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The Writer's Almanac from Monday, June 24, 2013
The Writer's Almanac from Monday, June 24, 2013"On the Death of a Colleague" by Stephen Dunn, from Landscape at the Edge of the Century. © W.W. Norton. ORIGINAL TEXT AND AUDIO - 2013 It's the birthday of St. John of the Cross, born in Hontiveros, Spain (1542), the patron saint of mystics, contemplatives, and Spanish poets. He grew up in poverty — his father having given up his noble birth to marry a peasant girl. His father died when he was young, and he worked at a hospital for the poor to help earn money for his mother. Along with St. Teresa of Ávila, he worked to reform the Carmelite order. He was arrested for his attempts at reform, and he was treated brutally, given a public lashing once a week. But he wrote some of his best poetry while he was imprisoned. He managed to escape, and continued to work on Church reform and to write poetry, and even today he is considered one of Spain's greatest poets, with poems like Spiritual Canticle and Dark Night of the Soul. It's the birthday of essayist and short-story writer Ambrose Bierce, born near Horse Cave Creek, Ohio (1842). He became the second person in his county to volunteer for the Union Army at the outbreak of the Civil War. He wrote bleak short stories about the Civil War, his most famous is "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," about a spy condemned to die by hanging, only to escape when the rope snaps. He runs through the forest, away from enemy gunfire, and eventually finds his home plantation, and is about to embrace his wife when he feels a blow on his neck, and it turns out the whole escape was a daydream in the split second before his death. It's the birthday of poet Stephen Dunn, born in Forest Hills, New York (1939). He published more than 10 books of poetry before his collection Different Hours won the Pulitzer Prize in 2001. Dunn's first love was basketball. He was a star on the 1962 Hofstra basketball team that went 25 and one on the year. They called him "Radar," for his accurate jump shot. After college, he played professional basketball for the Williamsport, Pennsylvania, Billies for a couple years before giving up the sport. Dunn found a job as a brochure writer for Nabisco, and for the next seven years, he rose through the ranks of the corporation. He started to worry though that he would get stuck in a job doing something he didn't believe in, so he quit and moved to Spain with his wife and he started to write poetry. Dunn said: "It would be a lie to say I must choose between happiness and art. I can live with many things. Just to admit that I've been married for 35 years means that I've experienced joy and diminution and quiet evenings and tumultuous evenings and betrayal and dishonesty and tenderness and withholdings and forgiveness and cowardice and boredom and friendship." Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.® A Prairie Home Companion — Duluth, MinnesotaJuly 19, 2024 – 7:00PM A Prairie Home Companion’s 50th Anniversary Tour If you are a paid subscriber to The Writer's Almanac with Garrison Keillor, thank you! Your financial support is used to maintain these newsletters, websites, and archive. If you’re not yet a paid subscriber and would like to become one, support can be made through our garrisonkeillor.com store, by check to Prairie Home Productions, P.O. Box 2090, Minneapolis, MN 55402, or by clicking the SUBSCRIBE button. This financial support is not tax deductible.
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