Status Updates From Poem for the Day One

Shakespeare's rival dramatist Robert Greene died September 3rd 1592, on his deathbed writing to beware of the "upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers...in his own conceit th only Shake-scene in a countrie."

At Parting

Anne Ridler
'(July 30th 1912 — )

Anne Ridler writes: "The parting was not to be a final one, for we have lived to celebrate our Golden Wedding. But it was hard enough to bear: we had only been married two years, and our first child was on the way. My husband was posted to the RAF base in Scapa Flow, Orkney, and I was able to join him there for a few months before he was sent to West Africa."

Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote 'Hurrahing in Harvest' in the Vale of Chewed in Wales September 1st 1877.

Valiant-for-Truth's Song

John Bunyan
(Baptized November 30th 1628 — August 31st 1688)

... These books and Bunyan's own religious experiences, led him in due course to start preaching without a licence in the villages around Bedford. He was arrested in November 1660 and spent most of the next twelve years completing the writing of more than nine books in jail. He also began to write The Pilgrim's Progress.

Mayr Shelley, author of Frankenstein and wife of the poet, born on August 30th 1797, the daughter of William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft.

The Belgian poetic dramatist Maurice Maeterli;nk, who wrote 'Pelléas et Mélisande', was born August 29th 1862.

A Subaltern's Love-song

...

The scent of the conifers, sound of the bath,
The view from my bedroom of moss-dappled path,
As I struggle with double-end evening tie,
For we dance at the Golf Club, my victor and I.

...

Sir John Betjeman
(August 28th 1906 — May 29th 1984)

James thomson, Scottish poet who probably wrote 'Rule Britannia', died August 27th 1748.

The Ninth Secret Poem

Guillaume Apollnaire
(August 26th 1880 —‚ November 9th 1918)
translated by Oliver Bernard

...His mother tended to disappear too, once leaving him for the holidays at a hotel in the Ardennes with his younger brother, and at the end of the holidays sending them the rail fare so that they could abscond to Paris without paying the hotel bill.

Sweet Content

Thomas Dekker
(?1570 — august 25th 1632)

Thomas Dekker could have done with some "golden numbers", since he went to prison for debt on two occasions, the second time for nearly seven years (from 1613). Nevertheless he is said to have retained a sunny disposition and to have developed a strong sympathy for oppressed people and animals. '

The Bracelet: To Julia

Robert Herrick
(August 24th 1591 — October 15th 1674)

...For a time he left without permission from his bishop to live in London with Tomasin Parsons, who was 27 years younger than him.
As a Royalist, he was deprived of his living at Dean Prior by Parliament in 1647.

W. E. Henley born August 23rd 1849.

Dorothy Parker bon in West End, New Jersey, the daughter of a cloth salesman, August 22nd 1893. Her mother died when she was five.

X. J. Kennedy born August 21st 1929

Last Lines

Emily Brontë
(July 20rh `8`8 — December 19th 1848)

Emily Brontë was christened on this day in St James' church, Thornton, Yorkshire, in 1818. She died aged 30 at her family home in Haworth, having refused all medical care and believing doctors "poisonous". Her life was, in the words of her poem "The Death of A.G.A.', "stormy and brief".

Ogden Nash born in Rye, New York, August 19th 1902

Andrew Marvell died August 18th 1678 or on the 16th, the exact date is uncertain.

Thistles

Ted Hughes
(August 17th 1930 — October 28th 1998)

... An essential sort of language — not linked too closely to what changes with every decade and century, everliving yet solid with living stuff, like the pattern of lines on the human hand. At least, that is what I see behind these verses now — that preoccupation.

Baroness Carolina Naime, the Jacobite songwriter *"Will ye no come back again?", was born August 16th 1766.

Walter Scott, novelist and poet, born in Edinburgh August 15th 1771.