FRIDAY.
Phew.
I almost feel like we could leave it at that. But, of course, I won’t because I’m just too wordy for words. I am very much a words person. Numbers really go over my head.
That said, I must confess that I have never really understood nor enjoyed poetry all that much.
There are a few exceptions, however. Watching the video of Amanda Gorman, the youngest inaugural poet in U.S. history, delivering “The Hill We Climb” at President Biden’s inauguration never fails to bring me to tears.
I also very much enjoy Billy Collins’ work. (He was, for those not in the know, Poet Laureate of the United States from 2001 to 2003). And apparently I’m not alone, since the interwebs tell me he is, by at least one account, the most popular poet in America. His work really is very accessible, about everyday things elevated from the mundane to the sublime.
I also don’t mind a little Robert Frost now and again, and also have a soft spot for E.E. Cummings. Maybe I never really warmed up to poetry because I really hated the tortured act of trying to determine what a poem “means”, which is something we did a lot of in high school English classes. Can’t a poem just be? Do we have to whip it into submission? Why?
Anyway, given the fact that poetry isn’t a main focus of mine since I left high school behind, ‘lo those many years ago, I had no idea who Anne Bradtreet was and why today is a day that commemorates her. (She died on this day in 1672).
It turns out that she is well worth knowing – especially for those who like to recognize and celebrate trailblazing women – because she was the first widely recognized accomplished female poet of the New World, and is viewed as one of the most important early American poets, full stop.
This is all the more amazing when you learn that Bradstreet never went to school, but instead was educated by her father, Thomas Dudley, who was very widely read and benefitted from the library at the estate of the Earl of Lincoln, where he lived with his daughter while serving as a steward from 1619 to 1630.
Many of Bradstreet’s poems were published in 1650 in a volume called “The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America.” This isn’t exactly the catchiest of titles, but it was significant as it was the first full volume by a single author in the New World and was popular both in the colonies and Britain alike.
Of course, she had her critics – namely those who didn’t think women were fit to write poetry. But even they were reportedly surprised by the level of intelligence and wit displayed in her work.
She’s perhaps best known (to those who know her work at all) for four long poems known as the quaternions – “The Four Elements,” “The Four Humors of Man,” “The Four Ages of Man,” and “The Four Seasons.”
In 1628, Anne Bradstreet (nee Dudley) married Simon Bradstreet, who helped her father manage the Earl’s estate, and immigrated to the New World – specifically, Massachusetts – with her husband and parents in 1630. The couple eventually had eight children.
Bradstreet penned her earliest known poem at the age of 19. It was called “Upon a Fit of Sickness, Anno. 1632” and read as follows:
O Bubble blast, how long can’st last? That always art a breaking,
No sooner blown, but dead and gone,
Ev’n as a word that’s speaking.
O whil’st I live, this grace me give,
I doing good may be,
Then death’s arrest I shall count best,
because it’s thy decree.
Pretty catchy, no?
Yet another nice fall day awaits us…a perfect day for reading some poetry under a tree, perhaps? It will be mostly sunny with temperatures in the low 70s. The weekend is shaping up to be nice, too, with more sun and warming temperatures – heading back into the 80s, even, on Sunday, though there will be a chance of isolated thunderstorms later that day.
Enjoy.
In the headlines…
Rail companies and their workers reached a tentative agreement to avert a nationwide strike that could have shut down the nation’s freight trains and devastated the economy less than two months before the midterm elections.
President Joe Biden urged railway executives and union leaders to be creative and flexible in finding a compromise to avoid a shutdown that could have disrupted the transport of goods across the U.S., White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said.
For administration officials, the tentative agreement to forestall a freight rail shutdown is a moment to exhale, after weeks of a dual-pronged sprint to encourage negotiations while ramping up an all-hands-on-deck effort to secure contingency options.
Biden’s popularity improved substantially from his lowest point this summer, but concerns about his handling of the economy persist, according to a poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
Biden will meet for the first time in person with the wife of Brittney Griner and her agent today at the White House.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Biden will meet with Griner’s wife, Cherelle Griner, and also with Paul Whelan’s sister, Elizabeth Whelan, to assure them his administration is committed to securing the release of their loved ones.
Senate Democrats agreed to delay a vote on protecting same-sex marriage equality until after the midterm elections, a major concession to Republicans seeking to find enough GOP votes to pass the measure.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott dumped two busloads of people off near Vice President Kamala Harris’ residence in Washington yesterday, hours after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis flew two planeloads of migrants to Martha’s Vineyard Wednesday afternoon.
The transport of roughly 150 migrants in all were the GOP governors’ most conspicuous attempts yet to provoke outrage over record arrivals at the border, a circumstance the Republican leaders blame squarely on Biden.
“VP Harris claims our border is ‘secure’ & denies the crisis,” Abbott tweeted. “We’re sending migrants to her backyard to call on the Biden Administration to do its job & secure the border.”
Migrants flown to Martha’s Vineyard by DeSantis claim they were lured into boarding the flight with deceptive promises that they’d be taken to Boston for work opportunities and expedited papers, something experts say could constitute a violation of federal law.
Biden vowed to combat the “venom and violence” of white supremacy in the US and decried Donald Trump’s reluctance to condemn the rightwing racism on display in Charlottesville, VA, in 2017, which spurred Biden to run against him for the presidency.
“White supremacists will not have the last word and this venom and violence cannot be the story of our time,” Biden said during a summit at the White House to push back on rising hate crime, entitled United We Stand.
A federal judge denied the Justice Department’s (DOJ) motion to access the classified records stored at Mar-a-Lago and installed a recently retired judge to serve as the special master that Trump requested.
The Justice Department is planning to appeal, but the decision is likely to significantly delay its investigation into Trump’s handling of government records.
The selected special master, Raymond Dearie, is a former federal prosecutor who for years served as the chief judge of the federal court based in Brooklyn.
Trump’s legal team had recommended Dearie to the post, and the Justice Department said he was an acceptable choice.
Trump said the nation would face “problems…the likes of which perhaps we’ve never seen” if he is indicted over his handling of classified documents, an apparent suggestion that such a move by the DOJ could spark violence from his backers.
Trump said he “can’t imagine being indicted” over his handling of classified documents or a scheme to put forward alternate electors after the 2020 election, but that if he were, it would not deter him from a possible White House run in 2024.
Trump slammed Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, calling him an “absolute Loser” and accusing him of giving Democrats “everything they want.”
New details have emerged about Trump’s alleged desire to have the US acquire the island of Greenland while in office. According to a forthcoming book, the former president at one point even suggested to aides that the U.S. could trade Puerto Rico for it.
New York Attorney General Letitia James has reportedly rejected an offer by Trump to settle the fraud case against him and is now planning to file a civil lawsuit against him.
James is also considering suing at least one of the former president’s adult children as part of her Trump Organization inquiry.
A Manhattan lawyer wants to represent conflicting cases going to trial the same day — one against a Colorado businessman accused of stealing from Trump supporters, the other against a Trump company for stealing from New York’s taxpayers.
It has been more than two and half years since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, and despite a return to a new form of normality for many people across the country, there are still hundreds of Americans dying from the virus every day.
Gilead Sciences said the World Health Organization expanded its recommended guide for the use of the biotech drug maker’s COVID-19 treatment Veklury.
The antibody drugs sotrovimab and casirivimab-imdevimab are not recommended for patients with COVID-19, says a WHO Guideline Development Group of international experts in The BMJ today.
The antibody drugs GSK Plc and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc. developed against Covid don’t appear to work for omicron and its subvariants, a panel of experts advising the World Health Organization said, recommending against the use of the medicines.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping stayed away from a dinner attended by 11 heads of states at a regional security summit in line with his delegation’s COVID-19 policy.
After spending all of the pandemic hunkered down in China, Xi Jinping finally stepped outside its borders for the first time in more than two years, making a short visit to Central Asia to project himself as a global statesman and engage some diplomacy.
The number of first-time claims for unemployment benefits fell again last week, setting a new three-month low and showing that employers are still reluctant to let go of workers despite some economic slowing.
Initial claims for unemployment insurance were 213,000 for the week ended September 10, down 5,000 from a downwardly revised total of 218,000 claims from the prior week, according to Labor Department data. That is the lowest level since May 28.
A barrage of data offered a mixed view of the US economy in the face of rapid inflation, including more tempered retail activity and a labor market that’s still vibrant.
Hiring once again slowed in August as New York’s unemployment rate ticked upward, the state Department of Labor announced.
New Yorkers are starting to trickle back to work after more than two years of remote employment during the COVID-19 pandemic — with Manhattan offices 49% occupied on an average weekday, a new survey from the Partnership for New York shows.
Republican nominee Rep. Lee Zeldin called out Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul for dragging her not committing to debate him nearly one month after she agreed to face off at least twice ahead of the Nov. 8 election.
The NY Post is siding with Zeldin, portraying Hochul on its front page as a chicken (literally) and calling her “scaredy Kat.”
A new ad from Zeldin slamming Hochul over rising crime includes video clips of shootings and assaults that occurred before she became governor and one incident that took place in California, not New York.
Zeldin confirmed that half the clips are from before Hochul became governor and feature crime outside New York, saying: “This whole thing about the clips from when she was lieutenant governor, she is not getting any type of a free pass.”
Zeldin’s campaign said that the Oakland clip will be removed from the ad.
The pandemic has led to even more out-of-state departures from New York, which has steadily lost population for decades, and the issue has become a talking point in the race for governor.
The racist massacre at a supermarket in Hochul’s hometown of Buffalo on May 14 did little to slow the governor’s furious campaign pace — she hauled in $1.19 million within days as she carved out time to focus on the primary, records and schedules show.
Hochul signed legislation aiming to help public servants get student loan relief in order to focus on their careers, not their debts.
Full-time public service workers who make 120 monthly loan payments are eligible to get their debt forgiven.
Mayor Eric Adams sought to clear up confusion over statements he made about reconsidering New York’s landmark right-to-shelter law amid growing concern that the shelter system is on the cusp of collapse due to a recent influx of Latin American migrants.
Following a tour of a new Manhattan intake center yesterday, Mayor Eric Adams brushed off a question about New York City’s mandate that requires the city to offer shelter to people in need, instead punting it to his chief counsel, Brendan McGuire.
McGuire said the city will meet its obligations under the right-to-shelter law but that the rules that govern the way in which that guarantee is fulfilled should also be examined.
“What we’re talking about is the reality that this is completely unforeseen. This rate of influx of people into the system, and so it’s irresponsible not to reassess how the system works,” McGuire said.
“We are not reassessing the right to shelter, we are reassessing the city’s practices that developed around them,” McGuire added.
Members of the City Council called on Adams to end the city’s contract with the Trump Organization.
Adams’ administration is refusing to release findings on the quality of non-religious education at 26 Hasidic Jewish schools in Brooklyn — even as New York State steps up the city’s enforcement responsibilities for instruction at religious schools.
One of New York City’s most prolific developers, Related Companies, announced that it was teaming up with a Las Vegas gambling giant, Wynn Resorts, to bid on a casino in Midtown Manhattan.
At least two residents of an upper Manhattan nursing home have died with Legionnaires’ disease, and six more suspected cases of the severe pneumonia have been identified at the facility, the state Health Department said.
It was not clear if Legionnaires’ was the primary cause of their death, a spokesman for the department said.
Bronx-born rapper Cardi B pleaded guilty and was sentenced to community service for her role in a bottle-throwing attack at a strip club in Queens. The deal allows the hip hop star to avoid jail time.
Transit ridership in New York City ticked up again this week, with subway turnstiles clocking more than 3.74 million entries on Wednesday for the first time since the pandemic shutdown in March 2020.
The head of the New York City Housing Authority, Greg Russ, is stepping down from his role as NYCHA’s CEO, but will remain on as chairman of the authority’s board.
The announcement that Russ is stepping away from NYCHA’s day-to-day operations came in the wake of findings of unsafe levels of arsenic in tap water at Jacob Riis Houses in the East Village.
For re-enactors — the history-loving types who recreate skirmishes of the past on former battlefields or in parks — the law of unintended consequences seems to apply to a new state law banning the carrying of guns in certain places.
In office for less than 24 hours, newly minted Rep. Pat Ryan is already gearing up to provide services to the residents of the 19th Congressional district, opening offices in Kingston and D.C. shortly after getting sworn in to his new role.
Albany Medical Center announced that it is eliminating 37 positions at its main Albany campus, citing a financial deficit worsened by the two-year COVID-19 pandemic.
A hit-and-run crash that left a city woman dead Wednesday night as she was crossing a busy thoroughfare in Arbor Hill has renewed calls to improve pedestrian safety in the neighborhood.
The city’s Cannabis Advisory Committee will hold four public meetings over the next month to hear residents’ thoughts on what Albany’s policies should be.
The experiment in corporate disruption that was the partnership between Kanye West and Gap is officially over.
