The Writer's Almanac from Friday, December 22, 2000
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The Writer's Almanac from Friday, December 22, 2000 “I'll tell you how the Sun rose,” by Emily Dickinson. ORIGINAL AUDIO - 2000 ORIGINAL TEXT - 2000 It’s the birthday of poet and translator Kenneth Rexroth, born in South Bend, Indiana (1905). When he was 10, his mother was diagnosed with tuberculosis and given just 2 months to live; he went along with her to buy her coffin, and was with her when she died. Three years later, his father died. The boy grew up in a tough part of Chicago, but got to meet Clarence Darrow, Sherwood Anderson, Countee Cullen, Carl Sandburg and Langston Hughes. There was a tea room where they used to read and talk about poetry and where jazz was played. While still in his teens, he fell in love with a woman who was 10 years his senior, and followed her East to Greenwich Village. He taught himself Greek, read Plato and other classics, began translating Sappho—and then, with a Japanese primer, translated Oriental poetry. Then he traveled West, out to San Francisco. An early backer of the Beat movement, he wrote poems that at first were heavily influenced by Surrealism but later grew shorter and tighter in form. He translated from Japanese, Chinese, Greek, Latin, and Spanish; his own collections include
The Writer's Almanac from Friday, December 22, 2000
The Writer's Almanac from Friday, December…
The Writer's Almanac from Friday, December 22, 2000
The Writer's Almanac from Friday, December 22, 2000 “I'll tell you how the Sun rose,” by Emily Dickinson. ORIGINAL AUDIO - 2000 ORIGINAL TEXT - 2000 It’s the birthday of poet and translator Kenneth Rexroth, born in South Bend, Indiana (1905). When he was 10, his mother was diagnosed with tuberculosis and given just 2 months to live; he went along with her to buy her coffin, and was with her when she died. Three years later, his father died. The boy grew up in a tough part of Chicago, but got to meet Clarence Darrow, Sherwood Anderson, Countee Cullen, Carl Sandburg and Langston Hughes. There was a tea room where they used to read and talk about poetry and where jazz was played. While still in his teens, he fell in love with a woman who was 10 years his senior, and followed her East to Greenwich Village. He taught himself Greek, read Plato and other classics, began translating Sappho—and then, with a Japanese primer, translated Oriental poetry. Then he traveled West, out to San Francisco. An early backer of the Beat movement, he wrote poems that at first were heavily influenced by Surrealism but later grew shorter and tighter in form. He translated from Japanese, Chinese, Greek, Latin, and Spanish; his own collections include