| When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer
by Walt Whitman
When I heard the learn'd astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before
me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide
and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with
much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander' d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars. "When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer" by Walt Whitman. Public Domain. (buy now)
It's the birthday of Ellen Bryant Voigt (books by this author), born in Danville, Virginia (1943). She has written several books of poetry, including Kyrie (1995), The Forces of Plenty (1983), and most recently, Headwaters (2013). She said, "Resist any temptation to use the poem to make its readers like you, or admire you, or forgive you."
It's the birthday of Mona Van Duyn (books by this author), born in Waterloo, Iowa (1921). She was shy, and others kids made fun of her for being smart and tall. She filled notebook after notebook with poems. No one knew she was a writer until she published her first book of poetry, Valentines to the Wide World (1959), at age 38. She said: "I believe that good poetry can be as ornate as a cathedral or as bare as a potting shed, as long as it confronts the self with honesty and fullness. Nobody is born with the capacity to perform this act of confrontation, in poetry or anywhere else; one's writing career is simply a continuing effort to increase one's skill at it."
Today is the birthday of the novelist Richard Adams (books by this author), born in Wash Common, England (1920). He was working as a civil servant, and he had two young daughters, for whom he often made up stories. They were preparing for a long car trip when one of the girls told him he had to make up a new story, a long one that would last the whole journey. He began to spin a yarn about a band of rabbits escaping the destruction of their warren. There was Fiver, a weakling and a prophet; along with Hazel and Bigwig, inspired by two soldiers Adams had known during the war. The story lasted the trip and more, and when it was done, Adams' daughter Juliet said, "You ought to write it down, Daddy. It's too good to waste." He did, taking nearly two years, and it was rejected by many publishers as too grown-up for kids and too simple for adults. A small publisher finally accepted it, but only printed a small initial run and couldn't afford to pay Adams any advance. After notable positive reviews, sales took off and within a couple of years, Watership Down (1972) had sold more than a million copies.
On this day in 1960, the Food and Drug Administration approved the sale of the world’s first commercially produced birth control pill. The tiny pill in the circular case was called the Enovid-10 and became known, popularly, as “The Pill.” At first, drug companies were afraid to market the pill for fear of boycotts by religious groups, but there was also a remarkable change in the culture: more women wanted to stay in college, even after marrying, and to delay children for careers. When a representative from the Food and Drug Administration announced approval for “The Pill,” he said: “Approval was based on the question of safety. Our own ideas of morality had nothing to do with the case.” The pill was tiny, discreet, affordable, and almost 100 percent effective. It cost 11 cents to manufacture and a month’s supply was $2.00. It was the first medicine ever designed to be taken by people who were not sick, and it paved the way for the sexual revolution and the feminist movement. Today, the number of women completing four years of college is almost seven times what it was before the introduction of “The Pill.” Per a recent report, having access to contraception by age 20 also reduced the probability that a woman lived in poverty later in life.
It’s the birthday of poet Charles Simic (books by this author), born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, which is now Serbia (1938). His childhood was dominated by World War II and the Nazi invasion. His father was repeatedly arrested and thrown in jail, finally fleeing to Italy. Simic didn’t see his father again for nearly a decade, until the family reunited in Chicago in the United States in 1954. Life in Belgrade during and after the war was harsh, but Simic found bright spots. He says, “We had poverty, Communist indoctrination, but also a few American movies, and jazz music on the Armed Forces Radio.” American noir movies, in particular, would influence his later poetry. His favorite films were The Asphalt Jungle and The Naked City. He settled for a year in Paris with his mother and brother while their visas were being sorted out. His thick accent made school difficult, but Paris is also where he discovered poetry by Verlaine and Rimbaud and where his mother fed his fantasies about America by bringing home Life and Look magazines. Simic and his brother devoured the glossy photos of cars, girls in bathing suits, and rock musicians. Charles Simic wrote the first poem he knew was good and wanted to keep while he was living in New York City, where he worked odd jobs like house painting and selling dress shirts in clothing shops. The poem was “The Butcher Shop.” He says: “I wrote it in 1963, when I was living on East Thirteenth Street. In those days, there were still Polish and Italian butcher shops in that part of town with wonderful displays of sausages, pig knuckles, slaughtered lambs and chickens. I never in my life went past a butcher shop like that without stopping to take a close look. Of course, it reminded me of Europe, of my childhood. I slaughtered chickens when I was a boy, saw pigs have their throats slit and then be butchered afterwards.” Charles Simic’s books include Hotel Insomnia (1992), The Monster Loves His Labyrinth (2012), New and Selected Poems (2013), The Lunatic (2015), and Scribbled in the Dark (2017), and his work has been featured on the Almanac many times. Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.® | 
