Wednesday

Sep. 11, 2002

Eden Rock

by Charles Causley

WEDNESDAY, 11 SEPTEMBER 2002
Listen (RealAudio) | How to listen

Poem: "Eden Rock," by Charles Causley from Collected Poems (David Highom Associates).

Eden Rock

They are waiting for me somewhere beyond Eden
          Rock:
My father, twenty-five, in the same suit
Of Genuine Irish Tweed, his terrier Jack
Still two years old and trembling at his feet.

My mother, twenty-three, in a sprigged dress
Drawn at the waist, ribbon in her straw hat,
Has spread the stiff white cloth over the grass.
Her hair, the colour of wheat, takes on the light.

She pours tea from a Thermos, the milk straight
From an old H.P. sauce-bottle, a screw
Of paper for a cork; slowly sets out
The same three plates, the tin cups painted blue.

The sky whitens as if lit by three suns.
My mother shades her eyes and looks my way
Over the drifted stream. My father spins
A stone along the water. Leisurely,
They beckon to me from the other bank.
I hear them call, 'See where the stream-path is!
Crossing is not as hard as you might think.'

I had not thought that it would be like this.

It's the birthday of Sir James Hopwood Jeans, born in London, England in 1877.

It's the birthday of James Thomson, the author of "Rule Britannia," born in Ednam, Roxburgh, Scotland (1700), and of Alfred Slote, the author of children's sports fiction books, born in New York City in 1926.

It's the birthday of Brian De Palma, born in Newark, New Jersey (1940). A screenwriter and director, he is known for horror-suspense movies such as The Untouchables and Dressed to Kill.

It's the birthday of D. H. Lawrence, born in Eastwood, Nottinghamshire, England (1885). He spent most of his life sick, fighting tuberculosis after having bronchitis when he was a child. He described his childhood self as "a delicate pale brat with a snuffy nose, whom most people treated quite gently as just an ordinary delicate little lad." One day as a young man, when he was doing menial work at the Haywood factory of surgical appliances and artificial limbs, he was attacked by a large group of factory girls, known for their aggression, who tried to tear off his clothes. He had to fight them off, scratching and biting them and tearing their dresses. He later wrote about this scene in his piece, "Tickets, Please." His work was known for its sexual explicitness and for its introduction of Freudian themes into the English novel, with his novel Sons and Lovers. He eloped with Frieda von Richthofen Weekley, the wife of his favorite English professor at University College in Nottingham. She had fallen in love with him when they were on a walk in the country shortly after they met, and she watched as he played with her children, sailing paper boats down a stream.

It's the birthday of William Sydney Porter, whose pen name is O. Henry. He was born in Greensboro, North Carolina (1862). He became known for his ironic short stories, which he published under the pen name O. Henry to disguise his shameful identity. He set many of his stories in New York City, and often created characters that proudly defend it against others that express skepticism. In one story the narrator, who is from the Bowery in New York City says, "I have lived in it nearly thirty years, and I am just beginning to understand its heartbeats. It is like a great river fed by a hundred alien streams…It was my cradle and is my inspiration."


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