Stephen Crane

Stephen Crane was born on this day in 1871 in Newark, N.J.

You probably had to read The Red Badge of Courage in high school. It's one of those great books, like Of Mice and Men, that schools tend to make you read just a little too soon, before you're ready to really enjoy them.

For me, it's probably still a little too soon for Crane's poems — he called them simply "lines." There's a good collection of them at this pop-up ridden site. I like "War is kind," and the almost Douglas Adams-ish "A man said to the universe." But here I'll just stick to "In the desert," which supplied a title years later for Joyce Carol Oates:

In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
Who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.
I said: "Is it good, friend?"
"It is bitter — bitter," he answered;
"But I like it
Because it is bitter,
And because it is my heart."