APM: Garrison Keillor's The Writer's Almanac Podcast feed: Episodes
Thursday’s Poem: “Snow” by George Bilgere. Thursday’s Literary Notes: It’s the birthday of astronomer Edward Hubble, born in Marshfield, Missouri (1889). He majored in math and astronomy in college, then went to law school and started practicing as an attorney. He got bored after just a couple ...
Wednesday’s Poem: “After Our Daughter’s Wedding” by Ellen Bass from Mules of Love. Wednesday’s Literary Notes: It was on this day in 1863 that Abraham Lincoln got up in front of about 15,000 people and delivered the Gettysburg Address, which begins, “Four score and seven years ago our fathers ...
Tuesday’s Poem: “They eat out” by Margaret Atwood, from Selected Poems 1965-1975. Tuesday’s Literary Notes: It’s the 80th birthday of Mickey Mouse, as officially celebrated by Walt Disney. Mickey Mouse was actually “born” about six months before his official birthday, debuting in a cartoon ...
Monday’s Poem: “Sometimes” by David Budbill. Monday’s Literary Notes: It’s the birthday of the man who created Saturday Night Live, Lorne Michaels, born in Toronto, Canada (1944). He majored in English at the University of Toronto, and then moved to Britain in the 1960s to pursue a career selling ...
Sunday’s Poem: “Waste Management” by Maurya Simon from Cartographies: Uncollected Poems: 1980-2005. Sunday’s Literary Notes: It’s the birthday of the “First Lady of Radio,” mostly forgotten today, Mary Margaret McBride, born in Paris, Missouri (1899). She was one of the first radio interviewers ...
Saturday’s Poem: “The Fields” by W.S. Merwin from Migration: New & Selected Poems. Saturday’s Literary Notes: It’s the birthday of writer and radio commentator Daniel Pinkwater, born in Memphis, Tennessee (1941). He grew up in Los Angeles. One day he went into an art supply store there and ...
Friday’s Poem: “Shame” by C. K. Williams from Selected Poems. Friday’s Literary Notes: It’s the birthday of cartoonist and author William Steig, born in New York City (1907), a cartoonist for The New Yorker for many years. He’s best known for his children’s book Shrek! (1993), about an ...
Thursday’s Poem: “The League of Minor Characters” by Kathleen Flenniken from Famous. Thursday’s Literary Notes: It’s the birthday of Saint Augustine, born in 354 A.D. in Tagaste, Numidia, a part of North Africa that is now Algeria. He converted to Christianity as an adult and wanted to settle ...
Wednesday’s Poem: “The Wedding Vow” by Sharon Olds from The Unswept Room. Wednesday’s Literary Notes: It’s the birthday of philosopher and literary critic Roland Barthes, born in Cherbourg, France (1915). He came down with tuberculosis as a young man. He wanted to become a professor, but since ...
Tuesday’s Poem: “Amphibious” by Erin Murphy, from Dislocation and Other Theories. Tuesday’s Literary Notes: It’s the birthday of Abigail Adams, the wife of the second U.S. president and mother of the sixth, born in Weymouth, Massachusetts, in 1744. She was a frail and sickly child, raised by ...
Monday’s Poem: “3” by John Berryman from Collected Poems 1937-1971 . Monday’s Literary Notes: It’s the birthday of poet and theologian Martin Luther, born in Eisleben, Saxony (1483). He wrote: “A mighty fortress is our God/ A bulwark never failing.” He’s best known as the man who sparked ...
Sunday’s Poem: “How to be a Poet” by Wendell Berry from Given. Sunday’s Literary Notes: Today is the anniversary of Kristallnacht, the night in 1938 when German Nazis coordinated a nationwide attack on Jewish homes, businesses, and synagogues. More than 1,000 synagogues were burned or destroyed. ...
Saturday’s Poem: “Following the Road” by Larry Smith from A River Remains. Saturday’s Literary Notes: It’s the birthday of Indian novelist Raja Rao, born in Hassan, in southern India (1909). His native language was Kanarese, but he wrote all of his books in English. He grew up going to Muslim ...
Friday’s Poem: “On The Days I Am Not My Father” by Scott Owens from The Fractured World. Friday’s Literary Notes: It’s the birthday of writer Albert Camus, born in Mondovi, Algeria (1913). He grew up in a working-class family. His father was killed in WWI, and his mother worked as a cleaning ...
Thursday’s Poem: “Lucky” by Tony Hoagland from Donkey Gospel. Thursday’s Literary Notes: It was on this day in 1860 that Abraham Lincoln was elected to his first term as president of the United States. Lincoln’s only experience in national politics had been a single term as a congressional ...
Wednesday’s Poem: “Middle-Aged Men, Leaning” by Bruce Taylor from Pity the World. Wednesday’s Literary Notes: It’s the birthday of writer Thomas Flanagan, born in Greenwich, Connecticut, in 1923. He did not become a novelist until after the age of 50. He’d been a professor of literature in ...
Tuesday’s Poem: “Success is counted sweetest” by Emily Dickinson. Tuesday’s Literary Notes: Today is Election Day. It’s the 56th presidential election of the United States, and today is the first time in more than 50 years that neither the sitting president nor the sitting vice president is ...
Monday’s Poem: “Lessons” by Pat Schneider from Another River: New and Selected Poems. Monday’s Literary Notes: It’s the birthday of the playwright Terrence McNally, born in St. Petersburg, Florida (1939). McNally started out as a journalist in Texas. One of his first big interviews was with ...
Sunday’s Poem: “To a Leaf Falling in Winter” by W.S. Merwin from Present Company. Sunday’s Literary Notes: It’s the birthday of the frontiersman Daniel Boone, born on this day in 1734 near Reading, Pennsylvania. When he was young, his family moved to North Carolina, where Daniel loved to hunt ...
Saturday’s Poem: “Walking the Dog on the Night before He Is to Be Fixed” by John Stone from Where Water Begins. Saturday’s Literary Notes: It was on this day in 1509 that the public first saw Michelangelo’s frescoes painted on the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Michelangelo was a sculptor, not a painter, ...