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The Writer's Almanac (Poetry)

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  • Host: Garrison Keillor
  • Garrison Keillor's hugely popular daily feature of literary history and a brief poetry selection. Garrison Keillor is a Minnesota writer and humorist whose name is synonymous with public radio and casual Mid-western charm.
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Jul. 26, 2009: The Writer's Almanac

Sun, Jul 26 Listen
Sunday’s Poem: “Common Ground” by Paul J. Willis, from Visiting Home. Sunday’s Literary Notes: It’s the birthday of Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw, born in Dublin (1856). He’s the author of dozens of plays, including Man and Superman (1905), Pygmalion (1912), and Saint Joan (1923). Shaw won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1925 and an Oscar in 1938 for his film Pygmalion. He’s the only person in history to receive both the Nobel and an Oscar…

Jul. 25, 2009: The Writer's Almanac

Sat, Jul 25 Listen
Saturday’s Poem: “The Miracle of Bubbles” by Barbara Goldberg, from Cautionary Tales. Saturday’s Literary Notes: It’s the birthday of Nobel Prize-winning author Elias Canetti, born in Russe, Bulgaria (1905). He grew up a polyglot, speaking four languages by the time he was 10, and spent his life in exile…

Jul. 24, 2009: The Writer's Almanac

Fri, Jul 24 Listen
Friday’s Poem: “Miles: Prince of Darkness” by Philip S. Bryant, from Stompin’ at The Grand Terrace: A Jazz Memoir in Verse. Friday’s Literary Notes: It’s the birthday of French novelist Alexandre Dumas, born in Villers-Cotterts, France (1802). He wrote swashbuckling adventure novels like The Three Musketeers (1844) and The Count of Monte Cristo (1844)…

Jul. 23, 2009: The Writer's Almanac

Thu, Jul 23 Listen
Thursday’s Poem: “Soundings” by Joyce Sutphen, from Naming the Stars. Thursday’s Literary Notes: It’s the birthday of crime novelist Raymond Chandler, born in Chicago, Illinois (1888). He’s known for his novels about the private detective Philip Marlow, such as The Big Sleep (1939) and The Long Goodbye (1954). He’s one of the originators of hardboiled detective fiction, and he’s known more for the style and atmosphere of his novels than his plots…

Jul. 22, 2009: The Writer's Almanac

Wed, Jul 22 Listen
Wednesday’s Poem: “Fault” by Ron Koertge, from Geography of the Forehead. Wednesday’s Literary Notes: It’s the birthday of novelist Tom Robbins, born in Blowing Rock, North Carolina (1936). He’s known for novels such as Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (1976), Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas (1994), and Villa Incognito (2003). He says that when he starts a book, he has no idea of what the story will be. He never outlines and never revises. He just works on each sentence until he thinks it’s perfect,…

Jul. 21, 2009: The Writer's Almanac

Tue, Jul 21 Listen
Tuesday’s Poem: “Advice to Young Poets” by Martn Espada, from The Republic of Poetry. Tuesday’s Literary Notes: It was on this day in 1855 that Ralph Waldo Emerson sent Walt Whitman a letter to “greet” him “at the beginning of a great career.” Whitman had just self-published the first edition of Leaves of Grass earlier in the year…

Jul. 20, 2009: The Writer's Almanac

Mon, Jul 20 Listen
Monday’s Poem: “Money” by John Updike, from Americana and Other Poems. Monday’s Literary Notes: It was on this day in 1798 that William Wordsworth wrote one of his greatest poems, which he called “Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey on revisiting the banks of the Wye Valley during a tour, July 13, 1798.” The poem is now referred to as “Tintern Abbey.”..

Jul. 19, 2009: The Writer's Almanac

Sun, Jul 19 Listen
Sunday’s Poem: “Respite” by Jane Hirshfield, from The Lives of the Heart. Sunday’s Literary Notes: It was on this day in 1799 that French soldiers discovered a slab of rock — about 4 feet high and 2 and half feet wide, 11 inches thick and weighing 1,700 pounds, and containing some writing in three different languages — at a port town on Egypt’s Mediterranean Coast…

Jul. 18, 2009: The Writer's Almanac

Sat, Jul 18 Listen
Saturday’s Poem: “Cantaloupe” by Lee Robinson, from Hearsay. Saturday’s Literary Notes: It’s the birthday of journalist Hunter S. Thompson, born in Louisville, Kentucky (1937). After the California attorney general issued a report in 1964 on a dangerous new motorcycle gang known as the Hell’s Angels, Thompson was hired by The Nation magazine to write a brief investigative article about the gang…

Jul. 17, 2009: The Writer's Almanac

Fri, Jul 17 Listen
Friday’s Poem: “Sober Song” by Barton Sutter, from Farwell to the Starlight in Whiskey. Friday’s Literary Notes: It’s the birthday of American mystery writer Erle Stanley Gardner, born in Malden, Massachusetts (1889). He wrote more than 80 mystery novels featuring the brilliant lawyer Perry Mason. He’s one of the best-selling American authors of all time…

Jul. 16, 2009: The Writer's Almanac

Thu, Jul 16 Listen
Thursday’s Poem: “Milk” by Barton Sutter, from Farwell to the Starlight in Whiskey. Thursday’s Literary Notes: It was on this day in 1951 that J.D. Salinger’s first and only novel, The Catcher in the Rye, was published. It has gone on to sell more than 65 million copies…

Jul. 15, 2009: The Writer's Almanac

Wed, Jul 15 Listen
Wednesday’s Poem: “Blue Suburban” by Howard Nemerov, from The Selected Poems of Howard Nemerov. Wednesday’s Literary Notes: It was on this day in 1889 that The Wall Street Journal was founded. In 1882, three journalists who were interested in finances — Charles Dow, Edward Jones, and Charles Bergstresser — founded a little company called Dow, Jones & Company. They started hand-writing daily news bulletins, which they called “flimsies,” and delivered to customers each afternoon, and the next…

Jul. 14, 2009: The Writer's Almanac

Tue, Jul 14 Listen
Tuesday’s Poem: “Latina Worker” by Doren Robbins, from My Piece of the Puzzle. Tuesday’s Literary Notes: Today is Bastille Day. It’s France’s national holiday that commemorates the storming of the Bastille in 1789…

Jul. 13, 2009: The Writer's Almanac

Mon, Jul 13 Listen
Monday’s Poem: “Money” by John Updike, from Americana and Other Poems. Monday’s Literary Notes: It was on this day in 1798 that William Wordsworth wrote one of his greatest poems, which he called “Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey on revisiting the banks of the Wye Valley during a tour, July 13, 1798.” The poem is now referred to as “Tintern Abbey.”..

Jul. 12, 2009: The Writer's Almanac

Sun, Jul 12 Listen
Sunday’s Poem: “Black Islands” by Martin Espada, from The Republic of Poetry. Sunday’s Literary Notes: It’s the birthday of the man who said: “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” That’s Henry David Thoreau, born David Henry Thoreau in Concord, Massachusetts (1817)…

Jul. 11, 2009: The Writer's Almanac

Sat, Jul 11 Listen
Saturday’s Poem: “Pink and White” by Deborah Garrison, from The Second Child. Saturday’s Literary Notes: It’s the birthday of the essayist and children’s writer E.B. White, born Elwin Brooks White in Mount Vernon, New York (1899). E.B. White said, “I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.”..

Jul. 10, 2009: The Writer's Almanac

Fri, Jul 10 Listen
Friday’s Poem: “To A High School Senior” by Pat Schneider, from Long Way Home. Friday’s Literary Notes: It’s the birthday of a man whose entire reputation is built on one novel that is more than 3,000 pages long: Marcel Proust, born in Auteuil, France (1871)…

Jul. 09, 2009: The Writer's Almanac

Thu, Jul 9 Listen
Thursday’s Poem: “The Place I Want To Get Back To” by Mary Oliver, from Thirst. Thursday’s Literary Notes: It is the birthday of British Gothic novelist Ann Radcliffe, born in London (1764). Her most famous novel was The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794), which is probably best remembered today because it is the book that Jane Austen satirized in Northanger Abbey (1818). Austen’s heroine, Catherine Morland, is so caught up in The Mysteries of Udolpho that she starts to think of herself as a Gothic…

Jul. 08, 2009: The Writer's Almanac

Wed, Jul 8 Listen
Wednesday’s Poem: “Blue Suburban” by Howard Nemerov, from The Selected Poems of Howard Nemerov. Wednesday’s Literary Notes: It was on this day in 1889 that The Wall Street Journal was founded. In 1882, three journalists who were interested in finances — Charles Dow, Edward Jones, and Charles Bergstresser — founded a little company called Dow, Jones & Company. They started hand-writing daily news bulletins, which they called “flimsies,” and delivered to customers each afternoon, and the next…

Jul. 07, 2009: The Writer's Almanac

Tue, Jul 7 Listen
Tuesday’s Poem: “Lonely Lake” by Joyce Kennedy, from Ghost Lamp. Tuesday’s Literary Notes: It’s the birthday of painter Marc Chagall, born in Vitebsk, Russia (1887), the eldest of nine children in a poor Jewish family. He wanted to be an artist, and he moved to St. Petersburg, where he failed his first entrance exams but eventually got accepted to art school. He went on to become a famous painter, known for his bright, dreamlike scenes. He said, “I work in whatever medium likes me at the…

Jul. 06, 2009: The Writer's Almanac

Mon, Jul 6 Listen
Monday’s Poem: “The Effort” by Billy Collins, from Ballistics. Monday’s Literary Notes: On this day in 1613, the Globe Theatre burned down. It was built by Shakespeare’s acting company, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, in 1599. A cannon was fired during a performance of Henry VIII to mark the King’s entrance, the thatched roof caught fire, and the whole theater was lost in an hour…

Jul. 05, 2009: The Writer's Almanac

Sun, Jul 5 Listen
Sunday’s Poem: “A Warm Summer in San Francisco” by Carolyn Miller, from Light, Moving. Sunday’s Literary Notes: It’s the birthday of French writer and artist Jean Cocteau, born in Maisons-Laffitte, France (1889), who hung out with Picasso, Proust, and Erik Satie. Cocteau was nicknamed “the Frivolous Prince” after the title of a poetry collection he’d published at age 21. Cocteau called poetry the foundation of art, and a “religion without hope.”..

Jul. 04, 2009: The Writer's Almanac

Sat, Jul 4 Listen
Saturday’s Poem: “Highway Hypothesis” by Maxine Kumin, from The Long Marriage. Saturday’s Literary Notes: It was on this day in 1931 that James Joyce and Nora Barnacle went down to a courthouse in London and got married. Joyce was 49 years old, and Nora was 47. The two had eloped more than a quarter of a century before…

Jul. 03, 2009: The Writer's Almanac

Fri, Jul 3 Listen
Friday’s Poem: “At the Airport Baggage Claim” by Charles Darling, from The Saints of Diminshed Capacity. Friday’s Literary Notes: It’s the birthday of Franz Kafka, born in Prague (1883). Kafka’s best-known work is The Metamorphosis, which begins, “As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning after disturbing dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into an enormous bug.”..

Jul. 02, 2009: The Writer's Almanac

Thu, Jul 2 Listen
Thursday’s Poem: “Terms of Endearment” by Sue Ellen Thompson, from The Leaving: New and Selected Poems. Thursday’s Literary Notes: It’s the birthday of Nobel Prize-winning author Hermann Hesse, born in Calw, a village in the Black Forest of Germany (1877). He’s the author of the novels Siddhartha (1922), Steppenwolf (1929), and The Glass Bead Game (1943), as well as a large body of poetry…

Jul. 01, 2009: The Writer's Almanac

Wed, Jul 1 Listen
Wednesday’s Poem: “Advice to a Pregnant Daughter-in-Law” by Charles Darling, from The Saints of Diminished Capacity. Wednesday’s Literary Notes: It’s the birthday of grammarian William Strunk Jr., born in Cincinnati, Ohio (1869). He was a professor at Cornell University for 46 years, and during that time, he created the “little book” known as The Elements of Style (1918) in order to make it easier to grade his students’ composition papers…

Jun. 30, 2009: The Writer's Almanac

Tue, Jun 30 Listen
Tuesday’s Poem: “The Lonely Shoe Lying on the Road” by Muriel Spark, from All The Poems of Muriel Spark. Tuesday’s Literary Notes: It was on this day in 1936 that Margaret Mitchell’s novel Gone with the Wind was first published…

Jun. 29, 2009: The Writer's Almanac

Mon, Jun 29 Listen
Monday’s Poem: “The Effort” by Billy Collins, from Ballistics. Monday’s Literary Notes: On this day in 1613, the Globe Theatre burned down. It was built by Shakespeare’s acting company, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, in 1599. A cannon was fired during a performance of Henry VIII to mark the King’s entrance, the thatched roof caught fire, and the whole theater was lost in an hour…

Jun. 28, 2009: The Writer's Almanac

Sun, Jun 28 Listen
Sunday’s Poem: “The VCCA Fellows Visit the Holiness Baptist Church, Amherst, Virginia” by Barbara Crooker, from Line Dance. Sunday’s Literary Notes: It’s the birthday of novelist Mark Helprin, born on this day in 1947, who wrote short stories and novels that won all sorts of awards, including Ellis Island and Other Stories (1981), Winter’s Tale (1983), and Freddy and Fredericka (2005). He also wrote three books for children, all illustrated by Chris Van Allsburg: Swan Lake (1989), A City in…

Jun. 27, 2009: The Writer's Almanac

Sat, Jun 27 Listen
Saturday’s Poem: “Meditation on the Word Need” by Linda Rodriguez, from Heart’s Migration. Saturday’s Literary Notes: It was on this day that respected scientist James Smithson died. He was born in England, the illegitimate son of a British nobleman and his mistress. He didn’t marry or have any children, so when he died in 1829, he left all his money to his nephew, and he wrote in his will that if his nephew died without any heirs, the money would go “to the United States of America, to...

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