Friday

Feb. 22, 2002

Spring

by Edna St. Vincent Millay

FRIDAY, 22 FEBRUARY 2002
Listen (RealAudio) | How to listen

Poem: "Spring," by Edna St. Vincent Millay from Collected Poems (Harper Collins).

Spring

To what purpose, April, do you return again?
Beauty is not enough.
You can no longer quiet me with the redness
Of little leaves opening stickily.
I know what I know.
The sun is hot on my neck as I observe
The spikes of the crocus.
The smell of the earth is good.
It is apparent that there is no death.
But what does that signify?
Not only under ground are the brains of men
Eaten by maggots.
Life in itself
Is nothing,
An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs.
It is not enough that yearly, down this hill,
April
Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.

It's the birthday of humorist and cartoonist Edward Gorey, born in Chicago, Illinois (1925). He's known for his macabre pen and ink drawings and stories such as The Gashlycrumb Tinies which included the lines:

A is for Amy who fell down the stairs
B is for Basil assaulted by bears…
U is for Uma who slipped down a drain
V is for Victor squashed under a train.

It's the birthday of novelist, playwright, and short-story writer Jane Bowles, born in New York City (1917). She suffered from depression and drank heavily, so she didn't publish a great deal. Her best known work is probably her play In the Summer House (1953).

It's the birthday of writer Seán O'Faoláin, born in Cork, Ireland (1900). He's known especially for his short stories about Ireland's working class, and for his early novels: A Nest of Simple Folk (1933) and Bird Alone (1936).

It's the birthday of writer Meridel Le Sueur, born in Murray, Iowa (1900). She was an icon of feminist, left-wing fiction for books such as Harvest (1977) and Ripening (1982).

It's the birthday of poet and playwright Edna St. Vincent Millay, born in Rockland, Maine (1892). She was as famous for her bohemian lifestyle in Greenwich Village as for her work. Millay was the author of the famous lines: "My candle burns at both ends / It will not last the night / But, ah, my foes, and, oh, my friends / It gives a lovely light." She wrote steadily until her death in 1950 at her home in upstate New York, called Steepletop, now a National Historic Landmark. Since 1973, it has housed the Millay Colony for the Arts, a retreat for writers and composers.

It's the birthday of the first editor of the Atlantic Monthly, poet and critic James Russell Lowell, born in Cambridge, Massachusetts (1819).

It's the birthday of philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, born in Danzig, Prussia-now Gdansk, Poland (1788). He was a rival of Hegel's, and wrote works refuting Hegel's philosophy. Schopenhauer believed that we live in a world of continual strife and that the "will," our inner nature, inevitably leads to pain and suffering unless we are able to renounce desire and assume an attitude of resignation. He was a great influence on the literature of Thomas Mann, the music of Richard Wagner, and the psychology of Sigmund Freud.

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