Wednesday

May 7, 1997

The Sacred

by Stephen Dunn

WEDNESDAY 5/7

Today's Reading:"The Sacred" by Stephen Dunn from BETWEEN ANGELS, published by W.W. Norton and Company (1989).

In 1954 on this day, French troops were defeated by Vietnamese forces at Dien Bien Phy, forcing the French to withdraw from Vietnam.

In 1945 German Field Marshall Alfred Jodl unconditionally surrendered all German forces at a small school house in Rheims, France, effectively ending World War II.

It 's the birthday of Australian novelist and short-story writer Peter Carey (ILLYWHACKER; OSCAR AND LUCINDA), born in Bacchus Marsh, Victoria, in 1943.

English poet and novelist Jenny Joseph (THE THINKING HEART; THE INLAND SEA) was born on this day in Birmingham, 1932. In "Warning" she wrote "When I am an old woman I shall wear purple/With a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me"

It's the birthday of inventor of the Polaroid Land Camera, Edwin Herbert Land, born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, in 1909.

It's the birthday of actor Gary Cooper, who went to Los Angeles to become a political cartoonist and ended up acting in Hollywood westerns such as HIGH NOON. He was born in Helena, Montana, in 1901.

It's the birthday of poet and statesman Archibald MacLeish, who led the life of an expatriate in Paris where he was part of the literary circle that included Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Pound, and T.S. Eliot. He was born in Glencoe, Illinois, in 1892.

Marcus Loew, who bought and consolidated film studios to create MGM (Metro- Goldwyn-Mayer) was born on this day in New York City, in 1870.

It's the birthday of composer Johannes Brahms, in Hamburg, Germany, in 1833.

Beethoven's "Ninth Symphony" premiered on this evening in Vienna in 1824.

It's the birthday of poet Robert Browning in Camberwell, England, 1812. He married poet Elizabeth Barrett when he was 33 and the pair spent most of their life in Italy. It was only after his death in 1861 that he achieved his reputation as one of the great literary figures of his age.

Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.®

 

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