Poetry in the morning

I have a new morning ritual, thanks to my friend, Cathy. The Writer's Almanac with Garrison Keillor now sets my creative day. I look forward to listening with my first cup of coffee every morning. So many interesting little tidbits in this short podcast featuring literary facts and a poem of the day. Today's poem is a downer called "Afraid So" by Jeanne Marie Beaumont.

Today marks the founding of the Smithsonian Institution in 1846, with money from a British man who had never set foot in the U.S. Curiously, we still don't know why he gave his money to us. He never even corresponded with anyone here.

This also marks the publication date of Henry David Thoreau's Walden. It was off to a slow start, however, taking five years to sell the first 2,000 copies.

And today is the birthday of P.L. Travers, author of Mary Poppins. She once said: "Mary Poppins is both a joy and a curse to me as a writer. As a writer you can feel awfully imprisoned, because people, having had so much of one thing, want you always to go on doing more of the same."