The Writer's Almanac from Wednesday, January 10, 2001
The Writer's Almanac from Wednesday, January 10, 2001
"On My Own," by Philip Levine, from New and Selected Poems (Alfred A. Knopf).
It's the birthday of poet Philip Levine, born in Detroit, Michigan (1928).
It's the birthday of American historian Dumas Malone, born in Coldwater, Mississippi (1892), remembered for his six-volume biography of Thomas Jefferson, Jefferson and His Time, which came out between 1948 and 1981. The biography was recently selected as one of the hundred greatest nonfiction books of the twentieth century by the Modern Library.
It's the birthday of the American poet Robinson Jeffers, born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (1887), the son of a theologian. He entered medical school at the age of 19, but dropped out; he went to the School of Forestry at the University of Washington, in Seattle, but scrapped that, too, after less than a year. Then he went to California, where he got married and published his first volume of poetry, Flagons and Apples (1912). He built himself a tower in Carmel, where he lived the rest of his life.
On this day in 1863, the world's first underground passenger train opened in London: the Metropolitan Line. Before the line opened, The Times of London wrote: "It is an insult to common sense to suppose that people would ever prefer to be driven amid palpable darkness through the foul subsoil of London." Nevertheless, the new London Underground was in immediate success.
Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.®
It’s the 50th Anniversary of A Prairie Home Companion, and we’re taking the show on the road!
OH NO! it is now Thursday January 11 and no TWA in my mailbox! What am I to do to bring it back? I've notice a few glitchs here and there recently. Have there been changes? I so look forward to TWA and anything GK. I'm a subscriber...or maybe I WAS a subscriber? Help me?