Monday

Nov. 23, 1998

Alms

by Edna St. Vincent Millay

MONDAY 11/23

Poem: "Alms," by Edna St. Vincent Millay, from EARLY POEMS (Penguin, 1998).

It's the birthday of the English mathematician, JOHN WALLIS, born in Kent, 1616, one of the founders of calculus. He was ordained a priest before exhibiting math talent, and later became the Oxford University Professor of Geometry, noted for using algebra to solve problems with numbers called "infinitesimals"—quantities that are incalculably small.

It's the birthday of JAMES THOMSON, the Scottish poet born in Glasgow, 1834, known for the strong, but gloomy poems he wrote about cities and their dehumanizing effects, pieces like "The City of Dreadful Night."

It's the birthday of the turn-of-the-century educator and author KATHERINE COMAN, born in Newark, Ohio, 1857, best known for her book, The Industrial History of the United States, published in 1905.

It's the anniversary of the BATTLE OF CHATTANOOGA, 1863, during the Civil War. Chattanooga was a key railroad center for the Confederacy, and in September, 1863, the Federal army took the city, but got bottled up there by Southern forces. General Ulysses S. Grant massed a huge number of men to break the Chattanooga siege and in three days of fighting routed the Southern army.

It's the birthday of playwright GUY BOLTON, born in Hertfordshire, England, 1884, best known for the librettos he wrote for the great Broadway musicals of the 1920s and '30s, when he collaborated with composers like Jerome Kern, George Gershwin, and Cole Porter, in the shows Lady, Be Good!, Oh, Kay!, and Anything Goes.

It's the birthday of the Hollywood biographer, MAURICE ZOLOTOW, born in 1913, New York, and author of popular books on Marilyn Monroe, Billy Wilder, and John Wayne, as well as his own fiction, The Great Balsamo, and nonfiction, Confessions of a Race Track Fiend.

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