Born on this date:
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, b. 1809. Tennyson became Poet Laureate of Britain in 1851, but long before his appointment to that post and long before he became even a famous poet, Tennyson made friends with another poet, Arthur Henry Hallam, whose sudden death at the very young age of twenty-two became the inspiration for many of Tennyson’s most famous poems. Poems such as “Break, Break, Break”, “Ulysses”, “Tithonus”, “Tiresias”, “Morte d’Arthur”, “Oh that it ’twere possible”, “Crossing the Bar”, and “In Memoriam” were all elegies “connected overtly or implicitly with the loss of his friend.” Tennyson wrote about death, and mental illness, and strong emotion, and the healing power of nature because he experienced all of these things in his tumultuous lifetime.

To whom is the poet or narrator speaking? Without having read the excerpt in context (it’s part of a longer poem, In Memoriam), I think he’s talking to God.

Gerald W. Johnson, b. 1890. Author of America Is Born, America Moves Forward, and America Grows Up, all history books for children subtitled A History for Peter. Johnson wrote the books for his grandson, Peter, to give him an appreciation for his heritage as an American. The books are popular with homeschoolers who are attempting to do the same with their own children and grandchildren.

Barbara Cooney, b. 1917. Author and/or illustrator of many lovely picture books, including The Little Juggler,, Miss Rumphius, Eleanor, Hattie and the Wild Waves, Island Boy, and Chanticleer and Fox (by Geoffrey Chaucer).

I’ve also been thinking about justice and injustice and neurodivergence and the difficulties of knowing the truth about any event or person in history, even recent history and differing perspectives and negativity and aloneness. Lots of thoughts on an August day.