Fleurs du Mal Magazine
Sonnet XLII
Lo! the YEAR’s FINAL DAY! – Nature performs
Its obsequies with darkness, wind, and rain;
But Man is jocund. – Hark! th’ exultant strain
From towers and steeples drowns the wintry storms!
No village spire but to the cots and farms,
Right merrily, its scant and tuneless peal
Rings round! – Ah! joy ungrateful! – mirth insane!
Wherefore the senseless triumph, ye, who feel
This annual portion of brief Life the while
Depart for ever? – Brought it no dear hours
Of health and night-rest? – none that saw the smile
On lips belov’d? – O! with as gentle powers
Will the next pass? – Ye pause! – yet careless hear
Strike these last Clocks, that knell th’ EXPIRING YEAR!
Dec. 31st, 1782.
Anna Seward
(1742-1809)
Lo! the YEAR’s FINAL DAY!
(Sonnet XLII)
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Academy Award-winning actress, director, producer, and activist Natalie Portman retells three classic fables and imbues them with wit and wisdom.
From realizing that there is no “right” way to live to respecting our planet and learning what really makes someone a winner, the messages at the heart of Natalie Portman’s Fables are modern takes on timeless life lessons.
Told with a playful, kid-friendly voice and perfectly paired with Janna Mattia’s charming artwork, Portman’s insightful retellings of The Tortoise and the Hare, The Three Little Pigs, and Country Mouse and City Mouse are ideal for reading aloud and are sure to become beloved additions to family libraries.
Natalie Portman is an Academy Award-winning actress, director, producer, and activist whose credits include Leon: The Professional, Cold Mountain, Closer, V for Vendetta, the Star Wars franchise prequels, A Tale of Love and Darkness, Jackie, and Thor: Love and Thunder. Born in Jerusalem, Israel, she is a graduate of Harvard University, and now lives with her family in Los Angeles. Natalie Portman’s Fables is her debut picture book.
Janna Mattia was born and raised in San Diego. She received a degree in Illustration for Entertainment from Laguna College of Art and Design, and now works on concept and character art for film, illustration for licensing, and private commissions. Natalie Portman’s Fables is her picture book debut.
Natalie Portman’s Fables
Natalie Portman (Author)
Janna Mattia (Illustrator)
Age Range: 4 – 6 years
Hardcover: 64 pages
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends (October 20, 2020)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1250246865
ISBN-13: 978-1250246868
$17.99
# new books
Natalie Portman’s Fables
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Ingratitude
Full on the wave the moonlight weeps,
To quiet its weary breast;
Cruelly cold the mad wave leaps,
With the moonshine on its crest;
Or with scowl, or growl, to the shore it creeps,
And sinks to its selfish rest.
Full on yon man-brute smiles the wife,
To gladden his turbid breast;
Savagely stern he seeks the life
Where he erewhile sought for zest;
With a curse, or worse, he ends the strife,
And sinks to his drunken rest.
Sea! has the moon no charms for thee
That can touch thy cruel breast?
Man! cannot woman’s charity
Give ease to thy soul oppressed?
Thou shalt flee, O sea! the moon’s witchery,
Till man has his final rest!
Charles Sangster
(1822 – 1893)
Ingratitude
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During the Revolutionary war, a young American lady was murdered, while dressed in her bridal robe, by a party of Indians, sent by her betrothed to conduct her to the village where he was encamped.
After the deed was done, they carried her long hair to her lover, who, urged by a frantic despair, hurried to the spot to assure himself of the truth of the tale, and shortly after threw himself, in battle, on the swords of his countrymen.
After this event, the Indians were never successful in their warfare, the spectre of their victim presenting itself continually between them and the enemy.
The Phantom Bride. – Indian Legends
The worn bird of Freedom had furled o’er our land
The shattered wings, pierced by the despot’s rude hand,
And stout hearts were vowing, ‘mid havoc and strife,
To Liberty, fortune, fame, honor, and life.
The red light of Morning had scarcely betrayed
The sweet summer blossoms that slept in the glade,
When a horseman rode forth from his camp in the wood,
And paused where a cottage in loneliness stood.
The ruthless marauder preceded him there,
For the green vines were torn from the trellis-work fair,
The flowers in the garden all hoof-trodden lay,
And the rafters were black with the smoke of the fray:
But the desolate building he heeded not long,
Was it echo, the wind, or the notes of a song?
One moment for doubt, and he stood by the side
Of the dark-eyed young maiden, his long-promised bride.
Few and short were their words, for the camp of the foe
Was but severed from them, by a stream’s narrow flow,
And her fair cheek grew pale at the forest bird’s start,
But he said, as he mounted his steed to depart,
“Nay, fear not, but trust to the chief for thy guide,
And the light of the morrow shall see thee my bride.”
Why faltered the words ere the sentence was o’er?
Why trembled each heart like the surf on the shore?
In a marvellous legend of old it is said,
That the cross where the Holy One suffered and bled
Was built of the aspen, whose pale silver leaf,
Has ever more quivered with horror and grief;
And e’er since the hour, when thy pinion of light
Was sullied in Eden, and doomed, through a night
Of Sin and of Sorrow, to struggle above,
Hast thou been a trembler, O beautiful Love!
‘T was the deep hush of midnight; the stars from the sky
Looked down with the glance of a seraph’s bright eye,
When it cleaveth in vision from Deity’s shrine
Through infinite space and creation divine,
As the maiden came forth for her bridal arrayed,
And was led by the red men through forest and shade,
Till they paused where a fountain gushed clear in its play,
And the tall pines rose dark and sublime o’er their way.
Alas for the visions that, joyous and pure,
Wove a vista of light through the Future’s obscure!
Contention waxed fierce ‘neath the evergreen boughs,
And the braves of the chieftain were false to his vows;
In vain knelt the Pale-Face to merciless wrath,
The tomahawk gleamed on her desolate path,
One prayer for her lover, one look towards the sky,
And the dark hand of Death closed the love-speaking eye.
They covered with dry leaves the cold corpse and fair,
And bore the long tresses of soft, golden hair,
In silence and fear, through the dense forest wide,
To the home that the lover had made for his bride.
He knew by their waving those tresses of gold,
Now damp with the life-blood that darkened each fold,
And, mounting his steed, pausing never for breath
Sought the spot where the huge trees stood sentries of Death;
Tore wildly the leaves from the loved form away,
And kissed the pale lips of inanimate clay.
But hark! through the green wood what sounded afar,
‘T was the trumpet’s loud peal–the alarum of war!
Again on his charger, through forest, o’er plain,
The soldier rode swift to his ranks ‘mid the slain:
They faltered, they wavered, half turning to fly
As their leader dashed frantic and fearlessly by,
The damp turf grew crimson wherever he trod,
Where his sword was uplifted a soul went to God.
But that brave arm alone might not conquer in strife,
The madness of grief was conflicting with Life;
His steed fell beneath him, the death-shot whizzed by,
And he rushed on the swords of the victors to die.
‘Neath the murmuring pine trees they laid side by side,
The gallant young soldier, the fair, murdered bride:
And never again from that traitorous night,
The red man dared stand in the battle’s fierce storm,
For ever before him a phantom of light,
Rose up in the white maiden’s beautiful form;
And when he would rush on the foe from his lair,
Those locks of pale gold floated past on the air.
Mary Gardiner Horsford
(1824-1855)
The Phantom Bride. – Indian Legends
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Op café
Aan de toog neuriën treuzelige drinkers gebruikte
melodieën, met de nonchalance van zangers
die onbang zijn als de stem van Björk. Hoor hoe ze
in hun liederen worden van huiverende ontwakers
tot dochterloze vaders, ontwaarde vertalers van
vrijpostige heiligen, gulle grensvrezers in de ochtend.
Bert Bevers
gedicht
Op café
(ongepubliceerd)
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Following the Pulitzer prize-winning collection Stag’s Leap, Sharon Olds gives us a stunning book of odes. Opening with the powerful and tender “Ode to the Hymen,” Olds addresses and embodies, in this age-old poetic form, many aspects of love and gender and sexual politics in a collection that is centered on the body and its structures and pleasures.
The poems extend parts of her narrative as a daughter, mother, wife, lover, friend, and poet of conscience that will be familiar from earlier collections, each episode and memory burnished by the wisdom and grace and humor of looking back.
In such poems as “Ode to My Sister,” “Ode of Broken Loyalty,” “Ode to My Whiteness,” “Blow Job Ode,” and “Ode to the Last Thirty-Eight Trees in New York City Visible from This Window,” Olds treats us to an intimate examination that, like all her work, is universal, by turns searing and charming in its honesty.
From the bodily joys and sorrows of childhood to the deaths of those dearest to us, Olds shapes the world in language that is startlingly fresh, profound in its conclusions, and life-giving for the reader.
SHARON OLDS was born in San Francisco and educated at Stanford University and Columbia University. The winner of both the Pulitzer Prize and England’s T. S. Eliot Prize for her 2012 collection, Stag’s Leap, she is the author of eleven previous books of poetry and the winner of many other honors, including the National Book Critics Circle Award for The Dead and the Living. Olds teaches in the Graduate Creative Writing Program at New York University and helped to found the NYU outreach programs, among them the writing workshop for residents of Goldwater Hospital on Roosevelt Island, and for the veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. She lives in New York City.
Odes
by Sharon Olds
Published by Knopf
128 Pages
Hardcover
ISBN 9780451493620
$26.95
Paperback
ISBN 9780451493644
$16.95
2016
# new poetry
Sharon Olds:
Odes
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Mein blaues Klavier
Ich habe zu Hause ein blaues Klavier
Und kenne doch keine Note.
Es steht im Dunkel der Kellertür,
Seitdem die Welt verrohte.
Es spielten Sternenhände vier
-Die Mondfrau sang im Boote-
Nun tanzen die Ratten im Geklirr.
Zerbrochen ist die Klaviatür…..
Ich beweine die blaue Tote.
Ach liebe Engel öffnet mir
-Ich aß vom bitteren Brote-
Mir lebend schon die Himmelstür-
Auch wider dem Verbote.
Else Lasker-Schüler
(1869 – 1945)
Mein blaues Klavier
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From the Number One Sunday Times bestselling author of milk and honey and the sun and her flowers comes her greatly anticipated third collection of poetry.
Rupi Kaur constantly embraces growth, and in home body, she walks readers through a reflective and intimate journey visiting the past, the present and the potential of the self. home body is a collection of raw, honest conversations with oneself – reminding readers to fill up on love, acceptance, community, family, and embrace change. illustrated by the author, themes of nature and nurture, light and dark, rest here.
i dive into the well of my body
and end up in another world
everything i need
already exists in me
there’s no need
to look anywhere else
– home
rupi kaur is a poet. artist. and performer. as a 21-year-old university student rupi wrote. illustrated. and self-published her first poetry collection milk and honey. next came its artistic sibling the sun and her flowers. these collections have sold over 8 million copies and have been translated into over 40 languages. home body is her third collection of poetry. rupi’s work touches on love. loss. trauma. healing. femininity. and migration. she feels most at home when creating art or performing her poetry onstage.
Rupi Kaur
Home Body
Paperback
ISBN : 9781471196720
Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK
November 17, 2020
English Poetry
$13.59
# new poetry
Rupi Kaur
Home Body
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A Portrait
A face devoid of love or grace,
A hateful, hard, successful face,
A face with which a stone
Would feel as thoroughly at ease
As were they old acquaintances, —
First time together thrown.
Emily Dickinson
(1830-1886)
A Portrait
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Gedichten zijn overal: op straat, op gebouwen, in liedjes en films. En ze raken ons en blijven ons soms een leven lang bij, als een troost tijdens duistere nachten of een woordgrapje dat een glimlach oproept.
Toch deinzen mensen achteruit als ze het woord poëzie horen: te moeilijk, niks voor mij. Maar het is wél iets voor jou. Ellen Deckwitz legt uit waarom, biedt een helpende hand en neemt je mee langs de vele ontroerende, dramatische, ronduit hilarische en verbeeldingsrijke paden die de poëzie rijk is.
Poëzie voor dummy’s. Een heerlijk boek dat niet alleen over lezen, maar ook over het leven gaat.
Ellen Deckwitz (1982) is een van de belangrijkste hedendaagse jonge dichters. Ze was Nederlands Kampioen Poetry Slam in 2009 en won met De steen vreest mijde C. Buddingh’-prijs voor het beste poëziedebuut. Ze is een geziene gast op festivals als Lowlands, de Nacht van de Poëzie en Saint Amour, ze draagt haar werk regelmatig voor op televisie en schrijft gedichten over het nieuws voor de NRC.
Ellen Deckwitz
Dit gaat niet over grasmaaien
24-09-2020
Nederlands
Paperback
Druk 1
oktober 2020
140 pagina’s
Uitgeverij Pluim
EA 9789083095318
EUR 19,99
# more poetry
Ellen Deckwitz
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