Fun_People Archive
22 Nov
LIT BITS V2 #325
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From: Peter Langston <psl>
Date: Mon, 22 Nov 99 18:36:04 -0800
To: Fun_People
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Subject: LIT BITS V2 #325
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Excerpted-from: LITERARY CALENDAR V2 #325
Today is Tuesday, 23 November 1999; on this day,
125 years ago (1874),
_Far from the Madding Crowd_ by Thomas Hardy is published.
93 years ago (1906),
Sait Faik Abasiyanik, short-story writer and major figure in modern
Turkish literature, is born in Adapazari, Ottoman Empire.
86 years ago (1913),
Jean Cocteau reviews Marcel Proust's _Swann's Way_: "It resembles
nothing that I know of, and reminds me of everything I admire."
73 years ago (1926),
English poet Christopher Logue is born in Portsmouth, Hampshire. He
will become one of the leaders in the movement to bring poetry closer
to popular experience. His own pungent, political verse will be
strongly influenced by the work of Bertolt Brecht and to the English
ballad tradition. His first book of poetry, _The Weakdream Sonnets_
will be published in 1955.
57 years ago (1942),
In a letter to Felix Frankfurter, Alexander Woollcott imparts H. L.
Mencken's "Happy Formula" for answering controversial letters, which
is final, courteous, and can be employed without reading the missive
to which it replies. He merely says: "Dear Sir (or Madame): You may be
right."
Today's poem:
London Airport
Last night in London Airport
I saw a wooden bin
labelled UNWANTED LITERATURE
IS TO BE PLACED HEREIN.
So I wrote a poem
and popped it in.
Christopher Logue
© 1999 Peter Langston