Tweet us today with author birthdays!
Sunday January 17
| Benjamin Franklin (b. 1706) – U.S. philosopher, statesman, historian – The Way to Wealth |
Read about Benjamin Franklin’s writings here
http://www.librarycompany.org/BFWriter/writer.htm
—————————————————–
Monday January 18
| A.A. Milne (b. 1882) – U.K. author – Winnie the Pooh |
Read the Authors Calendar biography of A. A. Milne
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/aamilne.htm
Read Kristen den Hartog’s blog post about A.A. Milne
———————————————
Tuesday January 19
| Edgar Allan Poe (b. 1809) – U.S. poet, essayist, mystery and horror writer |
Read the Poe Calendar blog, dedicated to
Poe’s bicentennial year of 2009
http://poecalendar.blogspot.com/
———————————————
Wednesday January 20
| Ernesto Cardenal (b. 1925) – Nicaraguan priest, poet theologian |
Read about Ernesto Cardenal here
http://www.fammed.sunysb.edu/surgery/cardenal3.html
———————————————
Thursday January 21
 |
Judith Merril (b. 1923) – U.S. science fiction writer |
Visit the Judith Merril website
Read Matthew Cheney’s blog post about Merril’s story “Dead Center”
“the most unjustly neglected SF story of all time”
http://mumpsimus.blogspot.com/2004/01/unjustly-neglected-dead-center-by.html
———————————————
Friday January 22
|
Arkady Gaidar (b. 1904) – Russian writer, children’s stories – Timur and His Gang (1940) |
Read a short biography here
http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/537813.Arkady_Gaidar
Read a detailed biography here
http://www.sovlit.com/bios/gaidar.html
Watch an animation (in Russian) of one of Gaidar’s stories
or a German language commentary on Gaidar’s
most popular book, Timur and his Gang
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJKtXvZslsw
———————————————
Saturday January 23
| Derek Walcott (b. 1930) - Caribbean-American poet; 1992 Nobel Literature prize |
Listen to Derek Walcott read his poem “Sea Grapes”
The Glory Trumpeter
Old Eddie’s face, wrinkled with river lights,
Looked like a Mississippi man’s. The eyes,
Derisive and avuncular at once,
Swivelling, fixed me. They’d seen
Too many wakes, too many cathouse nights.
The bony, idle fingers on the valves
Of his knee-cradled horn could tear
Through ‘Georgia on My Mind’ or ‘Jesus Saves’
With the same fury of indifference,
If what propelled such frenzy was despair.
Now, as the eyes sealed in the ashen flesh,
And Eddie, like a deacon at his prayer,
Rose, tilting the bright horn, I saw a flash
Of gulls and pigeons from the dunes of coal
Near my grandmother’s barracks on the wharves,
I saw the sallow faces of those men
Who sighed as if they spoke into their graves
About the Negro in America. That was when
The Sunday comics sprawled out on her floor,
Sent from the States, had a particular odour,
A smell of money mingled with man’s sweat.
And yet, if Eddie’s features held our fate,
Secure in childhood I did not know then
A jesus-ragtime or gut-bucket blues
To the bowed heads of the lean, compliant men
Back from the states in their funereal serge,
Black, rusty Homburgs and limp waiters’ ties
With honey accents and lard-coloured eyes
Was Joshua’s ram’s horn wailing for the Jews
Of patient bitterness or bitter siege.
Now it was that as Eddie turned his back
On our young crowd out feteing, swilling liquor,
And blew, eyes closed, one foot up, out to sea,
His horn aimed at those cities of the Gulf,
Mobile and Galveston and sweetly meted
The horn of plenty through a bitter cup,
In lonely exaltation blaming me
For all whom race and exile have defeated,
For my own uncle in America,
That living there I never could look up.
Derek Walcott reading The Glory Trumpeter
======================================
Buy cheap gently used books at DollarBinBooks.com
=======================================
Visit the online used bookstore DempseyBooks at:
