Monday, Mar 21, 2022 • 5min
The Writer's Almanac for Monday, March 21, 2022
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Today in 1965 thousands of marchers left Selma, Alabama, headed to Montgomery, to protest the disenfranchisement of African-American voters.
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00:08
And Here is
The Writer's Almanac
from Monday March the 21st 2022.Share
00:17
It's the birthday of the poet
Nizar Qabbani
. Born in Damascus,
1923. His mother was illiterate, sold her jewelry to raise money to publish his first collection, Childhood Of A Bosom, 1948. He went on to become the most popular poet, writing in Arabic and published more than 20 books of poetry, much of it influenced by the tragic deaths of two women.Share
00:43
He loved his older sister who, when he was 15, committed suicide rather than be forced into marriage with a man she did not love. And many years later in 1981 his second wife, an Iraqi woman, died during
the Lebanese Civil War
when the Iraqi Embassy was bombed.Share
01:02
Qabbani
was grief stricken at the loss of his wife, frustrated with the political and cultural climate of the Arab World
. And he lived in Europe
for the rest of his life. Nizar Qabbani
who wrote, "I knew when I said I love you that I was inventing a new alphabet for a city where no one could read that I was saying my poems in an empty theater and pouring my wine for those who could not taste it."Share
01:33
It was on this day in 1965 that
Martin Luther King Jr
led the civil rights march from Selma,
Alabama
to Montgomery
to protest the fact that black voters could not vote in Alabama
. They had attempted the march twice before earlier in the month, the first time they've been badly beaten by state troopers. The second time They were ordered to turn back and this time under court order, they were allowed to proceed and by the time they reached the state capital in Montgomery
, there were 25,000 marchers.Share
02:09
It's the birthday of
Johann Sebastian Bach
. Born 325 years ago in Eisenach
. Germany
1685. Came from a musical family. As a teenager, he was an accomplished organist, he worked in various churches, but he could be difficult to get along with.Share
02:27
In one post, he criticized the choir, took prolonged absences from his job and once he got in a fight with a
Bassoonist
and called the Bassoonist
something you could translate as a Bassoonist
breaking wind after eating a green onion.Share
02:46
He took a leave of absence from his job in the town of
Arnstadt
so he could go to visit the composer Dieterich Buxtehude
who liked Bach
and Bach
could have taken over Buxtehude's position, but by tradition, he would have had to marry Buxtehude's daughter and he decided not to do that and went back to Arnstadt,
where the church council held a meeting and complained that Bach
was accompanying the hymns with surprising variations and irrelevant ornaments which obliterate the melody and confuse the congregation. And not much later he left Arnstadt
went on to Leipzig
and a distinguished career as a composer and organist and a great champion of German and sacred music.Share
03:35
Here's a poem for today by
Anne Porter
, Getting Up Early.Share
03:41
Just as the night was fading into the dusk of morning, when the air was cool as water, when the town was quiet and I could hear the sea. I caught sight of the moon no higher than the rooftops. Our neighbor, the moon. An hour before the sunrise, she glowed with her own sunrise. Gold in the gray of morning. World without town or forest, without wars or sorrows. She paused between two trees and it was as if in secret, not wanting to be seen. She chose to visit us so early in the morning.
Share
04:35
Getting Up Early by
Anne Porter
from her collection Altogether Different Language. Published by Zoland Books and used by permission here on The Writer's Almanac
. Be well. Do good work and keep in touch. Thank you.Share
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