Today on My Poetic side we take a look at the poet celebrated with a Google Doodle, holidaymakers who were unimpressed with an opera about a little-known poet and the footballer who turned poet.
One of The Greatest Female Poets of All Time
Once again, the Google doodle of the day has been dedicated to a poet. Yesterday the image being displayed by Google Doodles marked the occasion of the 256thbirthday of Joanne Baillie, the revered Scottish writer. The image paid tribute to her “Plays on the Passions”.
During her lifetime Baillie was compared to William Shakespeare, she earned a reputation as being one of the greatest poets who ever lived.
Born in 1762, Baillie was the daughter of a minister, and counted two distinguished Scottish scientists amongst her relatives. Her family were incredibly patriotic and claimed William Wallace as one of their ancestors. Baillie didn’t learn to read until the age of 10 when she was sent away to boarding school. She published her first poem in 1790, “Winter Day” was a poem about the natural sounds and sights of a place called Long Calderwood.
Baillie eventually moved to London where she had access to the literary social circle that existed at the time, and it is here that she met people like Lord Byron and William Wordsworth. This led to her writing further poetry and dramas and the eventual publishing of her first poetry collection.
“Plays on the Passions” her seminal work was originally published anonymously and there was much speculation as to the identity of the author. In 1800 Baillie “outed” herself as the author on the title page of the third edition of the collection.
Baillie died in 1851, by which time she had established a reputation for herself as one of the all-time greatest female poets.
Fans Disappointed by Opera About Little Known poet
When a group of British tourists booked an 11 day tour of the Tuscan countryside and concert with Andrea Bocelli they were expecting something just a little bit special.
They had hoped to see a concert of Bocelli’s greatest hits with maybe a few celebrity guests singing alongside the famous tenor, and whist they did get to hear the great man sing he was only on the stage for a relatively short period of time they were not expecting the rather obscure opera that followed.
The opera in question was Andrea Chenier, a classical four act opera by Umberto Giordano. The opera is loosely based on the life of Andre Chenier a French poet who had the misfortune to lose his head during the French revolution.
Footballer Resigns with Poetry
Gaelic footballer Kieran Donaghy has announced that he will be retiring from football in a rather unexpected way. It came as something of a surprise to football fans to discover that Donaghy is in fact quite a gifted poet after he took to Twitter to make his announcement.
The announcement has the football world wondering if this will be the new way for footballers to give their resignations.
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