Poetry in Motion
RIP OTD in 1888 artist, illustrator, musician, author and poet (The Book of Nonsense, The Owl and the Pussycat) Edward Lear died of heart failure at his Villa Tennyson, Sanremo, Italy aged 75. Cemetery Foce in Sanremo thefinalfootprint.com/2025/01/29/day
RIP OTD in 1933 lyric poet (Love Songs, ‘I Shall Not Care’) Sara Teasdale died from overdosing on sleeping pills in New York City, aged 48. Bellefontaine Cemetery in St. Louis thefinalfootprint.com/2025/01/29/day
RIP OTD in 1956, journalist, essayist, magazine editor, satirist, acerbic critic of American life and culture, the “Sage of Baltimore”, H. L. Mencken, died in Baltimore, Maryland at the age of 75. Mencken Family Estate in Loudon Park Cemetery, Baltimore thefinalfootprint.com/2025/01/29/day
RIP OTD in 2006, author, activist, civil rights leader, wife of Martin Luther King Jr., the “First Lady of the Civil Rights Movement” Coretta Scott King died of complications from ovarian cancer in Rosarito Beach, Mexico, aged 78. MLK Center in Atlanta thefinalfootprint.com/2025/01/30/day
RIP OTD in 1956 author, poet, (Winnie-the-Pooh) A. A. Milne died at his home in Hartfield, Sussex, England, aged 74. Cremation. Memorial plaque, Ashdown Forest https://thefinalfootprint.com/2025/01/31/day-in-history-31-january-moira-shearer/
RIP OTD in 2007 newspaper columnist (The Texas Observer, The New York Times, Dallas Times Herald, Fort Worth Star-Telegram), author, political commentator, and humorist, Molly Ivins died at her Austin, Texas, home in hospice care, aged 62. Cremation https://thefinalfootprint.com/2025/01/31/day-in-history-31-january-moira-shearer/
RIP OTD in 1851, novelist (Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus), short story writer, dramatist, wife of poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Shelley died in Chester Square, London from a brain tumour, aged 53. St Peter’s Church, Bournemouth, England https://thefinalfootprint.com/2025/02/01/day-in-history-1-february-space-shuttle-columbia/
James Joyce was born this day in 1882 — Ulysses was published on his 40th birthday.“Hold to the now, the here, through which all future plunges to the past...”Portrait, Jacques-Emile Blanche, 1935Ulysses, Shakespeare and Company, Paris
RIP OTD in 1972 playwright, poet (Quelques Portraits-Sonnets de Femmes), novelist, salon host who lived as an expatriate in Paris (Aventures de l'Esprit), Natalie Clifford Barney died of heart failure in Paris, aged 95. Passy Cemetery, Paris https://thefinalfootprint.com/2025/02/02/day-in-history-2-february-gene-kelly/
RIP OTD in 1970 poet (Body of This Death, Dark Summer, The Blue Estuaries, "Medusa"), the first woman appointed as the fourth Poet Laureate to the Library of Congress, Louise Bogan died in Greenwich Village, aged 72. Cremation https://thefinalfootprint.com/2025/02/04/day-in-history-4-february-karen-carpenter/
RIP OTD in 1995, novelist (Strangers on a Train, The Talented Mr. Ripley) and short story writer Patricia Highsmith died from lung cancer at Carita hospital in Locarno, Switzerland, aged 74. Cremated remains inurned at Chiesa di Tegna, Tegna, Switzerland https://thefinalfootprint.com/2025/02/04/day-in-history-4-february-karen-carpenter/
RIP OTD in 2006 feminist writer and activist Betty Friedan died of congestive heart failure at her home in Washington, D.C. on her 85th birthday. Sag Harbor Jewish Cemetery, Sag Harbor, New York https://thefinalfootprint.com/2025/02/04/day-in-history-4-february-karen-carpenter/
RIP OTD in 1916, “The Prince of Castillian Letters”, poet (Azul, Prosas Profanas y otros poemas, Cantos de vida y esperanza), Rubén Darío died aged 49, in León, Nicaragua. Catedral de la Asuncíon de María de León https://thefinalfootprint.com/2025/02/06/day-in-history-6-february-arthur-ashe/
