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Welcome to The Coffee Shop, just for you early risers
on Monday mornings. This is an Open Thread forum,
so if you have an off-topic opinion burning a hole in
your brainpan, feel free to add a comment.
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September 4th is Newspaper Carrier Day.
In 1833, New York Sun editor Benjamin Day ran an ad for “steady men” to vend the paper. When 10-year-old Barney Flaherty applied for the job, he impressed Day, and was hired, becoming the first paperboy. His cry of “Paper! Get your paper, here!” became the universal pitch of boys – and some girls – hawking the news.
In 1899, the ‘newsies’ went on strike to change the deal that Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst’s newspapers had with their force of newsboys or newspaper hawkers, who had to buy the newspapers they then sold to the public. When the price to the newsboys went up, many people wouldn’t pay a higher price for the papers, so the newsboys were left with unsold papers, and couldn’t make a living. The strikers demonstrated across New York City for several days, effectively stopping circulation of the two papers, along with the news distribution for many New England cities. The strike lasted two weeks, causing Pulitzer’s New York World to decrease its circulation from 360,000 papers sold per day to 125,000. Although the price of papers was not lowered, the strike was successful in forcing the World and Journal to offer full buybacks to the newsies for unsold papers, allowing them to stay out of the red.
Stephen Crane (1871-1900) was an American poet, novelist, short story writer, and war correspondent. Prolific throughout his short life, he wrote notable works in the Realist tradition as well as early examples of American Naturalism and Impressionism. Regarded as one of the most innovative writers of his generation, today he is mostly remembered for The Red Badge of Courage. He was plagued by financial difficulties and ill health, and died of tuberculosis in a Black Forest sanatorium in Germany at the age of 28.
To read Stephen Crane’s poem “A Newspaper is a Collection of Half-Injustices” click:
by IRENE FOWLER, Guest Blogger
Good morning everyone and welcome.
As a Director of a private secondary school for girls, in Nigeria, part of my responsibilities included overseeing enriching, character-building extra-curricular programs, beneficial to the holistic development of our students.
One of such programs was a school’s chapter of the National Girl Guides Association, which in turn, falls under the umbrella organization, known as the “World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (WAGGGS).” The ubiquitous, voluntary movement, which was founded by Lord Baden-Powell in 1928, is dedicated to girls and young women.
The body represents over 10 million women and girls from 150 countries. The mission of the empowering, female oriented initiative is “to enable girls and young women to develop their fullest potential as responsible citizens of the world.” https://www.wagggs.org/en/
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Welcome to The Coffee Shop, just for you early risers
on Monday mornings. This is an Open Thread forum,
so if you have an off-topic opinion burning a hole in
your brainpan, feel free to add a comment.
______________________________
Today is Florine Stettheimer’s day of birth.
Florine Stettheimer (1871–1944), American modernist painter, designer and poet; credited as the artist who painted the first feminist nude self-portrait; in the 1930s, she hosted a salon with her sisters that attracted members of the avant-garde in Manhattan, and where she exhibited her work. Stettheimer created the stage designs and costumes for Gertrude Stein and Virgil Thomson’s avant-garde opera, Four Saints in Three Acts. She is best known for her four monumental works illustrating what she considered to be New York City’s “Cathedrals”: Broadway, Wall Street, Fifth Avenue, and New York’s three major art museums.
To read Florine Stettheimer’s poem “Occasionally” click
Rita Dove was born August 28, 1952, in Akron, Ohio; American poet and essayist; winner of the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for her book Thomas and Beulah; U.S. Library of Congress Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry, 1993-1995, the first African-American (after the title change from Poetry Consultant to Poet Laureate), and at age 40, the youngest poet to be appointed Poet Laureate by the Librarian of Congress. Her poetry collections include The Yellow House on the Corner, Mother Love, On the Bus with Rosa Parks, and American Smooth.
To read Rita Dove’s poems “Adolescence I” and “Dawn Revisted” click:
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Welcome to The Coffee Shop, just for you early risers
on Monday mornings. This is an Open Thread forum,
so if you have an off-topic opinion burning a hole in
your brainpan, feel free to add a comment.
______________________________
We burned continents of silence the future of nations
the breathing of the fighters got thicker became like oxen’s
there is in that breath sparkles of scorched flesh and the fainting of stars
– Etel Adnan
World Mosquito Day: on August 20, 1897, Sir Ronald Ross, British physician, discovers that female mosquitoes transit malaria between humans. The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine has held annual celebrations of the day since the 1930s
John Updike (1932-2009) American novelist, short-story writer, art critic, poet, and literary critic. One of only four writers to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction more than once, along with Booth Tarkington, William Faulkner, and Colson Whitehead. Updike won in 1982 for Rabbit Is Rich, and in 1991 for Rabbit At Rest. Among many other honors, he also won the American Book Award for fiction, and the National Book Critics Circle Award for both fiction and criticism. His collections of poetry include Facing Nature: Poems, Collected Poems: 1953–1993, and Americana and Other Poems (2001).
To read Johnn Updike’s poem “The Mosquito” click:
Serendipity Day was launched to celebrate life’s happy surprises. The word was coined by historian and politician Horace Walpole in 1754 as an allusion to Serendip, an old name for Sri Lanka. Walpole was a prolific letter writer, and he explained to one of his main correspondents that he had based the word on the title of a fairy tale, The Three Princes of Serendip, because the title heroes ‘were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things they were not in quest of ’
I was unable to find any information about Chris Bixler, other than he lives in Georgia, and posts poems at Hello Poetry, but his poem was too good not to share.
To read Chris Bixler’s poem “Unexpected Meeting” click:
Nicole Plyler Fisk
Gene Howington
FFS Guest Blogger
Joy of Fishes
Chuck Stanley
shortfinals
Terry Welshans
ann li-summers
wordcloud9
Flowers For Socrates 