*Author’s Note: I’d like to thank Darcie Dennigan for introducing me to Francis Ponge and his poems, and Kerry Carnahan, Shannon Hearn, Emily Kraus, Erin Lynn, Eleanor Reeds, Matthew Ryan, and Brian Sneeden for engaging in an insightful discussion of selected works to help me form opinions on, and better…
Tag: today in history
Remembering Robert Frost by Emily Cantor
“In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life — It goes on.” —Robert Frost Today marks the 142nd birthday of the American poet Robert Lee Frost. Though Frost is most famous for his depictions of rural New England life, he was actually born in San Francisco….
Remembering a Sci-Fi Great by Asiya Haouchine
“I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.” — Douglas Adams Like many great things, Douglas Adams’ life was gone too soon—today marks his 65th birthday. The humorist and novelist wrote one of the funniest, most recognizable science fiction series that has garnered a…
REMEMBERING THE LIFE OF MICHAEL S. HART AND HOW HE CHANGED READING FOREVER BY LAURA RUTTAN
“20 or 30 years from now, there’s going to be some gizmo that kids carry around in their back pockets that has everything in it-including our books, if they want.” — Michael Hart, 1998 Michael Stern Hart was the legendary founder of Project Gutenberg, the oldest and largest digital library,…
Remembering Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol By Emily Catenzaro
“It is well-known that there are many faces in the world over the finishing of which nature did not take much trouble, did not employ any fine tools such as files, gimlets, and so on, but simply hacked them out with round strokes: one chop-a nose appears; another chop-lips appear;…
Remembering Sidney Sheldon by Laura Ruttan
“Libraries store the energy that fuels the imagination. They open up windows to the world and inspire us to explore and achieve, and contribute to improving our quality of life. Libraries change lives for the better.” — Sidney Sheldon Sidney Sheldon was a famous successful American playwright, screenwriter, and best selling…
Looking Into the Mystique of Betty Friedan by Allison McLellan
“I never set out to write a book to change women’s lives, to change history. It’s like, ‘Who, me?’ Yes, me. I did it. And I’m not that different from other women.… Maybe my power and glory was that I could speak my truth as a woman and it was…
Remembering James Joyce by Carleton Whaley
“Poetry, even when apparently most fantastic, is always a revolt against artifice, a revolt, in a sense, against actuality.” — James Joyce, “James Clarence Mangan,” A lecture on the poet given at the Literary and Historical Society of the University of Dublin. A man of complexities and contradictions, James Joyce…
