The Poem of Your Life
by Joyce Sutphen

Is waiting for you to come along—
some spring (or maybe it's winter)
in New York or Paris
on your way to meet someone
who will change everything
if you take the right train,
if you look up from the book you
are reading, if you say hello.

The poem never leaves you,
though sometimes it disappears
for months or turns into a cloud
or the moon. You forget about the
poem for many days, and then
one night the moon is shining over
snowy fields, and you follow it
(or it follows you), and that's

when you remember that the moon
once was a cloud that was once
a poem. The poem of your life
is the one with the camping gear;
she sleeps in a hammock whenever
she can and speaks very softly.
You'll have to listen carefully to
your poem, but it's always worth it—
she says what no one else says.
Everyone will want to read
the poem of your life; they'll
read it over and over until they
learn it by heart, which is the only
way to know a true poem,
and yours will be not only
true but beautiful and good.

“The Poem of Your Life” by Joyce Sutphen. Reprinted with permission of the poet.

It's the birthday of two men who were born on exactly the same day in 1809: Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln.

Abraham Lincoln (books by this author) was born on this day near Hodgenville, Kentucky (1809). Though he's generally considered one of the greatest presidents in our country's history, fairly little is known about his early life. Unlike most presidents, he never wrote any memoirs. We know that he was born in a log cabin and had barely a year of traditional schooling. His mother died when he was nine, and he spent much of his adolescence working with an ax. But when he was in his early 20s, he showed up in New Salem, Illinois, having decided to remake himself as a professional man, and to study law.
 

Charles Darwin (books by this author) was born in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England (1809). On the famous voyage to the southern tip of South America when he was only 22, Darwin brought with him a book called Principles of Geology by Sir Charles Lyell, which suggested that the earth was millions of years old. And along the journey, Darwin got a chance to explore the Galápagos Islands. These islands were spaced far enough apart that the animals on them had evolved over time into different species.

It took him a long time to publish his findings, mainly because he was afraid of being attacked as an atheist. But about 20 years after he first came up with the idea, he published his book On the Origin of Species (1859).

It's the birthday of poet and editor Deborah Garrison (books by this author), born in Ann Arbor, Michigan (1965). At age 21, she graduated from Brown with a creative writing degree; married her high school sweetheart, a lawyer; and joined the staff of The New Yorker, where she worked for more than a decade as senior editor.

Her first poetry collection, A Working Girl Can't Win, was published in 1998. It sold more than 30,000 copies, which is a lot for a poetry book . Her second poetry collection, out in 2007, is called The Second Child. 

She became the poetry editor at Alfred A. Knopf and a senior editor at Pantheon Books, and her poems are still featured from time to time in the New Yorker.

It's the birthday of Judy Blume (books by this author), born in Elizabeth, New Jersey (1938), the best-selling author of more than two dozen books for young people.

She was 27 years old, with two preschool-aged children, when she began writing seriously. For two years, she received constant rejections. Then in 1970, she had her big breakthrough, with the young adult novel Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. It's the story of 11-year-old Margaret Simon, the daughter of Jewish father and Christian mother, and her adolescent attempts to make sense of things like religion, boys, and menstruation. The book was banned in many schools and libraries. It's one of the most challenged books of the last third of the 20th century. But it's also beloved by many, and it has been a big best-seller over the years.

She lives mostly in Key West, where she writes at a desk facing a garden. In the summer, she writes in a small cabin on Martha's Vineyard. She always writes in the morning. When she's working on a first draft, which she says is the hardest part, she writes seven days a week, even if only for an hour or two day. She founded the independent bookstore Books & Books in Key West with her husband; she can now often be found working in the shop several days a week.

Blume is also the author of Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing (1972), Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great (1972), Blubber (1974), The Pain and the Great One (1974), Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself (1977), Superfudge (1980), Here's to You, Rachel Robinson (1993), and most recently, In the Unlikely Event (2015). Her books have sold more than 80 million copies.

Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.^®

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