in Ballyglass, Ireland (1852). He studied painting in Paris, and then turned to writing. His first work of fiction, A Modern Lover (1883), was banned from libraries. This fueled his lifelong battle against censorship and prudery. Moore, who said: "A man travels the world in search of what he needs and returns home to find it."

It's the birthday of educator and entomologist John Henry Comstock, born in Janesville, Wisconsin (1849). He was a professor at Cornell University, where he wrote important books about insects.

It's the birthday of Wilhelm Karl Grimm, born in Hanau, Germany (1786), one of the Grimm brothers who collected German folk tales, including "Hansel and Gretel," "Cinderella," "Rumpelstiltskin," and "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs." The Grimm brothers bowdlerized them, removing some of the violence, such as the end of "Snow White" where the wicked queen was originally forced to don red hot slippers and dance until she dies. They also edited out sexual activity, such as the premarital activities of Rapunzel and the prince who climbs up into her tower.

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