Saturday

Oct. 24, 1998

The Model

by W. H. Auden

SATURDAY 10/24

Today's Reading: "The Model" by W. H. Auden from COLLECTED SHORTER POEMS 1927-1957, published by Random House.

The 40-HOUR WORK WEEK went into effect on this day in 1940, with the passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act.

It's the anniversary in 1931 of the GEORGE WASHINGTON BRIDGE, linking Manhattan, with Fort Lee, New Jersey across the Hudson River. Its clear span of 3,500 feet made it the longest suspension bridge in the world at the time. Gilbert Cass was the main architect, and his next big project was the U.S. Supreme Court Building in Washington.

It's poet DENISE LEVERTOV's birthday in Essex, England, 1923. As a girl she was educated at home by her mother, and during the war she became a nurse in London and survived several of the German V-1 bombings. In the late '40s she settled in the U.S. and became a citizen. Her poetry collections include Out of the War Shadow, Candles in Babylon, and Breathing the Water.

It's the birthday in 1904, New York City, of playwright MOSS HART, who said of his old hometown, "The only credential New York asked was the boldness to dream. For those who did, it unlocked its gates and its treasures, not caring who they were or where they came from." He grew up in the Bronx and got his first job when he was 17 years old as an office boy for a Broadway producer. His first play came out a year later. He directed summer stock for years, then hit it big with a string of collaborations with George S. Kaufman: Once in a Lifetime, Merrily We Roll Along, and You Can't Take It with You, which won the 1938 Pulitzer Prize.

It's the anniversary in 1861 of the TRANSCONTINENTAL TELEGRAPH, sent from Stephen J. Field, the chief justice of California, to President Abraham Lincoln in Washington.

It's the birthday of the equal rights advocate BELVA ANN LOCKWOOD, born in Royalton, New York, 1830. She went to school to become a teacher, then when she was 43 years old, got her law degree and championed several reforms of the 1870s and '80s, including the Equal Pay Act for female civil servants. And by adding amendments to statehood bills, she helped provide voting rights for women in Arizona, New Mexico, and Oklahoma.

It's SARAH JOSEPHA HALE's birthday, Newport, New Hampshire, 1788, writer of several volumes of poetry, much of it forgotten now, with the exception of her 1830 poem, "Mary Had a Little Lamb."

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

 

«

»

  • “Writers end up writing stories—or rather, stories' shadows—and they're grateful if they can, but it is not enough. Nothing the writer can do is ever enough” —Joy Williams
  • “I want to live other lives. I've never quite believed that one chance is all I get. Writing is my way of making other chances.” —Anne Tyler
  • “Writing is a performance, like singing an aria or dancing a jig” —Stephen Greenblatt
  • “All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath.” —F. Scott Fitzgerald
  • “Good writing is always about things that are important to you, things that are scary to you, things that eat you up.” —John Edgar Wideman
  • “In certain ways writing is a form of prayer.” —Denise Levertov
  • “Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.” —E.L. Doctorow
  • “Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” —E.L. Doctorow
  • “Let's face it, writing is hell.” —William Styron
  • “A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.” —Thomas Mann
  • “Writing is 90 percent procrastination: reading magazines, eating cereal out of the box, watching infomercials.” —Paul Rudnick
  • “Writing is a failure. Writing is not only useless, it's spoiled paper.” —Padget Powell
  • “Writing is very hard work and knowing what you're doing the whole time.” —Shelby Foote
  • “I think all writing is a disease. You can't stop it.” —William Carlos Williams
  • “Writing is like getting married. One should never commit oneself until one is amazed at one's luck.” —Iris Murdoch
  • “The less conscious one is of being ‘a writer,’ the better the writing.” —Pico Iyer
  • “Writing is…that oddest of anomalies: an intimate letter to a stranger.” —Pico Iyer
  • “Writing is my dharma.” —Raja Rao
  • “Writing is a combination of intangible creative fantasy and appallingly hard work.” —Anthony Powell
  • “I think writing is, by definition, an optimistic act.” —Michael Cunningham
Current Faves - Learn more about poets featured frequently on the show