| Horseshoes with Maurice
by Joyce Sutphen On Sundays, my father and
Maurice played horseshoes. I loved to see them in their
white shirts and black slacks, each carrying a pair of clanking
iron in their calloused hands, stepping the left foot forward
swinging the right arm back–– and I loved the way the shoe went
twisting and turning through the air like an acrobat in the circus
we never got to see––and the way I knew, simply from the sound,
that it was another perfect ringer. Reproduced from Carrying Water to the Field: New and Selected Poems by Joyce Sutphen by permission of the University of Nebraska Press. Forthcoming October 2019 with the University of Nebraska Press. (preorder now)
On this day in 1912, Virginia Stephen married Leonard Woolf. She was 30, he was 31, and they married at London’s St. Pancras Registry Office. Together, the couple founded the Hogarth Press in their dining room. They taught themselves how to print. Their first project was a printed and bound pamphlet containing a story by each of them. They published Virginia Woolf’s novels, a collection of Freud’s papers, and the works of writers who were then unknown, including Katherine Mansfield, T.S. Eliot, and E.M. Forster.
It was on this date in 1519 that the explorer Ferdinand Magellan set off to sail around the world. Although he was Portuguese, Magellan had sworn allegiance to Spain, and he began the journey with a fleet of five ships and 270 men to see if he could accomplish what Columbus had failed to: find a navigable route to Asia that didn’t involve going around Africa. They set sail from Seville, heading west. After crossing the Atlantic, surviving a mutiny, and losing one ship, Magellan reached Brazil and turned south, following the coast until he came to a deep-water strait that separated the rest of South America from Tierra del Fuego. Magellan entered the strait on All Saints’ Day in 1520, so he christened it the Strait of All Saints. Later, the Spanish king changed its name to the Strait of Magellan. After sailing 373 miles in the strait, Magellan became the first European to enter the Pacific Ocean from the east, and he’s the one who named it “Pacific,” because it was much calmer than the Atlantic. Unfortunately for Magellan, he never completed the voyage himself. The fleet stopped off in what are now the Philippine Islands, where Magellan befriended a local chief and offered to help him in his war with the natives on a neighboring island. Magellan was killed in battle in April 1521, and the remaining fleet continued on without him. They arrived back in Seville — down to one ship and 18 men — on September 8, 1522.
President James K. Polk signed an act establishing the Smithsonian Institution on this date in 1846. James Smithson was an English scientist. He was also the illegitimate son of a nobleman and a widow who was related to the royal family. Although he inherited a lot of money from his mother, his illegitimacy kept him from any of the social or career advantages that his family connections might have given him. “I am related to kings,” he wrote, “but this avails me not.” So instead, he spent his life studying, traveling, and getting to know some of the greatest scientific minds of Europe. He wrote, “It is in knowledge that man has found his greatness and his happiness.” Smithson never married, and had no children. Shortly before his death in 1829, he bequeathed his estate to the United States for the foundation of an institution for “the increase and diffusion of knowledge.” No one really knows why he left all his money to a country he had never visited. Smithson never gave a reason for his decision. The money, about half a million dollars, was transferred to the U.S. Mint in 1838, and for eight years, the people in charge argued about what he meant by the increase and diffusion of knowledge. Did he mean a university, an observatory, a research institute, a publishing house, a national library, or a museum? In the end, the Smithsonian Institution became all of those things, except a university. The Smithsonian complex now includes 19 different museums, the National Zoo, and nine research facilities.
It’s the birthday of one of Brazil’s best-loved writers: Jorge Amado (books by this author), born near Ilhéus, Brazil (1912). He is one of the most widely translated novelists in the world; they called him the “Pelé of the written word.” His 32 books sold millions of copies in 40 languages. Brazilian hotels, bars, and restaurants, as well as brands of whiskey and margarine, were named for characters from his books. He’s the author of Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon (1958), Home Is the Sailor (1961), and Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands (1966).
It’s the birthday of mystery novelist Ellen Hart (books by this author), born in Minneapolis, Minnesota (1949). Her experience in the restaurant business in Minnesota lends authenticity to her novels, which include This Little Piggy Went to Murder (1994) and Dial M for Meat Loaf (2001), which mixes murder with a fictional Minnesota newspaper’s meat loaf recipe contest.
On this date in 1793, the Louvre opened as a public museum in Paris. The Louvre began as a garrison fortress and prison, built by Philip II on the Right Bank of the River Seine in the late 12th century. At that time, it was on the very outskirts of the city; today, it is in the heart of Paris. In 1528, King François I demolished the original building and rebuilt it as his royal residence. François was a patron of the arts and knew Leonardo da Vinci well. He adorned the walls of his new palace with many paintings, including Leonardo’s La Giaconda — better known as the Mona Lisa. Each successive king added to the royal collection. King Louis XIV moved the royal residence to the Palace of Versailles in 1682, but chose to leave the art displayed at the Louvre. For the next hundred years, the palace housed academies of painting, sculpture, and belles-lettres; meanwhile, people began to call for a public museum at the Louvre. King Louis XV agreed to allow a limited exhibition of about a hundred pieces from the royal collection. By 1793, the French Revolution was in full swing. The National Assembly imprisoned Louis XVI on August 10, 1792, and seized the building and its contents on behalf of the new government. The Louvre opened to the public exactly one year later, on the anniversary of the fall of the monarchy. Most of the museum’s first collection — over 500 paintings — was made up of art taken from the church, the former royal family, and other nobles. Napoleon added greatly to the collection with antiquities he plundered during his reign; many of these were eventually returned. Today, it’s the world’s largest museum.
It’s the birthday of poet Joyce Sutphen (books by this author), born and raised in Saint Joseph, Minnesota (1949). Sutphen writes often about rural life, childhood, family, and love. Fellow Minnesota poet Louis Jenkins calls her “a true daughter of the Minnesota soil.” Sutphen had an idyllic childhood in Saint Joseph, roaming the woods and fields near her parent’s farm with her nine brothers and sisters. Sutphen earned a PhD in Renaissance drama from the University of Minnesota. In 1990, she was overseas, on a break from her studies, when she began to consider a life not just of studying poetry, but also of writing it. Away from her husband and children, she found herself with time, and her own room, and she found herself writing nonstop. On writing poetry, Sutphen says: “Poetry makes the world real for me [...] in the end, it isn’t hard. When I sit down to write a poem, one thing just leads to another.” In 2011, she was appointed poet laureate of the State of Minnesota by Governor Mark Dayton. Her next book of poetry, Carrying Water to the Field: New and Selected Poems, comes out this fall.
Today is the birthday of novelist Suzanne Collins (books by this author), born in Hartford, Connecticut (1962). She had already written a successful children’s book series called The Underland Chronicles (2003–2007) when one night, Collins was flipping channels on the TV late one night. She was struck by the similarity between reality TV and the coverage of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Collins turned that reflection into book series: a dystopian trilogy about a future North America in which young people are forced to fight to the death for their country’s amusement. The Hunger Games — the first book in the trilogy — was published in 2008.
Today is the birthday of poet and playwright Laurence Binyon (books by this author), born in Lancaster, England (1869). He was deeply affected by the First World War, and though he was too old to serve, he is best remembered for his poem For the Fallen, which is often recited on Remembrance Sunday in Britain, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia. He wrote it in 1914, sitting on the cliffs of Cornwall and looking out to the sea. An excerpt from For the Fallen: They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them. | 
