Saturday

Jan. 2, 1999

Opening the Door of a Barn I Thought was Empty on New Year's

by Robert Bly

SATURDAY 1/2

Poem: "Opening the Door of a Barn I Thought was Empty on New Year's Eve," by Robert Bly, from SELECTED POEMS (Harper & Row, 1986).

It's the birthday of biochemist and author ISAAC ASIMOV, born in 1920 in Petrovichi, Russia. In the 1930s he started writing stories for science-fiction magazines. His most well-known science fiction works are the trilogy: Foundation, Foundation and Empire, and Second Foundation (1951-53), the story of a vast interstellar empire. He wrote over 500 books, including many books about science for the layperson such as Inside the Atom (1956), The World of Nitrogen (1958), and Views of the Universe (1981).

It's the birthday of historian JOHN HOPE FRANKLIN, born in Rentiesville, Oklahoma in 1915, known for his books on the Civil War era and the role of blacks in shaping America. He is the author of From Slavery to Freedom (1956), The Militant South (1956), and Reconstruction: After the Civil War (1961).

It's the birthday of GILBERT MURRAY, born in Sydney, Australia in 1866. He was Professor of Greek at Oxford University from 1908-1936, and during this time translated many of the Greek dramas by masters such as Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes. His theater productions in the 1920s and 1930s helped make Greek drama popular again.

It's the birthday of one of America's early feminists, MARTHA CAREY THOMAS, born in 1857 in Baltimore, Maryland. She earned a B.A. from Cornell University and a Ph.D. from the University of Zurich, and then took up a teaching position at Bryn Mawr College. She became its second president in 1894 and served for nearly 30 years.

It's the birthday of poet PHILIP FRENEAU, born in New York in 1752, known as the "poet of the American Revolution."

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

 

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