Saturday

Jan. 20, 2001

Solstice

by Edward Hirsch

Broadcast date: SATURDAY, 20 January 2001

Poem: "Solstice," by Edward Hirsch, from Earthly Measure (Alfred A. Knopf).

Solstice

Remember how the city looked from the harbor
    in early evening: its brutal gaze
averted, its poised and certain countenance
    wavering with lights?

Remember how we sat in swaybacked chairs
    and marvelled at the brush fires
of dusk clear in the distance, the flames
    scrawled across the skyline

like a signature while currents shifted
    inside us? Ecstasy of fire—
works rising in midsummer, of fulvous sails
    flashing in the heat

And orange life buoys bobbing on the water;
    ecstasy of flares and secrets
and two bodies held aloft by desire...
    judge us as you will,

but remember that we, too, lived once
    in the fullness of a moment
before the darkness took its turn with us
    and the night clamped shut.

It's Inauguration Day: William J. Clinton steps aside today, as George W. Bush steps up and takes the oath of office.

On this day in 1937, Inauguration Day was held in January for the first time. The Twentieth Amendment to the Constitution shortened the time between the election and the president's swearing-in. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who won the election in a landslide, took the oath of office, which was administered by Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes, himself a former Republican presidential candidate. In his inaugural address, Roosevelt said of the boom that marked the Nineteen Twenties, "We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we know now that it is bad economics."

It's the birthday of poet Edward Hirsch, born in Chicago (1950). He's the author of many collections of poetry, including For the Sleepwalkers (1981, nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award), Wild Gratitude (1986, winner of the 1987 National Book Critics Circle Award), The Night Parade (1989), Earthly Measures (1994) and On Love (1999). He values traditional forms in poetry, saying that "the dichotomy between so-called formal poetry and free verse is a large mistake in American poetry." He teaches at the University of Houston, where he's a member of the creative writing program.

It's the birthday of filmmaker Federico Fellini, born in Rimini, Italy, on the Adriatic coast (1920), the son of a prosperous grocer. He developed a love for movies in his town's two hundred-seat theater where, he said, "I discovered there existed another way of life, a country of wide-open spaces, of fantastic cities that were a cross between Babylon and Mars." He was talking about the America he saw on film. He married the actress Giulietta Masina, who later starred in many Fellini films, including "La Strada," "The Nights of Cabiria,"and "Juliet of the Spirits." He said that "All art is autobiographical; the pearl is the oyster's autobiography."

It's the birthday of American composer Walter Piston, born Rockland, Maine (1894), the grandson of an Italian sailor who changed his name from Pistone when he married an American girl.

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

 

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