(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Morning Open Thread: Slowly Grows Our Human Thought; and Freedom Long Delays [1] ['Greg Dworkin', 'Peter Olandt', 'Dan K', 'Bill In Portland Maine', 'Rob In Vermont'] Date: 2026-08-31 “History is not a straight line. It’s a pendulum. It swings back and forth.” — Abigail Adams “All progress is precarious, and the solution of one problem brings us face to face with another problem.” — Martin Luther King Jr. “Never forget that a political, economic, or religious crisis will be enough to cast doubt on women’s rights. These rights are never taken for granted.” — Simone de Beauvoir _______________________ Welcome to Morning Open Thread, with daily posts from a MOTley crew of hosts who choose their own topics from a wide-open range: often music or poetry, sometimes history — anything and everything from Apples to Zoology! We support our community, invite and share ideas, and encourage thoughtful, respectful dialogue in our open forum. That’s a feature, not a bug. Other than that, site rulz rule. We’re always looking for new contributors, so contact officebss or RandomNeuron if you’d like to give it a try. Meanwhile, grab your cuppa, and join in! ☕ ________________________ 13 poets born this week of Endings and Beginnings – “Even at the very root and core of things …” __________________ August 30 __________________ 1797 – Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley born in Somers Town, London, England; English novelist, travel writer, editor, and poet, best known for her book Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus. Her mother died 11 days after giving birth to her, so he was raised by her father. Unlike her male contemporaries, she wrote strong women characters in her historical novels. In Valperga, the despot Castruccio Castracani forces the fictional Countess Euthanasia to choose between his love and political liberty, and she chooses liberty. In The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck, Lady Katherine Gordon and Monina de Faro make their own choices, which differ from those made by the men around them. When she was a teenager, she met Percy Bysshe Sheeley, who was four years old than she was, and already married. They fled to France in 1814, and eventually joined Lord Byron’s ongoing summer party at a villa at Lake Geneva, where it rained incessantly, and she wrote Frankenstein. Shelley’s first wife drowned herself the Serpentine River in December 1816, and he married Mary three weeks later.In 1822, Shelley accidentally drowned in the Bay of Spezia on western coast of Italy, and Mary eventually returned with their only surviving son to England, where she sold numerous short stories and poems to popular periodicals, published a couple of travelogues, and some less successful novels in order to support herself and her son, until her father died in 1844, and her inheritance gave her some financial independence. She died at age 53 in February 1851, probably of a brain tumor. Stanzas by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Oh, come to me in dreams, my love! I will not ask a dearer bliss; Come with the starry beams, my love, And press mine eyelids with thy kiss. ’Twas thus, as ancient fables tell, Love visited a Grecian maid, Till she disturbed the sacred spell, And woke to find her hopes betrayed. But gentle sleep shall veil my sight, And Psyche’s lamp shall darkling be, When, in the visions of the night, Thou dost renew thy vows to me. Then come to me in dreams, my love, I will not ask a dearer bliss; Come with the starry beams, my love, And press mine eyelids with thy kiss. “Stanzas” from Collected Works of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, 2009 edition __________________ 1871 – Kunikida Doppo born in Choshi, Chiba, Japan; Japanese Meiji period novelist and poet, noted as one of the originators of Japanese naturalism. His family moved to Ikakuni, a city on the western tip of Honshu Island, in 1874. He went to English at Tōkyō Senmon Gakkō in 1889, but was expelled in 1891 for his defiant attitude. In 1892, Kunikida became a Christian, and founded the magazine Seinen bungaku (Literature for Youth). He earned additional income teaching English, math, and history before becoming a war correspondent for the newspaper Kokumin Shinbun (The Nation) during the First Sino-Japanese War. In 1895, he became editor of the magazine Kokumin no Tomo (The Nation’s Friend). He also edited an anthology, and published his own poems and short stories. He contracted tuberculosis in 1907 and died at age 36 in June 1908. In 1917, Mono Mitobe translated eleven of his short stories, published as Selected Stories of Doppo Kunikida. Freedom is in the Mountain by Kunikida Doppo Since I chose the path to fame the years have turned to dust. Now I look back and see freedom is a thousand ri behind. I look up – In the sky is the beam of the morning sun against the snow on the mountain. Ah freedom is in the mountain. “Freedom is in the Mountain” was written by Kunikida Doppo in 1896 – this translation is by James R. Morita __________________ August 31 __________________ 1811 – Theophile Gautier born in Tarbes, France, near the Pyrenees mountains; French art critic, journalist, novelist, and transitional poet from Romanticism to early Modernism. In his 1848 essay La République de l’avenir, he celebrated the advent of the new republic and the onward march of individual liberty. He was elected in 1862 as chair of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts. Known for his poetry collections Albertus, España, and Émaux et Camées (Enamels and Cameos). Gautier was an editor of L’Artiste, a weekly review of the arts in Paris. He died from heart disease at age 61 in October 1872. Smoke by Théophile Gautier Over there, trees are sheltering A hunched back hut… A slum, no more… Roof askew, walls and wainscoting Falling away… Moss hides the door. Only one shutter, hanging . . . But Seeping over the windowsill, Like frosted breath, proof that this hut, This slum, is living, breathing still. Corkscrew of smoke… A wisp of blue Escapes the hovel, whose soul it is . . . Rises to God himself, and who Receives the news and makes it his. “Smoke” from Selected Lyrics, translated by Norman R. Shapiro – © 2011 by Norman R. Shapiro – Yale University Press __________________ 1885 – Dubose Heyward born in Charleston, South Carolina; American novelist, poet, and children’s author. He contracted a series of illnesses, including polio at age 18, and while bed-ridden, wrote poems and short stories. In 1919, he was a co-founder of the Poetry Society of South Carolina, and edited the society’s yearbooks until 1924. By 1925, he was able to give up working as an insurance agent, and devoted himself to writing and raising their daughter with his wife, playwright Dorothy Kuhns Heyward. His novel Porgy was published in 1925, and he and Dorothy adapted it as a play, also called Porgy, which was a hit on Broadway in 1927. They then worked with composer George Gershwin to translate the play into the 1935 musical drama Porgy and Bess. His poetry collections include: Carolina Chansons: Legends of the Low Country (co-authored with Hervey Allen); Jasho Brown and Other Poems; and Skylines and Horizons. Dubose Heyward died of a heart attack at age 54 in June 1940. Modern Philosopher by Dubose Heyward They fight your battles for you every day, The zealous ones, who sorrow in your life. Undaunted by a century of strife, With urgent fingers still they point the way To drawing rooms, in decorous array, And moral Heavens where no casual wife May share your lot; where dice and ready knife Are barred; and feet are silent when you pray. But you have music in your shuffling feet, And spirituals for a lenient Lord, Who lets you sing your promises away. You hold your sunny corner of the street, And pluck deep beauty from a banjo chord: Philosopher whose future is today! “Modern Philosopher” by DuBose Heyward, from Carolina Chansons: Legends of the Low Country, originally printed in 1922– reprinted by Bibliolife in 2009 __________________ 1919 – Amrita Pritam born in Gujranwala, Punjab, British India (now in Pakistan); Indian novelist, essayist, and poet, who wrote in Punjabi and Hindi. Her career spanned over six decades, and she produced more than 100 books of poetry, fiction, biographies, essays, a collection of Punjabi folk songs, and an autobiography that were all translated into several Indian and foreign languages. Her mother died when she was eleven, and she was married at age sixteen. In 1947, a million people – Hindus, Sikhs, and Muslims – died during the violence that followed the partition of India. Pritam became a Punjabi refugee, leaving Lahore and moving to New Delhi. Her work is much admired in both India and Pakistan. In 1956, she became the first woman to win the Sahitya Akademi Award for her long poem, Sunehade (Messages). After her divorce in 1960, her work became more feminist. Many of her stories and poems drew on the unhappy experience of her marriage. She worked for All India Radio, and edited Nagmani, a monthly Punjabi literary magazine. For the last forty years of her life, she lived with artist and writer Imroz. He designed most of her book covers and made her the subject of several paintings. Pritam died at age 86 in her sleep, after a long illness, in October 2005. A Document by Amrita Pritam With a cover of the Sun and the moon, the earth Is a beautiful book. But starvation, poverty and slavery … God, are these your sermons Or simply printing errors? – translated by Suresh Kohil “A Document” from Selected Poems of Amrita Pritam, © 1970 by Amrita Pritam – Dialogue Calcutta Publications __________________ 1944 – Lorenzo Thomas born in Panama, but his Afro-Caribbean family immigrated to the U.S. when he was four, and he grew up in New York City. He graduated from New York’s Queens College, and joined a group of emerging black poets at the Umbra Workshop, then served in the U.S. Navy (1968-1972) before moving to Houston, Texas as writer-in-residence at Texas Southern University (1973-1979) and editor of the journal Roots. He was then an English professor at the University of Houston-Downtown for over 20 years. Thomas died from emphysema at age 60 in July 2005. His poetry collections include Chances Are Few; I Cudda Had A V-8; and Dancing on Main Street. Toil by Lorenzo Thomas I has taken all that I can stand And now it is heroism Someone to tell you my story The NEWS photographers crowd Across the lonely Hudson pier Shouting interviews, Ta ta. I’m going to swim to Greece Who am I trying to impress You burst into tears too late! My lips gargle “Goodbye” The rosy sunrise envelops me, My arm hooks into the night “Toil” from The Collected Poems of Lorenzo Thomas, © 2019 by Lorenzo Thomas – Wesleyan University Press __________________ September 1 __________________ 1791 – Lydia Huntley Sigourney, born in Norwich, Connecticut, the only child who cared for her aging parents and didn’t marry until 1819 when she was 28 years old. Though she didn’t start writing professionally until her husband’s finances took a turn for the worse, and her parents needed even more support, she became a prolific American poet, author, essayist, and publisher; known as the “Sweet Singer of Hartford.” Under the pen name “Mrs. Sigourney,” she published 52 books, and poems and articles in over 300 periodicals. Mrs. Sigourney died at age 73 in June 1865. Her memoir, Letters of a Life, was published posthumously. Indian Summer by Mrs. Sigourney When was the redman’s summer? When the rose Hung its first banner out? When the gray rock, Or the brown heath, the radiant kalmia clothed? Or when the loiterer by the reedy brooks Started to see the proud lobelia glow Like living flame? When through the forest gleamed The rhododendron? Or the fragrant breath Of the magnolia swept deliciously Over the half-laden nerve? No. When the groves In fleeting colors wrote their own decay, And leaves fell eddying on the sharpen’d blast That sang their dirge; when o’er their rustling bed The red deer sprang, or fled the shrill-voiced quail, Heavy of wing and fearful; when, with heart Foreboding or depress’d, the white man mark’d The signs of coming winter: then began The Indian’s joyous season. Then the haze, Soft and illusive as a fairy dream, Lapp’d all the landscape in its silvery fold. The quiet rivers, that were wont to hide ‘Neath shelving banks, beheld their course betray’d By the white mist that o’er their foreheads crept, While wrapp’d in morning dreams, the sea and sky Slept ‘neath one curtain, as if both were merged In the same element. Slowly the sun, And all reluctantly, the spell dissolved, And then it took upon its parting wing A rainbow glory. Gorgeous was the time Yet brief as gorgeous. Beautiful to thee, Our brother hunter, but to us replete With musing thoughts in melancholy train. Our joys, alas! too oft were woe to thee. Yet ah! poor Indian! whom we fain would drive Both from our hearts, and from thy father’s lands, The perfect year doth bear thee on its crown, And when we would forget, repeat thy name. “Indian Summer” from Select Poems, by Mrs. L. H. Sigourney – originally published in 1845 __________________ 1888 – Clement Wood born in Tuscaloosa, Alabama and grew up in Birmingham; American writer, lawyer, poet, short story writer, novelist, biographer, and author of books on history and about games. He was also a political activist. Wood graduated from the University of Alabama in 1909, and earned a law degree from Yale in 1911. As a member of the Socialist Party of America, he ran for mayor of Birmingham in 1913, and was endorsed by the Birmingham Labor Advocate and Birmingham Trades Council. He lost. Wood was also a member and lecturer of the American Association for the Advancement of Atheism. In 1914, he moved to New York City, and was briefly Upton Sinclair’s secretary. Though best known for his poetry, Wood also wrote pulp fiction, and his story “The Coffin” was included in The Best Short Stories of 1922. His work often appeared in magazines. His poetry collections include Glad of Earth and The Eagle Sonnets. Clement Moore suffered a stroke, and died at age 68 in October 1950. Wide Haven by Clement Wood Tired of man’s futile, petty cry, Of lips that lie and flout, I saw the slow sun dim and die And the slim dusk slip out . . . Life held no room for doubt. What though Death claim the ones I prize In War’s insane crusade, Last night I saw Orion rise And the great day-star fade, And I am not dismayed. “Wide Haven” from Glad of Earth by Clement Moore, originally published in 1917 by Laurence James Gomme publishing __________________ September 2 __________________ 1821 – Anne Whitney born in Watertown, Massachusetts; American sculptor and poet; her Bostonian parents were well-to-do liberal Unitarians. Whitney was an abolitionist and an active supporter of women’s equality. She is known for her statue of Samuel Adams in the National Statuary Hall Collection at the U.S. Capitol in Washington D.C., and for statues at the Smithsonian Institute, Harvard University, and Boston Public Library. She also did busts of women who were prominent in the abolitionist and suffrage movements. Her model for a statue of Charles Sumner won a competition but she was disqualified when it is discovered she is a woman, because the judges did not think a woman should sculpt a man’s legs, even if they were covered by trousers. Sonnet III by Anne Whitney O fair mistrust of earth’s more solid shows! And mute appeal from its inhuman ways, Its iron judgments and its misspent praise, To the appreciation sweet that glows In heaven’s old smiling eye! O slowly grows Our human thought; and freedom long delays, Love in the shade fulfilling weary days, Ere her great child is born! No wasting throes Foretell thy being to the universe! It is as thou didst lurk on half-poised wings Below our life, blessing, and care and curse, Even at the very root and core of things: And couldst not keep from start, and chirp, and flight, And warbled hint of something back of sight. “Sonnet III” from Poems by Anne Whitney, originally published in 1859 by D. Appleton & Company __________________ September 3 ___________________ 1849 – Sarah Orne Jewett born in South Berwick, York County, Maine; American short story writer, novelist, and poet. she used the pen name A. C. Eliot on first of her works which were published in magazines. Best known for her novella The Country of the Pointed Firs and A White Heron, a collection of short stories. Many of her stories centered on the lives of women, and her descriptive powers and ear for dialect were much admired. She became a close friend of Annie Adams Fields, wife of James Fields, who was editor of the Atlantic Monthly. After he died suddenly in 1881, Jewett and Fields set up housekeeping in what was then termed a “Boston Marriage.” In September 1902, Jewett was severely injured in a carriage accident, which all but ended her writing career, then was paralyzed by a stroke in March 1909, and died at age 59 in June 1909. A Wild Rose by Sarah Orne Jewett A blushing wild pink rose, By tangled woods and ways, A passing sweet that goes With summer days. From rosy dawn till night Wafted from east to west, Kissed by the morning light To evening rest. Thy odors faint outlive Alike both joy and pain, Stealing the sweet they give To yield again. Leaving a faint perfume Thy memory to fulfill, Forgotten in thy bloom, Remembered still. “A Wild Rose” Verses, by Sarah Orne Jewett – published posthumously in 1916 __________________ 1907 – Loren Eiseley born in Lincoln, Nebraska, to a father struggling to support his family, and a deaf mother. Eiseley’s college years were interrupted by tuberculosis. He became an American anthropologist, academic, prolific natural science writer, essayist, and poet; noted for his science and philosophy books, including The Immense Journey; Darwin’s Century; The Mind as Nature; The Star Thrower; and The Unexpected Universe; for his memoir All the Strange Hours: The Excavation of a Life; and for his poetry collections Notes of an Alchemist; The Innocent Assassins; Another Kind of Autumn; and All the Night Wings. He died at age 69 of cardiac arrest after surgery in 1977. Words for Forgetting by Loren Eiseley Go forward on these simple roads, Do not turn back. The stars behind you in the wind will blow, The coyote’s track Delicately replace the lifted dust Of your own heel. Go forward and the dark will close About you. You will feel The fragrant emptiness of prairie miles. Now you will own Nothing that is not yours, yourself Down to the naked bone. “Words for Forgetting” by Loren Eiseley, © 1929 by the Wordsmiths of Sigma Upsilon, appeared in Prairie Schooner’s Summer 1934 issue __________________ September 4 __________________ 1908 – Richard Wright born in Roxie, in rural Mississippi; African American novelist and poet known for Native Son, The Outsider, and his memoir Black Boy. His writings exposed American racism and its harsh effects. At age 19, he moved to Chicago, and worked as a postal clerk, but lost his job after the stock market crash, and had to go on relief. In 1932, he started going to meetings of the John Reed Club, a Marxist literary group, and wrote revolutionary poetry, which appeared in leftist periodicals like New Masses. He was part of the Federal Writers’ Project. In 1933, Wright founded the South Side Writers Group, whose members included Arna Bontemps and Margaret Walker, and became editor of Left Front, a literary magazine. He was writing short stories and finished a novel, but it was rejected by publishers. His novel Native Son was published in 1940, and was an immediate best-seller. It made Wright the wealthiest Black writer of his time, and the “father of Black American literature.” It is still one of the most frequently challenged books on public school reading lists, but is also on many lists of the most influential novels of the 20th century. In 1946, he moved to Paris, and became a French citizen in 1947. He died of a heart attack in November 1960 at age 52. I Am Nobody by Richard Wright I am nobody: A red sinking autumn sun Took my name away ____________________ All Right You Sparrows by Richard Wright All right, You Sparrows; The sun has set and you can now Stop your chattering! Both poems from Haiku: The Last Poems of an American Icon © 2012 by Ellen Wright – Arcade Publishing __________________ September 5 __________________ 1950 – Frances Chung born in New York City’s Chinatown; American poet and teacher. She earned an MS in mathematics from Smith College, spent two years in the Peace Corps in Central and South America, then taught math in New York Public Schools. She was diagnosed with a brain tumor, and while in surgery, she was injected with antibodies to which she had an allergic reaction, and died at age 40 in December 1990. Her only published work is a two-part collection of her prose and poetry, Crazy Melon & Chinese Apple: The Poems of Frances Chung, published in 2000. snapshot poem by Frances Chung a flower lifts on Mott Street through window pane and oily morning a flower turns to color the sky with pastel softness to touch the stones on the streets that bruised the knees of the children the flower that defies sanitation trucks motorcycle noise out of order telephone booths and oven laundromats that sings a fresh song every dawning. “snapshot poem” from Crazy Melon & Chinese Apple: The Poems of Frances Chung, © 2000 by the estate of Frances Chung – Wesleyan University Press ________________ 📚☕ [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2026/8/31/800091082/community/morning-open-thread-slowly-grows-our-human-thought-and-freedom-long-delays/ Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/