Gaspard de la Nuit
Louis Bertrand's GASPARD DE LA NUIT: FANTASIES IN THE MANNER OF REMBRANDT AND CALLOT (originally published in 1842 in France) is credited as being the first Western collected work that stands on its own of the modern prose poem. Constructed almost like a hall of mirrors, Bertrand used the character of Gaspard to render these vignettes that are fantasies of life gone by. Written in the early 19th century, but mimicking life two, three and even four centuries before, the modern reader is presented with what a mirror does best: presenting both 'sides' of an image - ugliness and beauty. Each piece deftly paints its own scene. Bertrand uses his unique version of Romanticism and fuses it with his conception of the Gothic. His subject matter ranges from the beautiful dream to horrific nightmare, from kings and queens to low-born tavern keepers and bandits.Consisting of six "books"--Flemish School, Old Paris, Night and Its Spells, Chronicles, Spain and Italy, and Sylphs-- this edition tries to follow Bertrand's initial instructions on how he wanted his manuscript to appear: full of images everywhere, including all of Bertrand's known drawings. Over 300 images are included, mostly period artwork.The book did not have much success at the time with the general public, but it did have a profound effect on a number of French writers (Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Mallarm矇, the Surrealists, Jacob, etc.). Bertrand's book inspired Charles Baudelaire to apply "to the description of our more abstract modern life the same method [Bertrand] used in depicting the old days, so strangely picturesque." It was Gaspard that prompted Baudelaire's quest in Paris Spleen to attain "the miracle of a poetic prose, musical, without rhythm and without rhyme, supple enough and rugged enough to adapt to the lyrical impulses of the soul, the undulations of reverie, the jibes of conscience." And for Andr矇 Breton, "Bertrand is Surrealist in the past."This translation seeks to be as faithful as possible to Bertrand's original manuscript."A splendid translation of Bertrand, which makes available a text that brings to the light of day the underside of experience that has not yet been noticed. There is some curious mingling of the ordinary and the extraordinary in Bertrand, whose angle of vision and unique perspective have yielded an outstanding text."--Lawrence FixelPoetry. Translation.
A Season in Hell
ARTHUR RIMBAUD: A SEASON IN HELL Edited and translated by Andrew Jary A new translation of Arthur Rimbaud's extraordinary poetic statement, written in 1873. The sensual, violent and anguished emotion in Rimbaud's visionary 'alchemy of the word' remains startling, and continues to inspire poets. Printed with the French text facing the translation. For a time, when he was a teenager until he was 19, art was crucial for the psychic well-being of the restless Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891). The young would-be rebel Rimbaud escaped from the bland provincial town of Charleville in Northern France to wander the streets of Paris in poverty. After writing his Illuminations and A Season in Hell, some of the most extraordinary poems of all world literature, Rimbaud renounced it all for a hellish and apparently boring life in Aden. 'Mortel, ange ET demon, autant dire Rimbaud, ' as Rimbaud's lover, Paul Verlaine wrote ('Mortal, angel AND demon, that is to say Rimbaud'.) Arthur Rimbaud is the tornado of world poetry. He out-blasts just about every other poet. For poets, he is more significant than the so-called 'founding fathers' or influential philosophers of modern times: Marx, Freud, Nietzsche and Einstein. For poets, he is 'everybody's favourite hippy', a Communard, a 'precursor of the current movement of subversion of Western notions of self, society, and discourse', and a savage mystic.
Salt On My Skin 21 Odes from the Heart That Rises, Questions, and Loves On...
Entrancing Symphonies A collection of poems about life, nature, and animals
The Grammar of Stillness Meditations on Impermanence, Earth, and Quiet Human Heart
