Happy Birthday Mark Twain !

Mark Twain

Today is the birthday of an American author and humorist Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), better known by his pen name Mark Twain. He is most noted for his novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and its sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), the latter often called "the Great American Novel." He achieved great success as a writer and public speaker. His wit and satire earned praise from critics and peers, and he was a friend to presidents, artists, industrialists, and European royalty. Twain was born during a visit by Halley's Comet, and he predicted that he would "go out with it" as well. He died the day following the comet's subsequent return. He was lauded as the "greatest American humorist of his age," and William Faulkner called Twain "the father of American literature." Presenting some poems : Being Poet

Warm Summer Sun

Warm summer sun,
Shine kindly here,
Warm southern wind,
Blow softly here.
Green sod above,
Lie light, lie light.
Good night, dear heart,
Good night, good night.

To Jennie

Good-bye! a kind good-bye,
I bid you now, my friend,
And though 'tis sad to speak the word,
To destiny I bend

And though it be decreed by Fate
That we ne'er meet again,
Your image, graven on my heart,
Forever shall remain.

Aye, in my heart thoult have a place,
Among the friends held dear,-
Nor shall the hand of Time efface
The memories written there.

Goodbye,
S.L.C.

Those Annual Bills

These annual bills! these annual bills!
How many a song their discord trills
Of 'truck' consumed, enjoyed, forgot,
Since I was skinned by last year's lot!

Those joyous beans are passed away;
Those onions blithe, O where are they?
Once loved, lost, mourned-now vexing ILLS
Your shades troop back in annual bills!

And so 'twill be when I'm aground
These yearly duns will still go round,
While other bards, with frantic quills,
Shall damn and damn these annual bills! 

Happy Birthday James Agee !

James Rufus Agee

Today is the birthday of an American author, poet, journalist, screenwriter and film critic James Rufus Agee (November 27, 1909 – May 16, 1955). In the 1940s, he was one of the most influential film critics in the U.S. His autobiographical novel, A Death in the Family (1957), won the author a posthumous 1958 Pulitzer Prize. Presenting some Quotations : Being Poet

• God doesn't believe in the easy way.
• This continent, an open palm spread frank before the sky.
• You must be in tune with the times and prepared to break with tradition.
• The mere attempt to examine my own confusion would consume volumes.
• We are talking now of summer evenings in Knoxville, Tennessee, in the time that I lived there so successfully disguised to myself as a child.
• It is a peculiar part of the good photographer's adventure to know where luck is most likely to lie in the stream, to hook it, and to bring it in without unfair play and without too much subduing it. 

Happy Birthday Mario Puzo !

Mario Gianluigi Puzo

Today is the birthday of an Italian American author and screenwriter Mario Gianluigi Puzo (October 15, 1920 – July 2, 1999), known for his novels about the Mafia, including The Godfather (1969), which he later co-adapted into a film by Francis Ford Coppola. He won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay in both 1972 and 1974. Presenting some Quotations : Being Poet

• Every family has bad memories.
• Friendship and money : oil and water.
• Even the strongest man needs friends.
• I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse.
• I believe in America. America's made my fortune.
• Never hate your enemies. It affects your judgment.
• Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!
• Finance is a gun. Politics is knowing when to pull the trigger.
• I like to drink wine more than I used to. Anyway, I'm drinking more.
• I don't like violence, Tom. I'm a businessman. Blood is a big expense.
• A lawyer with his briefcase can steal more than a hundred men with guns.
• The only wealth in this world is children, more than all the money, power on earth.
• Certainly he can present a bill for such services. After all, we are not communists.
• Look, we are all reasonable men here. We don't have to give assurances, as if we were lawyers.
• I have always believed helping your fellow man is profitable in every sense, personally and bottom line.
• It doesn't make any difference to me what a man does for a living, you understand. But your business is a little dangerous.
• Give this to Clemenza. I want reliable people, people who won't get carried away. I mean, we're not murderers, in spite of what this undertaker says.
• Now, listen. I want somebody good, and I mean very good, to plant that gun. I don't want my brother coming out of that toilet with just his dick in his hand.
• What we think of as our sensitivity is only the higher evolution of terror in a poor dumb beast. We suffer for nothing. Our own death wish is our only real tragedy.
• Like many businessmen of genius he learned that free competition was wasteful, monopoly efficient. And so he simply set about achieving that efficient monopoly.
• Like many businessmen of genius he learned that free competition was wasteful, monopoly efficient. And so he simply set about achieving that efficient monopoly.
• He was ... a degenerate gambler. That is, a man who gambled simply to gamble and must lose. As a hero who goes to war must die. Show me a gambler and I'll show you a loser, show me a hero and I'll show you a corpse.

Happy Birthday e. e. cummings !

e. e. cummings

Today is the birthday of an American poet, painter, essayist and playwright Edward Estlin Cummings (October 14, 1894 – September 3, 1962), popularly known as e. e. cummings. His body of work encompasses approximately 2,900 poems, two autobiographical novels, four plays and several essays, as well as numerous drawings and paintings. He is remembered as a preeminent voice of 20th century poetry. Presenting some poems : Being Poet

love is more thicker than forget

love is more thicker than forget
more thinner than recall
more seldom than a wave is wet
more frequent than to fail

it is most mad and moonly
and less it shall unbe
than all the sea which only
is deeper than the sea

love is less always than to win
less never than alive
less bigger than the least begin
less littler than forgive

it is most sane and sunly
and more it cannot die
than all the sky which only
is higher than the sky

Buffalo Bill 's

Buffalo Bill 's
defunct
 who used to
 ride a watersmooth-silver
 stallion
and break one two three four five  pigeons just like that
 Jesus
he was a handsome man
 and what i want to know is
how do you like your blueeyed boy
Mister Death

i carry your heart with me

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
                                                      i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls

the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls
are unbeautiful and have comfortable minds
(also, with the church's protestant blessings
daughters,unscented shapeless spirited)
they believe in Christ and Longfellow, both dead,
are invariably interested in so many things—
at the present writing one still finds
delighted fingers knitting for the is it Poles?
perhaps. While permanent faces coyly bandy
scandal of Mrs. N and Professor D
.... the Cambridge ladies do not care, above
Cambridge if sometimes in its box of
sky lavender and cornerless, the
moon rattles like a fragment of angry candy

Writers should welcome a future where readers remix our books

China Miéville by Murdo Macleod 

China Miéville at the Edinburgh international book festival, where he called for a uniform, blanket salary for writers, novelists and poets equivalent to the 'wage of a skilled worker'. : Being Poet 

China Miéville, author of novels including The City & the City and Embassytown, has described anti-piracy measures for literature in the digital age as "disingenuous, hypocritical, ineffectual" and "artistically philistine".

Speaking in Edinburgh at a debate on the future of the novel, Miéville said that just as music fans remix albums and post them online, so readers will recut the novel.

He and his fellow writers should "be ready for guerrilla editors", he said, adding: "In the future, asked if you've read the latest Ali Smith or Ghada Karmi, the response might be not yes or no, but which mix?"

There was, he said, a "blurring of boundaries between writers, books and readers, self-publishing, the fanfication of fiction".

The comments were made during the last of the five debates at the Edinburgh world writers' conference, which has brought together 50 authors from countries ranging from Scotland to Argentina and the Dominican Republic to Pakistan.

They include Kamila Shamsie, Ali Smith, Yiyun Li, Ahdaf Soueif and Jackie Kay.

The event, part of the Edinburgh international book festival, was a 50th anniversary restaging of the 1962 Edinburgh writers' conference.

The original event – notorious for its passionate exchanges between writers – was attended by such figures as Rebecca West, Muriel Spark and Mary McCarthy.

The effect of the internet and digital distribution on fiction, said Miéville, would not be about creating "enhanced" ebooks, which he called "a banal abomination".

Rather, the effect would be to heighten the openness of texts. "Anyone who wants to shove their hands into a book and grub about in its innards, add to and subtract from it, and pass it on, will … be able to do so without much difficulty."

But Ewan Morrison, author of Tales from the Mall, called Miéville's vision of the future "naive, and based on what I would call dot-communism, which is a spurious leftism based on collectivity, that we are all heading towards a world where information will be shared".

The problem of this new world was that it would be "demonetised" for writers, he said, "and therefore none of us will be making a living when we have all these books that are mashed up".

Poet John Burnside said he doubted the existence of a future online utopia, arguing against Miéville's view that the "original text will always still be there. It will not be stolen".

Burnside said: "You say that the text will always be there. I don't trust the state, big companies and religious nuts not to try to erase the text and replace it with their version – so that at the end of Crime and Punishment, Raskolnikov [its main character] ends up finding Jesus and moving to Utah and lives happily ever after.

"I am not arguing about the excitement of technology, I am just urging a lot of caution and a lot of mistrust of the kind of people with an axe to grind who may try to erase the texts we care about."

Miéville also called for a uniform, blanket salary for writers, novelists and poets, equivalent to the "wage of a skilled worker".

Such a move, he said, would cut against the "philistine thuggery of the market" that failed to sift the good from the bad. And, though it would cause writers at the top of the bestseller lists to lose income, such collectivisation would for most writers "mean an improvement in their situation, an ability to write full time".

Writers at the debate also spoke about novelists' negativity about the future of the form.

Poet Jackie Kay questioned the gloom, saying: "Just as religious people are often predicting the end of the world, so novelists are often predicting the end of the novel. Poets never talk about the death of the poem. Why do novelists have this extreme anxiety?"

Kamila Shamsie, the Pakistani novelist, talked about the creativity engendered by significant technological change. Writers such as Italo Calvino had emerged, she said, in the wake of the rise of TV and film, when the dominant storytelling form was changing from page to screen.

"The novel has to find somewhere else to go. If the threat of something new and different and bigger than you creates Calvinos, then it is not a threat," she said.

Towards the end of the debate, Kay came up with an impromptu play on words that may have summed up the mood.

"What's not novel about the novel is navel-gazing," she said.

Miéville spoke of a broadening of opportunity brought about by the internet's "long tail". He hoped, he said, that the English-language publishing sphere would start "tentatively to revel in that half-recognised distinctness of non-English-language novels".

He pointed out that "obscure works of Russian avant garde and new translations of Bruno Schulz are available to anyone with access to a computer. One future is of … decreasing parochialism."

Citing Ubuweb – the online archive for avant garde poetry – he added: "With the internet has come proof that there are audiences way beyond the obvious."

(http://www.guardian.co.uk)

Happy Birthday Beatrix Potter !

Helen Beatrix Potter

Today is the birthday of an English author, illustrator, natural scientist Helen Beatrix Potter (28 July 1866 – 22 December 1943), best known for her imaginative children’s books featuring animals such as those in The Tale of Peter Rabbit which celebrated the British landscape and country life. Presenting some poems : Being Poet

Bow, wow, wow

Bow, wow, wow!
Whose dog art thou?
"I'm little Tom Tinker's dog,
Bow, wow, wow!" 

Goosey, Goosey, Gander

GOOSEY, goosey, gander, 
Whither will you wander? 
Upstairs and downstairs, 
And in my lady's chamber! 

Ninny Nanny Netticoat

Ninny Nanny Netticoat, 
In a white petticoat, 
With a red nose, -- 
The longer she stands, 
The shorter she grows. 

This pig went to market

THIS pig went to market; 
This pig stayed at home; 

This pig had a bit of meat; 
And this pig had none; 

This little pig cried 
Wee! wee! wee! 
I can't find my way home. 

We have a Little Garden

WE have a little garden,
A garden of our own, 
And every day we water there 
The seeds that we have sown.

WE love our little garden,
And tend it with such care, 
You will not find a faced leaf
Or blighted blossom there. 

Cecily Parsley

CECILY PARSLEY 
lived in a pen, 
And brewed good ale 
for gentlemen; 

GENTLEMEN came 
every day, 
Till Cecily Parsley 
ran away. 

Three blind mice

Three blind mice, three blind mice, 
See how they run! 
They all run after the farmer's wife, 
And she cut off their tails with a carving knife, 
Did ever you see such a thing in your life 
As three blind mice! 

Happy Birthday George Bernard Shaw !

George Bernard Shaw 

Today is the birthday of an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950). Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60 plays. Nearly all his writings address prevailing social problems, but have a vein of comedy which makes their stark themes more palatable. Shaw examined education, marriage, religion, government, health care, and class privilege. He is the only person to have been awarded both a Nobel Prize in Literature (1925) and an Oscar (1938), for his contributions to literature and for his work on the film Pygmalion (adaptation of his play of the same name), respectively. Presenting some poems : Being Poet

A Dream

My spirits soar on high, 
Inebriated with thoughts so pure.
I now can fly, 
Nothing is obscure.
Spiritual healing is taking place, 
As I rise to heavens realms.
Beams of joy cover my face, 
Nothing can me overwhelm.
I have seen the heavens gates, 
Beautiful light paves the way, 
Music sweet to soul and ear, 
I have nothing more to say. 

A New Start

I have wiped the slate clean, 
No more reminders from the past.
Memories of what I have been, 
Have vanished at long last.
I look forward to my future new, 
Where all is territory strange.
Soon I will be among the few, 
That plans their life at long range.
I see my life laid out at my feet, 
New friends shall rally at my call.
They will be the first I will greet, 
At this my welcoming ball.
Soon all memories will depart, 
Of a past left well behind.
I will get off to a new start, 
With the best of mankind. 

Baby Eyes

Large Baby eyes smiling joyfully at me, 
Baby eyes as brown as can be.
Two deep pools most innocent and bright, 
To me are symbols of sheer delight.
May I greet you every single day? 
For you are sunshine on my way.
Other people see you smile so sweet, 
All are happier when you they meet.
Eyes are the windows to the soul, 
No difficulties for you reaching your goal.
So sweet baby go on life's way, 
Those Baby eyes have much to say. 

Broken Spirit

Only with you by my side, 
Can I take all in my stride.
You give me a silent strength, 
each pace a gathering length.
I know that I will reach my goal, 
for you help me play my role.
Your guidance carries me along, 
in my heart a wondering song.
What strange whim sent you my way, 
I do not know, I cannot say.
I just thank Heaven that you are here, 
Keeping me going with thoughts so clear.
Stay with me to the very end, 
For you my broken spirit did mend. 

A Cross At The Front

With a cross at the front they march along,
Are you ready to join this happy throng?
Their only weapons the Bible and a book of prayer.
Which all are happy with you to share.
Their rallying call, ”Praise be to the Lord.”
None are conscripted they come of their own accord.
Happy faces filled with spiritual grace,
Be honest could you stand the pace?
No rewards or riches on this our earth,
Just the sure knowledge of a heavenly rebirth.
Bringing peace and goodwill to one and all,
Open your ears hear their rallying call.
Join this happy marching throng,
Then you too will know where you belong.
A state of happiness and peace will prevail,
When you the name of Jesus do hail. 

A Name

Shakespeare once wrote what is in a name, 
Was he I wonder thinking of everlasting fame? 
A man of words, beautiful to the ear, 
His, an eloquence for all to hear.
Tales of Kings and royal Queens, 
Even of commoners and bawdy scenes.
A man blessed with the gift and might of the pen, 
His stories are filled with deeds of daring men.
Tales of love, Intrigue and yes death.
Leave us gasping or holding our breath.
He wrote of the beauty of a single rose.
That smelled so sweet when held to the nose.
He wrote about the rich and the poor, 
None of his works was ever a bore.
So now I ask what is in a name, 
Certainly for Shakespeare it brought great fame. 

A Poem A Day

I try to write one poem each day, 
I never know what I will say.
Be it love for natures blossoms, 
Perhaps, a tale about some possums.
Will it touch a chord in your heart? 
Encourage you to make a new start! 
It may be sad it may be funny
But I will not sell it not for money.
I might write about the Zoo, 
Or even something not quite true.
Fantasy is with me a big plus, 
No big deal to make a fuss.
My poem may even make you smile, 
Then my writing it will have been worthwhile.
It could be a poem that is quite sad.
Would that be so really bad? 
Yes I try to write a poem every day, 
Hoping it will help you on your way. 

Child Play

I see the children as they play, 
The games I know so well.
I watch with delight every day, 
As I listen to voices sweet as a bell.

The cheerful cries fill me with joy, 
Smiling faces tell all is good.
My heart goes out to every girl and boy, 
And I would play with them if I could.

From my armchair I watch in leisure, 
Happy faces out side my window frames, 
Yes I am content to see such pleasure
And wish that I could join in their games.

The children take me back to the old days, 
When I was young and filled with esprit.
Now I can only sit here and gaze, 
Thanking Heaven that I can still hear and see. 

Happy birthday Salinger !

Jerome David Salinger

Today is the birthday of Jerome David Salinger (January 1, 1919 – January 27, 2010) was an American author, best known for his 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye, as well as his reclusive nature. His last original published work was in 1965; he gave his last interview in 1980. Presenting a short note on his life and work : Being Poet

Raised in Manhattan, Salinger began writing short stories while in secondary school, and published several stories in the early 1940s before serving in World War II. Salinger published his first stories in Story magazine which was started by Whit Burnett. In 1948 he published the critically acclaimed story "A Perfect Day for Banana fish" in The New Yorker magazine, which became home too much of his subsequent work. In 1951 Salinger released his novel The Catcher in the Rye, an immediate popular success. His depiction of adolescent alienation and loss of innocence in the protagonist Holden Caulfield was influential, especially among adolescent readers. The novel remains widely read and controversial, selling around 250,000 copies a year.

The success of The Catcher in the Rye led to public attention and scrutiny: Salinger became reclusive, publishing new work less frequently. He followed Catcher with a short story collection, Nine Stories (1953), a volume containing a novella and a short story, Franny and Zooey (1961), and a volume containing two novellas, Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction (1963). His last published work, a novella entitled "Hapworth 16, 1924", appeared in The New Yorker on June 19, 1965.

Afterward, Salinger struggled with unwanted attention, including a legal battle in the 1980s with biographer Ian Hamilton and the release in the late 1990s of memoirs written by two people close to him: Joyce Maynard, an ex-lover; and Margaret Salinger, his daughter. In 1996, a small publisher announced a deal with Salinger to publish "Hapworth 16, 1924" in book form, but amid the ensuing publicity, the release was indefinitely delayed. He made headlines around the globe in June 2009, after filing a lawsuit against another writer for copyright infringement resulting from that writer's use of one of Salinger's characters from The Catcher in the Rye. Salinger died of natural causes on January 27, 2010, at his home in Cornish, New Hampshire.

(source : wikipedia)