Wednesday
Mar. 30, 2005
WEDNESDAY, 30 MARCH, 2005
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Poem: There is no poem for Wednesday, March 30, 2005.
Literary and Historical Notes:
It's the birthday of novelist Jon Hassler, born in Minneapolis, Minnesota (1933). He was a high school English teacher for 14 years before he wrote his first novel, Staggerford (1977), whose main character is an English teacher in a small Minnesota town. His other novels include Simon's Night (1979), Grand Opening (1987), North of Hope (1990), and Rookery Blues (1995).}
It's the birthday of the Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh, born in Zundert, The Netherlands (1853). In 1879, he went as a missionary to the coal miners on southwestern Belgium. The result was a spiritual crisis that led him to try to express himself through art. For the next 10 years, from 1880 to 1890, he painted fast and furiously. He painted sunflowers, wheat fields, self-portraitsall while his mental health was steadily breaking down. One of his greatest paintings, Starry Night (1889), was painted while he was confined in an asylum. In 1988, his Irises, painted in the asylum courtyard, sold for $49,000,000. At the time it was the highest price ever paid for a painting.
It's the birthday of the French poet Paul Verlaine, born in Metz, France (1844). He published his first poem in 1863, when he was 19. He was married, then abandoned his wife to wander around Europe with the poet Arthur Rimbaud. He spent two years in prison for wounding Rimbaud with a revolver during an argument.
It's the birthday of British novelist Anna Sewell, born in Yarmouth, Norfolk, England (1820). When she was 14, she injured her ankles in a bad fall and became a partial invalid. Unable to walk, she relied on horse-and-carriage to get around. Her dependence on horses grew into a deep affection, which she expressed in her only novel, Black Beauty (1877). She wrote the novel, she said, "to induce kindness, sympathy, and an understanding treatment of horses."
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