Showing posts with label John Ciardi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label John Ciardi. Show all posts

Monday, May 18, 2009

Happy Birthday (Birth-Month), Writers


Here comes June, always an ambiguous month in the Pacific Northwest. It can be as wet and cold as January, or as summery as anywhere else in the U.S. You just never know.

However, you may know what authors were born in June, at least if you care about such things and poke around the Internet. Here's a list of some of our writerly friends, some still with us, most not (except in their words, etc.) who were born in June, starting with a howl:

Allen Ginsberg
John Masefield
Ambrose Bierce (do high-schoolers still read "Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge"? I hope so.)
Anne Frank
Barbara Pym
Ben Jonson
Laurie Lee
Blaise Pascal (perhaps my favorite spiritual writer--and author of a book in a genre by itself, Pensees)
Lillian Hellman (if you haven't seen the film, Pentimento, I invite you to do so)
Louise Erdrich (that's what I like--someone who's at ease with both fiction and poetry)
Luigi Pirandello
Colin Wilson
Mark Van Doren
Mary McCarthy (attended school in Tacoma)
Elizabeth Bowen
Charles Kingsley
Octavia Butler (thanks for your final book, Ms. Butler, Fledgling, not to mention the other ones)
Jean Anoulih
Pierre Corneille (we bunched the difficult French-playwright names together)
Harrie Beecher Stowe
Saul Bellow
Thomas Hardy (a.k.a. Mr. Cheerful)
John Ciardi (I have fond memories of his radio-spot on NPR, called "Good Words to You," and I very much like his translation of Dante)

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Hey, Poets





























Hey, Poets



Hey, poets, how are things? I hope

the writing warbles for you these days,

or blasts like a Boeing turbine, or

whatever you prefer. I pray right words

are paying your screens and pages

visits. Too, I hope other parts

of your lives are operational, a word

I stole from a manual somewhere.




Poetry's a lot but not close to everything.

It's made of words (this just in), which

are almost nothing but also essential.

I can't see you from here, but I imagine

you there making a poem out of words--

as far as I can tell, it's going fine

(and better than mine).



I imagine that poem you're working on

turning out well enough to send a wave

of satisfaction rolling up on the beach

there at the back of your mind. Hey,

poets, worldwide, here's what John Ciardi

used to say on the radio, "Good words to you."



Good days and nights to you, too. Hey,

poets, keep it going--all poetry all the time

on this, the global poetry network.

That's the spirit, poets. Hey.


Hans Ostrom Copyright 2008