AstroDataBlog: Poet

Showing posts with label Poet. Show all posts

Tuesday, 16 February 2016

Heiner Müller, 1929–1995 ([East] German dramatist, poet, writer, essayist and theatre director)

* Heiner Müller has been described as "the theatre's greatest living poet" since Samuel Beckett, and he is arguably the most important German dramatist of the 20th century after Bertolt Brecht. His "enigmatic, fragmentary pieces" are a significant contribution to postmodern drama and postdramatic theatre.

Müller died in Berlin of throat cancer on 30 December 1995, aged 66, acknowledged as one of the greatest German authors.

NATAL DATA and ASTROLOGY CHART

BIRTH DATA: Reimund Heiner Müller, 9 January 1929, circa 21:30 (9:30 PM) CET (-1), Eppendorf, Saxony, Germany (50n48, 13e14). ASC: 10-20 Virgo. RR: B (from auto/biography). SOURCE: Sy Scholfield quotes from his autobiography, "Werke: Eine Autobiographie" by Heiner Müller (Suhrkamp, 2005), p. 9: "Ich war eine schwere Geburt. Sie hat lange gedauert, von früh bis neun Uhr abends. 9. Januar 1929." Translation: I had a difficult birth. It took a long time, from morning till nine at night on 9 January 1929.

However, perhaps he was taking poetic licence (all those nines) because 10pm is given in several biographies including "Heiner Müller" by Jan-Christoph Hauschild (Rowohlt, 2000), p. 15: "Am 9. Januar 1929 abends gegen zehn Uhr wird ihr erstes Kind geboren, Reimund Heiner Müller." Translation: Their first child, Reimund Heiner Müller, was born on 9 January 1929 at ten o'clock in the evening.

Therefore 9:30pm is used.

Inge Müller, 1925–1966 (East German author)

* As a writer, Inge Müller, remained above all a poet. Although she created nearly 300 lyrical works, only a few have been published, mostly in the anthology In diesem besseren Land.

Müller also published children's books, Wölfchen Ungestüm (1955) and Zehn Jungen und ein Fischerdorf (1958); the radio drama Die Weiberbrigade; and the collaboration with Wiktor Rosows Auf dem Wege. With her third husband, Heiner Müller, she created the dramas Der Lohndrücker (1956), Die Umsiedlerin (1956), Die Korrektur (1957), Klettwitzer Bericht (1958) and Unterwegs (1963).

Inge Müller stood in the shadow of Heiner, who considered her more a coworker than an equal partner. She began an affair with his 16 year–old brother Wolfgang Müller in 1956 which failed and relations with her husband worsened noticeably. The awarding of the Heinrich Mann Prize to the both of them in 1959 did nothing to improve the situation. Plagued by depressions and psychosomatic troubles she attempted suicide several times. She was finally successful after an attempt on 1 June 1966. Only 41 years old, the writer died in her apartment on Kissingenplatz 12 of medication overdose and poisonous gas.

NATAL DATA and ASTROLOGY CHART

BIRTH DATA: Ingeborg Meyer, 13 March 1925, 05:15 (5:15 AM) CET (-1), Berlin, Germany (52n30, 13e22). ASC: 10 Aquarius. RR: AA (quoted birth record). SOURCE: Sy Scholfield quotes from Ÿbbotaprag. heute. geschenke. schupo. schimpfen. hetze. sprüche. demonstrativ. sex. DDRbürg. gthierkatt: ausgewählte essays, fliess- & endnotentexte 1989-98 by Annett Gröschner (Kontext, 1998), p. 126: "Geboren worden war sie am 13. März 1925, 5.15 Uhr, so steht es im Geburtenbuch des Standesamtes." Inge Müller hat später die Umstände ihrer Geburt beschrieben. Veröffentlicht wurde die Geschichte nie. Sie war Teil des Jona-Romans, einem ehrgeizigen Projekt, das sie nicht fertiggestellt hat. Das Bedürfnis zu sterben war stärker, als der Wille, einen Roman zu beenden..." Translation: She was born on 13 March 1925 at 5:15 AM, so it is stated in the birth register of the registry office. "Inge Müller has described later, the circumstances of her birth, in an unpublished story which was part of a novel, an ambitious project, uncompleted because the will to die was stronger than the will to finish a novel...

Thursday, 11 February 2016

Natalie Clifford Barney, 1876–1972 (American playwright, poet and novelist)

* Natalie Clifford Barney lived as an expatriate in Paris. Her salon was held at her home at 20 rue Jacob in Paris' Left Bank for more than 60 years and brought together writers and artists from around the world, including many leading figures in French literature along with American and British Modernists of the Lost Generation. She worked to promote writing by women and formed a "Women's Academy" (L'Académie des Femmes) in response to the all-male French Academy while also giving support and inspiration to male writers from Remy de Gourmont to Truman Capote.

She was openly lesbian and began publishing love poems to women under her own name as early as 1900, considering scandal as "the best way of getting rid of nuisances" (meaning heterosexual attention from young males). In her writings she supported feminism and pacifism. She opposed monogamy and had many overlapping long and short-term relationships, including on-and-off romances with poet Renée Vivien and dancer Armen Ohanian and a 50-year relationship with painter Romaine Brooks. Her life and love affairs served as inspiration for many novels, ranging from the salacious French bestseller Sapphic Idyll to The Well of Loneliness, the most famous lesbian novel of the twentieth century.

NATAL DATA and ASTROLOGY CHART

BIRTH DATA: 31 October 1876, 09:00 (9 AM), Dayton, Ohio, USA (39n45, 84w11). ASC: 7 Sagittarius. RR: B (from biography). SOURCE: Sy Scholfield quotes from George Wickes' biography, The Amazon of Letters: The Life and Loves of Natalie Barney (Putnam, 1976), p. 100.

Tuesday, 15 December 2015

Paul van Ostaijen, 1896–1928 (Belgian poet and writer)

* Paul van Ostaijen earned the nickname 'Mister 1830,' derived from his habit of walking along the streets of Antwerp clothed as a dandy from that year. His poetry shows influences from Modernism, Expressionism, Dadaism and early Surrealism, but Van Ostaijen's style is very much his own.

An active flamingant (a supporter of Flemish independence), he had to flee to Berlin after WW2. In Berlin—-one of the centers of Dadaism and Expressionism—-he met many other artists. He also struggled through a severe mental crisis. Upon returning to Belgium, Van Ostaijen opened an art gallery in Brussels. He died of tuberculosis on 18 March 1928 in a sanatorium in Miavoye-Anthée, in the Wallonian Ardennes.

NATAL DATA and ASTROLOGY CHART

BIRTH DATA: Leopoldus Andreas van Ostaijen, 22 February 1896, 22:30 (10:30pm) GMT (+0), Antwerp, Belgium (51n13, 4e25). ASC: 1 Scorpio. RR: B (from biography). SOURCE: Sy Scholfield quotes from Kroniek van Paul van Ostaijen, 1896-1928 by Gerrit Borgers (Scheltens & Giltay, 1975), p. 7: "1896 22 februari Leopoldus Andreas (Paul) van Ostaijen geboren, 's avonds half elf, in de Lange Leemstraat 47 (thans 53) te Antwerpen, als laatste der zeven kinderen van Hendrik Pieter van Ostaijen, loodgieter, en Maria Catharina Engelen."

Translation: '1896, February 22: Leopoldus Andreas (Paul) van Ostaijen was born in the evening at half past ten at 47 Lange Leemstraat (now 53) in Antwerp, the last of the seven children of Hendrik Pieter van Ostaijen, plumber, and Maria Catharina Engelen.'

Monday, 30 November 2015

Blaise Cendrars, 1887–1961 (Swiss-French novelist and poet)

* Blaise Cendrars was a writer of considerable influence in the European modernist movement. He was the first modernist poet, not only in terms of expressing the fundamental values of Modernism but also in terms of creating its first solid poetical synthesis. In 1912, in New York, he wrote his long poem, "Les Pâques à New York" (Easter in New York), his first important contribution to modern literature. He signed it for the first time with the name 'Blaise Cendrars.'

Back in Paris, Cendrars became an important part of the artistic community in Montparnasse; his writings were considered a literary epic of the modern adventurer. He was a friend of the American writer Henry Miller, and, in 1918, his friend Amedeo Modigliani painted his portrait. He died on 21 January 1961.

NATAL DATA and ASTROLOGY CHART

BIRTH DATA: Frédéric-Louis Sauser, 1 September 1887, 19:45 (7:45pm)(-0:29:44), La Chaux-de-Fonds, Neuchâtel, Switzerland (47n06, 6e50). ASC: 12 Aries. RR: AA (quoted birth certificate). SOURCE: Sy Scholfield cites birth record quoted in Blaise Cendrars: Homme libre, poète au coeur du monde by Jean Bühler (Éditions du Panorama, Fischbacher, 1960), p. 9: "Blaise Cendrars est né le 1er septembre 1887, à 19 heures 45, à La Chaux-de-Fonds. Son père Georges Frédéric Sauser le déclara à l'état-civil sous les prénoms de Frédéric Louis. "

Wednesday, 25 November 2015

Kirsi Kunnas (Finnish poet, children's literature author and translator)

* Kirsi Kunnas has an extensive oeuvre consisting of poems, fairy tale books, drama, translations (e.g. Lewis Carroll, Federico García Lorca) and non-fiction. Her books have been translated into Swedish, English, German, French, Hungarian, and Estonian. She has received several prizes and awards in Finland for her life's work.

Kunnas is married to author Jaakko Syrjä. The lead singer and songwriter Martti Syrjä and guitarist Mikko Syrjä of Eppu Normaali are their sons.

NATAL DATA and ASTROLOGY CHART

BIRTH DATA: Kirsi Marjatta Kunnas, 14 December 1924, 12:00 (12 Noon) EET (-2), Helsinki, Finland (60n10, 24e58). ASC: 13 Aquarius. RR: B (from biography). SOURCE: Sy Scholfield quotes from Kirsi Kunnas - Sateessa ja tuulessa by Leena Kirstinä (WSOY, 2014): "Helsingissä Eiran sairaalassa syntyi 14. joulukuuta 1924 kello 12 pieni tyttö, sunnuntailapsi."

tr Translation: 'At Eira Hospital in Helsinki a little girl, a Sunday child, was born on 14 December 1924 at 12:00 o'clock.'

Saturday, 21 February 2015

Philip Levine, 1928–2015 (Pulitzer Prize-winning American poet)

* Philip Levine died last Saturday morning (14 February 2015). I cannot find a precise time of birth for him, yet the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet writes in his poem "Let Me Begin Again" that he was born at night. A speculative birth time of 9 p.m. puts poetic Neptune at the end of the 12th House on the Ascendant alongside the Moon just into the 1st House.

NATAL DATA and ASTROLOGY CHART

BIRTH DATA: 10 January 1928, about 21:00 (9 PM) EST (+5), Detroit, Michigan, USA (42n20, 83w03). ASC: About 3 Virgo. RR: C (Rectified from approximate time). SOURCE: Sy Scholfield notes that in his poem "Let Me Begin Again" Levine infers that he was born at night: "1/10’28. Tonight I shall enter my life / after being at sea for ages, quietly, / in a hospital named for an automobile."

Note: He was born at the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. The time of 9pm is speculative.

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Thursday, 20 November 2014

May Swenson, 1913–1989 (American poet and playwright)

* May Swenson is considered one of the most important and original poets of the 20th century. She channelled her rising Mars in Aries into the creation of poetry showing a strong use of imagery and eroticism. Some of her poems express intense love between women, written at a time when female homoeroticism was rare in poetry. Mars rules her Venus in Aries (in the First House) which is the only planet to aspect her Pluto.

NATAL DATA and ASTROLOGY CHART

BIRTH DATA: Anna Thilda May Swenson, 28 May 1913, 02:30 (2:30 AM) MST (+7), Logan, Utah, USA (41n44, 111w50). ASC: 10 Aries. RR: B (from biography). SOURCE: Sy Scholfield quotes from "Body My House: May Swenson's Work and Life" by Paul Crumbley and Patricia M. Gantt (Utah State University Press, 2006), p. 8: "May 28, 1913: Anna Thilda May Swenson . . . born at 2:30 AM Wednesday at a house . . . in Logan, Utah."

Tuesday, 27 August 2013

Lawrence Ferlinghetti (American poet, painter, activist, publisher)

* Lawrence Ferlinghetti is the co-founder of City Lights, an independent bookstore-publisher in San Francisco, California that specializes in world literature, the arts, and progressive politics. An author of poetry, translations, fiction, theatre, art criticism, and film narration, Ferlinghetti is best known for A Coney Island of the Mind (1958), a collection of poems that has been translated into nine languages, with sales of over one million copies. He is also famous for his trial and acquittal on obscenity charges for publishing Allen Ginsberg's influential poetry collection Howl and Other Poems (City Lights, 1956).

Ferlinghetti has a tight Cardinal T-square involving an opposition between the Moon and Pluto-Jupiter, with Chiron-Sun in Aries at the apex (ruled by Mars in Aries on the Descendant).

WIKIPEDIA BLURB

Though imbued with the commonplace, Ferlinghetti’s poetry is grounded in lyric and narrative traditions. Among his themes are the beauty of natural world, the tragicomic life of the common man, the plight of the individual in mass society, and the dream and betrayal of democracy. He counts among his influences T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, e. e. cummings, H.D., Marcel Proust, Charles Baudelaire, Jacques Prévert, Guillaume Apollinaire, and Blaise Cendrars. One of his poems, 'Two Scavengers in a Truck, Two Beautiful People in a Mercedes', is now a poem studied at GCSE level in England and Wales, as part of the collection of poems in the AQA Anthology. His famous poem "Just As I Used to Say', was published in 1976, when Ferlinghetti was aged 57.

Thursday, 20 June 2013

Maurice de Guérin, 1810–1839 (French poet)

* Maurice de Guérin ― recognized by literary critic, Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve, for the "strong and absorbing passion for nature" in his prose ― had passionate Pluto in poetic Pisces opposite nature-loving Venus in Virgo.

WIKIPEDIA BIOGRAPHY

Georges Maurice de Guérin du Cayla (4 August 1810 – 19 July 1839) was a French poet. Descended from a noble and rich family, he was born at the chateau of Le Cayla in Andillac, Tarn. He was educated for the church at a religious seminary at Toulouse, and then at the Collège Stanislas, Paris. In November 1838 he married a Creole lady of some fortune; but a few months afterwards he died of consumption. In the Revue des deux mondes for 15 May 1840, a memorial of Maurice de Guérin by George Sand was published, to which she added two fragments of his writings ― one a composition in prose entitled "The Centaur", and the other a short poem. His Reliquiae (2 vols., 1861), including the "Centaur", his journal, a number of his letters and several poems, was edited by G.S. Trébutien, and accompanied with a biographical and critical notice by Sainte-Beuve; a new edition, with the title Journal, lettres et poèmes, followed in 1862; and an English translation of it was published at New York in 1867. His sister Eugénie was a great influence on him and published some of his works after his death.

Though he was essentially a poet, his prose is more striking and original than his poetry. Its peculiar and unique charm arises from his strong and absorbing passion for nature, a passion whose intensity reached almost to adoration and worship, but in which the pagan was more prominent than the moral element. According to Sainte-Beuve, "no French poet or painter has rendered so well the feeling for nature ― the feeling not so much for details as for the ensemble and the divine universality, the feeling for the origin of things and the sovereign principle of life."

Wednesday, 19 June 2013

Aimé Césaire, 1913–2008 (Martiniquan poet, author and politician)

* Aimé Césaire ― "one of the founders of the Négritude [Negro-ness] movement in Francophone literature" ― had power-struggler Pluto in the last degree of literary Gemini ruling his Scorpio MC, and establisher Saturn in Gemini ruling his Capricorn Ascendant.

WIKIPEDIA BIOGRAPHY

Aimé Fernand David Césaire (26 June 1913 – 17 April 2008) was born in Basse-Pointe, Martinique. He traveled to Paris to attend the Lycée Louis-le-Grand on an educational scholarship. In Paris, Césaire created, with Léopold Sédar Senghor and Léon Damas, the literary review L'Étudiant Noir (The Black Student). In 1936, Césaire began work on his long poem Cahier d'un retour au pays natal, a vivid and powerful depiction of the ambiguities of Caribbean life and culture in the New World and this upon returning home to Martinique.

In 1947 he was finally able to publish his book-length poem Cahier d'un retour au pays natal (Notebook of a Return to the Native Land), which had first been published in the Parisian periodical Volontés in 1939. The book mixes poetry and prose to express his thoughts on the cultural identity of black Africans in a colonial setting. French surrealist poet André Breton contributed a laudatory introduction to this 1947 edition, saying that the "poem is nothing less than the greatest lyrical monument of our times."

Read more from Césaire's Wikipedia biography.

HOROSCOPE NOTES

Poetic Neptune and prosaic Mercury straddle the Descendant all in the Piscean decan of Cancer.

NATAL DATA and ASTROLOGY CHART

BIRTH DATA: Aimé Fernand David Césaire, 26 June 1913, 20:00 (8 p.m.) AST (+4), Basse-Pointe, Martinique (14n52, 61w07). ASC: 25 Capricorn. RR: B (from biography). SOURCE: Sy Scholfield (c) quotes David Alliot, Aimé Césaire: Le nègre universel (Gollion, Switzerland: Infolio éditions, 2008), p. 24: "En 1911, peu après leur mariage, Marie Félicité met au monde Orner Césaire, le premier enfant de la famille. Le deuxième enfant du couple, Aimé Fernand David Césaire naît le 26 juin 1913 à Basse-Pointe vers huit heures du soir."

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Tuesday, 18 June 2013

Larry Levis, 1946–1996 (American poet)

* Larry Levis ― remembered and admired for the "generous spirit and sardonic humor"¹ in his poems ― had benevolent Jupiter in cynical Scorpio square the cusp of his 12th house, the domain of poetry.

WIKIPEDIA BIOGRAPHY

Larry Patrick Levis won the United States Award from the International Poetry Forum for his first book of poems, Wrecking Crew (1972), which included publication by the University of Pittsburgh Press. The American Academy of Poets named his second book, The Afterlife (1976) as Lamont Poetry Selection. His book The Dollmaker's Ghost was a winner of the Open Competition of the National Poetry Series. Other awards included a YM-YWHA Discovery award, three fellowships in poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Fulbright Fellowship, and a 1982 Guggenheim Fellowship. His poems are featured in American Alphabets: 25 Contemporary Poets (2006) and in many other anthologies. Larry Levis died of a heart attack in Richmond, Virginia on May 8, 1996, at the age of 49.

Friday, 10 May 2013

Obit: Taylor Mead, 1924-2013 (American writer, actor, performer)

* Underground film icon, Taylor Mead, has died aged 88. The elfin poet and Andy Warhol superstar had Neptune in Leo exactly conjunct his IC and ruling his Pisces Moon.

Taylor Mead (December 31, 1924 – May 8, 2013) was an American writer, actor, and performer. Mead appeared in several of Andy Warhol's underground films filmed at Warhol's Factory, including Tarzan and Jane Regained... Sort of (1963) and Taylor Mead's Ass (1964).

Born in Detroit, Michigan, Mead appeared in Ron Rice's beat classic The Flower Thief (1960), in which he "traipses with an elfin glee through a lost San Francisco of smoke-stuffed North Beach cafes..." Film critic P. Adams Sitney called The Flower Thief "the purest expression of the Beat sensibility in cinema." Village Voice film critic J. Hoberman called Mead "the first underground movie star."

In the mid 1970s, Gary Weis made some short films of Mead talking to his cat in the kitchen of his Ludlow Street apartment on the Lower East Side called Taylor Mead's Cat. One film of Mead extemporizing on the virtues of constant television watching aired during the second season of Saturday Night Live.

Mead lived in the Lower East Side of Manhattan on Ludlow Street and read his poetry regularly at The Bowery Poetry Club. His last book of poems (published by Bowery Poetry Books) is called A Simple Country Girl. He was the subject of a documentary entitled Excavating Taylor Mead, which debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2005. The film shows him engaging in his nightly habit of feeding stray cats in an East Village cemetery after bar-hopping, and features a cameo by Jim Jarmusch, in which Jarmusch explains that once, when Mead went to Europe, he enlisted Jarmusch's brother to feed the cemetery cats in Mead's absence.

Mead appeared in the final segment of Jarmusch's 2003 film Coffee and Cigarettes. He has been "a beloved icon of the downtown New York art scene since the 60s."

Mead died on May 8, 2013 in Colorado, having moved from his Ludlow Street apartment in Manhattan earlier this spring, "after many years of a dispute with his landlord."

Read more and see his filmography on Wikipedia.

HOROSCOPE NOTES

"The first underground movie star"? Mead had filmic Neptune in stellar Leo exactly on the subcultural IC in the pioneering Aries decan no less.

NATAL DATA and ASTROLOGY CHART

BIRTH DATA: Taylor W. Mead, 31 December 1924, 15:30 (3:30 p.m.) EST (+5), Grosse Pointe, Michigan, USA (42n23, 82w54). ASC: 18 Gemini. RR: B (from biography). SOURCE: Sy Scholfield (c) quotes Steven Watson, Factory Made: Warhol and the Sixties (Pantheon Books, 2003), p. 3: "Taylor Mead usually declines to state his age: 'Sometimes I say I am thirty-seven, or vice versa.' In fact Mead was born at 3:30 p.m. on December 31, 1924. Raised in the wealthy Detroit suburb Grosse Pointe . . ."

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Over the past 15+ years, Sy Scholfield has provided the global astrological community with thousands of timed astro-data (over 15,000 in AstroDatabank). The result of his meticulous research ― as evidenced by their scholarly source notes ― these data pertain to people from many historical periods, geographical regions and walks of life. On this official blog, Sy continues his endeavour, posting new, updated and newsmaker data and charts from his vast collection of astrological information ― for your reference, study and enjoyment. Please feel free to share these data and charts with appropriate acknowledgment.