Saturday

Jan. 9, 1999

Snow Songs, stanzas i, vi, and viii

by W. D. Snodgrass

SATURDAY 1/9

Poem: Stanzas i, vi, and viii from "Snow Songs," by W. D. Snodgrass, from EACH IN HIS SEASON (BOA Editions, 1993).

It 's the anniversary of the MARINE LANDING ON LUZON, on this day in 1945, General Douglass MacArthur making good on his promise to the Philippines "I shall return." Sixty-seven thousand troops came ashore beginning the final push to retake the Philippines.

It's the birthday of the British poet, LASCELLE ABERCROMBIE, born in Cheshire, 1881. He was one of a group of writers, including Robert Frost, who gathered near the Gloucestershire village of Dymock just before the First World War. They called themselves the Dymock Poets and they walked the countryside discussing their poems and writing new ones.

It's the birthday of the Hebrew poet HAYYIM NAHMAN BIALIK, born in the Ukraine, 1873. His most famous poem is "In the City of Slaughter," written in 1903 after witnessing a pogrom by Russian soldiers. He moved to Tel Aviv in 1924 and headed the Hebrew Writers Union, and became known as the national poet.

It's the birthday of CARRIE CHAPMAN CATT, born in Ripon, Wisconsin, 1859, leader of the women's rights movement in the U.S. for many years, and largely behind the adoption of the 19th Amendment that granted women the right to vote. She led the National American Woman Suffrage Association beginning in 1915 all the way until she died in 1947.

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

 

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