On this day in literary history in 1913, American poet Joyce Kilmer wrote his famous poem “Trees.” Joyce Kilmer was an American poet born in New Brunswick, New Jersey, in 1886. He graduated from Columbia University and began his career as a writer and journalist. In 1913, he published his most famous poem, “Trees,” which was an ode to the beauty of nature.
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On this day in literary history in 1687, Charles Perrault’s poem “The Age of Louis the Great” was read at the French Academy. Perrault’s poem was part of the literary quarrel between the Ancients and the Moderns, and Perrault was a leader of the Modern faction. However, Charles Perrault is more widely known as the father of fairy tales, having written some of the most memorable and beloved stories in history, such as “Cinderella,” “Sleeping Beauty,” and “Puss in Boots.”
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Our ancestors knew this was wrong.
I’m always reading heavy and serious books like Kafka, the classics, or dystopian science fiction. So I decided recently to read something a little more light-hearted for a change of pace.
The book I picked up was from Rachel’s shelf – The Golem and the Jinni, a 2013 debut novel from Helene Wecker. The novel still has some serious themes, but it wasn’t the type of angsty existentialism I usually dig into.
(more…)Look at our history, we’re a warlike species
we wish to beat + battle
but can we foster peace?
Piece by piece, we lunge toward an unknown future,
fighting animal instincts –
military tanks rumble toward me,
I step barefoot, bloody over broken glass
armed with a lotus flower
to combat their firepower.
History is collective memory, and it’s always subject to correction.
It’s written by winners, whether daughters of despots or democrats. They build bronze statues that inform us of what happened, who’s calling the shots, who owns the space you occupy.
As the city convulses, an ex-mayor’s monument is fractured, beat to the ground. Our historical texts must be rewritten, newspaper editors must be removed, the revolution must be televised and live streamed to your social media feeds, and you must forget what you’ve learned because
there are new facts.
(Photo by The New York Public Library on Unsplash)
I love Philly. I grew up in the area, and I have a lot of pride in the city. Philly has an incredible Mural Arts program that funds and creates beautiful murals throughout the city. There’s also tons of random art, like this wall of graffiti near a parking lot in the Old City neighborhood.
(more…)“People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them.” – commonly attributed to James Baldwin. As the protests have continued lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the importance of history. Some people are acting like Black Lives Matter has come out of nowhere, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.
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