Sep 23 2025
Born on September 23, 1901, Jaroslav Seifert lived through nearly the entire turbulent history of twentieth-century Czechoslovakia while remaining, above all else, a lyric poet. Revolutions changed governments around him, armies occupied his country, political movements he had once supported hardened into systems he later opposed, and censorship repeatedly affected his ability to publish. Yet …
Sep 22 2025
Alice Meynell belonged to the late Victorian literary world, but there is something strikingly modern about the quiet precision of her writing. She was a poet, essayist, critic, journalist, editor, Catholic intellectual, mother, and advocate for women’s suffrage whose work rarely depended upon grand gestures. Instead, she paid attention to pauses, fleeting impressions, changes of …
Sep 21 2025
Born in Seville on September 21, 1902, Luis Cernuda became one of the most distinctive voices of Spain’s Generation of ’27, a poet whose work continually circles the distance between the life we desire and the reality we are given. Love, beauty, loneliness, homosexuality, social judgment, exile, memory, Spain, youth, aging, and the longing for …
Sep 20 2025
Donald Hall spent much of his life returning. He returned to poems again and again until every unnecessary word had been tested. He returned in memory to the New Hampshire farm where he had spent summers as a boy. He returned to the people he loved after they were gone, writing about fathers, grandparents, friends, …
Sep 19 2025
Born on September 19, 1894, Rachel Field built a remarkably varied literary career in a life that lasted less than half a century. She wrote children’s novels, poetry, plays, adult fiction, lyrics, fairy tales, and stories, moving comfortably between audiences without treating one kind of writing as more worthy than another. She could imagine a …
Sep 06 2025
A hummingbird can stop you in your tracks. One moment the garden seems quiet, and the next a tiny flash of green, ruby, violet, or bronze appears beside a flower. The bird hovers almost impossibly in place, darts backward, disappears, and sometimes returns before you have fully registered what you just saw. It is easy …
Jun 11 2025
Few movie settings can change mood as quickly as a beach. Put a character beside the ocean and the story can suddenly feel romantic, adventurous, nostalgic, carefree—or terrifying. Beach movies have taken almost every possible form. Hollywood has sent teenagers to California surf breaks, lovers to Greek islands, FBI agents undercover among surfers, families to …
May 16 2025
Few flowers have become as closely associated with art as the sunflower. Its enormous circular center, radiating yellow petals, towering stem, and tendency to turn toward light give artists an unusually dramatic natural form to work with. Sunflowers can look cheerful and abundant when freshly opened, strange and sculptural as they mature, and almost melancholy …
Apr 15 2025
Every April 15, World Art Day offers an excuse to look a little longer at a painting, wander through a museum, pick up a sketchbook, or discover an artist whose work you have never explored before. UNESCO formally proclaimed World Art Day in 2019 as an annual celebration of artistic creation, cultural diversity, and the …
Apr 15 2025
Starting a garden is exciting, but it can also be surprisingly confusing. One book tells you to amend the soil. Another tells you not to disturb it. Seed packets seem to assume you already understand terms such as thinning, hardening off, succession planting, and partial shade. Even something as simple as choosing a tomato can …
