Sunday

Feb. 4, 2001

Sonnet 64: When I have seen by Time's fell hand defac'd

by William Shakespeare

Broadcast date: SUNDAY, 4 February 2001

Poem: Sonnet 64, by William Shakespeare.

When I have seen by Time's fell hand defaced
The rich proud cost of outworn buried age,
When sometimes lofty towers I see down-razed,
And brass eternal slave to mortal rage;
When I have seen the hungry ocean gain
Advantage on the kingdom of the shore,
And the firm soil win of the watery main,
Increasing store with loss and loss with store;
When I have seen such interchange of state,
Or state itself confounded to decay,
Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate
That Time will come and take my love away.
    This thought is as a death, which cannot choose
    But weep to have that which it fears to lose.

It's the birthday of novelist and children's writer, Russell Hoban, born in Lansdale, Pennsylvania (1925). He was good at drawing, and expected to be an artist when he grew up. His first children's book, What Does It Do, and How Does It Work (1959), included his sketches of machinery used at construction sites. He wrote a well-known series of children's books about Frances, the badger, starting with Bedtime for Frances (1960). His adult novels include Turtle Diary (1975), and Ridley Walker (1980).

It's the birthday of feminist and author Betty Friedan, born in Peoria, Illinois (1921). In the late 1950s, she passed around a questionnaire to her old college classmates and found that many of them were unhappy as wives and mothers. She described her findings in her first book, The Feminine Mystique (1963), which became a best-seller, and led to the foundation of the National Organization for Women.

It's the birthday of Charles Lindbergh, born in Detroit, Michigan (1902). He grew up in Little Falls, Minnesota, the son of a Minnesota congressman. During his second year at the University of Wisconsin, he dropped out in order to go to flying school in Lincoln, Nebraska. He bought a World War I surplus Curtiss-Jenny plane, and made stunt-flying tours across the Midwest. When he was 25, he made the thirty-three and a half hour trip across the Atlantic, solo, in The Spirit of St. Louis. His book, The Spirit of St. Louis (1953), describing his flight to Paris, won him the Pulitzer prize.

It's the birthday of French poet and screenwriter Jacques Prevert, born in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France (1900). His poetry collections include Words (1945), and Stories (1946), but he's probably best known for his film scripts for The Visitors of the Evening (1942) and The Children of Paradise (1944).

On this day in 1861, delegates from South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Georgia, and Louisiana convened in Montgomery, Alabama to establish the Confederate States of America. Five days later, they elected Jefferson Davis of Mississippi as their first president.

It's the birthday of naturalist and minister John Bachman, born in Rhinebeck, New York (1790), who wrote the text for John James Audubon's book, The Birds of America (1840-44).

On this day in 1789, George Washington was elected the first president of the United States by all sixty-nine presidential electors. The electors represented ten of the eleven states that had ratified the Constitution.

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

 

«

»

  • “Writers end up writing stories—or rather, stories' shadows—and they're grateful if they can, but it is not enough. Nothing the writer can do is ever enough” —Joy Williams
  • “I want to live other lives. I've never quite believed that one chance is all I get. Writing is my way of making other chances.” —Anne Tyler
  • “Writing is a performance, like singing an aria or dancing a jig” —Stephen Greenblatt
  • “All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath.” —F. Scott Fitzgerald
  • “Good writing is always about things that are important to you, things that are scary to you, things that eat you up.” —John Edgar Wideman
  • “In certain ways writing is a form of prayer.” —Denise Levertov
  • “Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.” —E.L. Doctorow
  • “Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” —E.L. Doctorow
  • “Let's face it, writing is hell.” —William Styron
  • “A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.” —Thomas Mann
  • “Writing is 90 percent procrastination: reading magazines, eating cereal out of the box, watching infomercials.” —Paul Rudnick
  • “Writing is a failure. Writing is not only useless, it's spoiled paper.” —Padget Powell
  • “Writing is very hard work and knowing what you're doing the whole time.” —Shelby Foote
  • “I think all writing is a disease. You can't stop it.” —William Carlos Williams
  • “Writing is like getting married. One should never commit oneself until one is amazed at one's luck.” —Iris Murdoch
  • “The less conscious one is of being ‘a writer,’ the better the writing.” —Pico Iyer
  • “Writing is…that oddest of anomalies: an intimate letter to a stranger.” —Pico Iyer
  • “Writing is my dharma.” —Raja Rao
  • “Writing is a combination of intangible creative fantasy and appallingly hard work.” —Anthony Powell
  • “I think writing is, by definition, an optimistic act.” —Michael Cunningham
Current Faves - Learn more about poets featured frequently on the show