A happy birthday to Jean-Louis ...

... or, as we know him now, Jack Kerouac.






















Now that's a chart I'd really like to have the birthtime for. A grand trine is its major figure, but two of the points that form the trine are also afflicted by the Moon and Uranus, and Pluto and Jupiter, respectively. That's some crazy dynamics.

Two hundred birthdays for Mr. Poe

Edgar Allan Poe, whose practice as a poet and writer of fiction explored territories distinctly different from those available in the contemporary English tradition - and who, as a consequence, became the first American poet who actually matters to anyone but historians (okay, okay, and the occasional poet willing to dig into the Puritan rumblings of his predecessors; yes, I'm thinking of you, Mr. Berryman) - saw the light of day for the first time on this date two centuries ago in Boston.

One of my early favorites (probably before high-school), the still engaging "Annabelle Lee", the last poem he completed:

It was many and many a year ago,
    In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
    By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
    Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
    In this kingdom by the sea:
But we loved with a love that was more than love —
    I and my Annabel Lee;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
    Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
    In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
    My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsmen came
    And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
    In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
    Went envying her and me —
Yes! — that was the reason (as all men know,
    In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
    Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
    Of those who were older than we —
    Of many far wiser than we —
And neither the angels in heaven above,
    Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
    Of the beautiful Annabel Lee:

For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams
    Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes
    Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling — my darling — my life and my bride,
    In her sepulchre there by the sea,
    In her tomb by the sounding sea.

Most of his work is available now over at WikiSource. Not there, though, the remarkable, still little-read (so far as I can tell) Eureka, which Poe subtitled "A Prose Poem," though its additional subtitle offers a more reliable clue as to its focus: "An Essay on the Material and Spiritual Universe." It's nothing less than a cosmology, an exploration of the nature of the universe. For it, you'll need to journey to the Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore, which posts the 1848 text.

Thanks, E.A.P.

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Update: Here's Poe's astrological chart, drawn with the Sun in the first house (that is, as a Solar chart), since we don't know the time of his birth.

The thirty second reading: Sun conjunct Mercury, so born to communicate; Venus conjunct Moon, so a focus on love and feeling within relationships (as with "Annabelle Lee" and many of his other poems); and Pluto conjunct Jupiter, so a real urge to achievement and innovation.

Birthdays: Rainer Maria Rilke

Rilke was born this date in 1875, in Prague, and so joins William Blake, Mark Twain, and Walt Disney in the astrological company of Sagittarians. Here's his solar chart, cast with the Sun on the cusp of the first house, as charts are traditionally cast when the birthtime is not known. Notice that red square? And the red lines connecting the corners? Those are some challenging aspects. They didn't prevent him, of course, from becoming one of the most deeply imaginative poets of the twentieth century - proving once again, I suppose, that it's not just the chart, but what one does with it, that's decisive for the outcome of all our undertakings.

A belated Happy Birthday ...

To William Blake, born on the 28th of November, 1757.

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Blake's And God Created Adam, 1795, available from the Wikimedia Commons.

Happy birthday, William Carlos Williams

William Carlos Williams, born this day in 1883. He bought much more to American modernism than a red wheelbarrow, though that may be what he's now best remembered for. For me, he's still one of the essential poets, in all the variety, and all the periods, of his work.

Another happy birthday ...

to Wendell Berry, born this day in 1934 - and so yet another Leonine voice.

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Photo from Wikimedia Commons.

Happy birthday, guys

Herman Melville, in 1819...




















and Jerry Garcia, in 1942.




















Quite the Leonine pair. Garcia, though, is much more the Leo than Melville, with four planets in that sign to Melville's one, his Sun. Both had the Moon in Aries, both had Venus in Cancer. Both charts feature major contraries - patterns of squares and oppositions that can show up in internal contradictions and external obstacles or challenges.

Of course.

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No birth times available (so far) for either of these men, so the charts are "solar" charts; the solar chart simply locates the Sun in the chart's first house, in its appropriate sign.

Another birthday: Thomas Meyer ...

... who turns sixty-one today.

You certainly brought me good Fortune
But that is just what I regret, my success. The worst thing is once to have been happy.
A mouth and some yarrow stalks. Two witches dance for rain. Future foretelling.
A dish covered but full. Everything that was predicted comes about.
What you want will be done. Your heart's desire is the plan from now on.

(A few lines from the very fine "The Magician's Assistant", which appeared recently in Damn the Caesars, Volume III.)

Many more, Mr. Meyer.


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Here's a previous post on Meyer's translation of the daode jing , and a link to other posts on his work. Though things have been quiet there lately, the Musings page over at the Jargon Society remains worth delving into.

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The photo of Thomas Meyer is by Reuben Cox.

It's the birthday ...

of Joseph Conrad, born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski on December 3, 1857 in Polish Ukraine, then part of the Russian Empire.

Some thirty-six of Conrad's works are available for free at Project Guttenberg, many as audio files as well as texts.

(Perhaps I'd someday finish Nostromo if I were listening to it ...)

Update: The complete works are available as free eBooks at the University of Adelaide's eBook site.

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Photo of Conrad in 1916 by Alvin Langdon Coburn

Thanks to Silliman for the first link.

And a happy birthday to Jessica Smith

Today was Jessica Smith's birthday; she's now twenty eight. Through Sunday of this week she reads from her book Organic Furniture Cellar and talks about her work on the archived edition of Wordplay.

If all goes well over the next couple of days, this Sunday we'll be featuring another Scorpio poet, though one who worked very differently: William Matthews. If you're curious about what Bill was up to, much of his third book, Rising and Falling, is online. Sebastian had some CDs and older cassettes I've now digitized; all we have to do now is select what we want to play from the literal hours of recordings.

Not too far down the road ... well, let me just say for now that it's likely we'll be able to play somewhat more of the material we have available on any given Sunday, get deeper into our interviews, and give our poets more room to stretch out. But more on those changes when we get closer to introducing them.

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Jessica's photo via Facebook.

Update: It was also the birthday of Albert Camus, so Jessica's in some interesting company.

Gads! Tom Meyer now 60

To help him celebrate, why not scoot over to Jargon's site to read some of his work - the wonderful essay "On Being Neglected," for example, which I've returned to many times.

[A] good friend once confessed how wonderful it felt to edit an anthology, and not include work of his own. Though not a lesson our society proffers, there is good sense in making one's work a refuge, rather than a display, the self evident as opposed to the self-proclaimed, to dare not to be first, even in disappointment. Consider this: Hiding one's light under a bushel is actually a strength, not a weakness — the authority of accomplishment. That's nearly unthinkable here and now in these United States, despite all our spiritual aspirations.

In taking the measure of his own path, he casts light into byways anyone committed to the work of writing will find it more than useful to explore. If you're a poet, you'd do well to read it, print it, and keep it close at hand to read again.

And there's more to be found there through the Musings page - including files you can stream or download of Tom reading Coromandel, his recent long poem, the text of his translation of the Katha Upanishad, and his memoir of artist Sandra Fisher.

And there are articles on Tom's translation of the daode jing at NatureS here, here, and here.

Happy birthday, Tom. Like they say, many more.

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The photo of Thomas Meyer is by Reuben Cox.