Fleurs du Mal Magazine
Old and New Year Ditties
New Year met me somewhat sad:
Old Year leaves me tired,
Stripped of favourite things I had
Baulked of much desired:
Yet farther on my road to-day
God willing, farther on my way.
New Year coming on apace
What have you to give me?
Bring you scathe, or bring you grace,
Face me with an honest face;
You shall not deceive me:
Be it good or ill, be it what you will,
It needs shall help me on my road,
My rugged way to heaven, please God…
Christina Rossetti
(1830-1894)
Old and New Year Ditties
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More in: *The Pre-Raphaelites Archive, 4SEASONS#Winter, Archive Q-R, Archive Q-R, Rossetti, Christina
Huiswaarts
Bij Twin Peaks – The Return van David Lynch
Luister naar de geluiden. Het kan nu niet meer
allemaal hardop gezegd worden. Iemand is hier.
Ik heb het gevoel dat ik mezelf ken, maar soms
buigen mijn armen zomaar naar achteren.
Is dit de toekomst, of het verleden?
–
Dit is het water. En dit is de put. Drink goed
en daal af. Het paard is het oogwit en donker
vanbinnen. Dit is het water. En dit is de put.
Drink goed en daal af. Het paard is het oogwit
en donker vanbinnen. Dit is het water. En
–
Er zullen een paar dingen veranderen, want
vroeger en later weet je. Herinner je je alles nog?
Ja. We leven in een droom. ‘Vergezel mij!’
roept iemand, maar misschien is er niemand.
Waar gaan we naartoe? We gaan naar huis.
Bert Bevers
Huiswaarts
Verschenen op Versindaba, Stellenbosch, februari 2018
Bert Bevers is dichter en schrijver
Hij woont en werkt in Antwerpen (Be)
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More in: Archive A-B, Archive A-B, Bevers, Bert, David Lynch
Long before she was a rare book dealer, Rebecca Romney was a devoted reader of Jane Austen.
She loved that Austen’s books took the lives of women seriously, explored relationships with wit and confidence, and always, allowed for the possibility of a happy ending. She read and reread them, often wishing Austen wrote just one more.
But Austen wasn’t a lone genius. She wrote at a time of great experimentation for women writers—and clues about those women, and the exceptional books they wrote, are sprinkled like breadcrumbs throughout Austen’s work. Every character in Northanger Abbey who isn’t a boor sings the praises of Ann Radcliffe. The play that causes such a stir in Mansfield Park is a real one by the playwright Elizabeth Inchbald. In fact, the phrase “pride and prejudice” came from Frances Burney’s second novel Cecilia. The women that populated Jane Austen’s bookshelf profoundly influenced her work; Austen looked up to them, passionately discussed their books with her friends, and used an appreciation of their books as a litmus test for whether someone had good taste. So where had these women gone? Why hadn’t Romney—despite her training—ever read them? Or, in some cases, even heard of them? And why were they no longer embraced as part of the wider literary canon?
Jane Austen’s Bookshelf investigates the disappearance of Austen’s heroes—women writers who were erased from the Western canon—to reveal who they were, what they meant to Austen, and how they were forgotten. Each chapter profiles a different writer including Frances Burney, Ann Radcliffe, Charlotte Lennox, Charlotte Smith, Hannah More, Elizabeth Inchbald, Hester Lynch Thrale Piozzi, and Maria Edgeworth—and recounts Romney’s experience reading them, finding rare copies of their works, and drawing on connections between their words and Austen’s. Romney collects the once-famed works of these forgotten writers, physically recreating Austen’s bookshelf and making a convincing case for why these books should be placed back on the to-be-read pile of all book lovers today. Austen’s Bookshelf will Jane encourage you to look beyond assigned reading lists, question who decides what belongs there, and build your very own collection of favorite novels.
Rebecca Romney is a rare book dealer and the cofounder of Type Punch Matrix, a rare book company based in Washington, DC. She is the rare books specialist on the HISTORY Channel’s show Pawn Stars, and the cofounder of the Honey & Wax Book Collecting Prize. She is a generalist rare book dealer, handling works in all fields, from first editions of Jane Austen to science fiction paperbacks. Her work as a bookseller or writer has been featured in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Forbes, Variety, The Paris Review, and more. In 2019, she was featured in the documentary on the rare book trade, The Booksellers. A member of the Grolier Club, the American Antiquarian Society (AAS), and l’Association Internationale de Bibliophilie (AIB), she is on the Board of the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association of America (ABAA), the Council of the Bibliographical Society of America (BSA), and the faculty of the Antiquarian Book Seminar (CABS).
Rebecca Romney (Author)
Jane Austen’s Bookshelf:
A Rare Book Collector’s Quest to Find the Women Writers Who Shaped a Legend
Publisher: S&S / Marysue Rucci Books
Publication date: February 18, 2025
Language: English
Print length: 464 pages
ISBN-10: 1982190248
ISBN-13: 978-1982190248
Hardcover: $25.21
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More in: #Biography Archives, - Book Lovers, - Book News, - Bookstores, Archive Q-R, Archive Q-R, Austen, Jane, Feminism, Rebecca Romney
Leonard Nolens was een Vlaams dichter, vertaler en dagboekschrijver. Hij was een van de belangrijkste dichters uit het Nederlandse taalgebied. Nolens ontving meerdere literatuurprijzen, waaronder in 1997 de Constantijn Huygensprijs en in 2012 de prestigieuse Prijs der Nederlandse Letteren. Meer dan eens werd hij genoemd als mogelijke kandidaat voor de Nobelprijs voor Literatuur. Hij overleed op 26 december 2025 op 78-jarige leeftijd.
Foto Herman Schartman: De Belgische dichter Leonard Nolens bij de onthulling van het muurgedicht “Laat” in Den Haag NL, Oktober 2015.
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More in: Archive M-N, Archive M-N, LITERARY MAGAZINES, Nolens, Leonard
Selfie van Gerrit Achterberg
Hoe zal nu in het huis de stilte zijn?
Val ik tezamen met uw lijn?
Mijn ledematen worden van ivoor.
Ik ben bij u gekomen, binnendoor.
Nooit was ik zo geheel en zo bijeen
terechtgekomen, ogen wijd uiteen.
Ontschorste bomen liggen aan de kant.
God heeft een buiten- en een binnenkant.
Bert Bevers
Selfie van Gerrit Achterberg
Verschenen in Je tikt er tegen en het zingt (Uitgeverij Demer, Leusden, 2015)
Bronvermelding
Hoe zal nu in het huis de stilte zijn? is een sample uit Distantie
Val ik tezamen met uw lijn? is een sample uit 13
Mijn ledematen worden van ivoor. is een sample uit Smaragd
Ik ben bij u gekomen, binnendoor. is een sample uit Oculair
Nooit was ik zo geheel en zo bijeen. is een sample uit Tracé
Terechtgekomen, ogen wijd uiteen is een sample uit Lucifer
Ontschorste bomen liggen aan de kant is een bijna-sample uit Station
God heeft een buiten- en een binnenkant. is een sample uit Reflexie
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More in: Achterberg, Gerrit, Archive A-B, Archive A-B, Bevers, Bert
Christmas Carol
The kings they came from out the south,
All dressed in ermine fine;
They bore Him gold and chrysoprase,
And gifts of precious wine.
The shepherds came from out the north,
Their coats were brown and old;
They brought Him little new-born lambs—
They had not any gold.
The wise men came from out the east,
And they were wrapped in white;
The star that led them all the way
Did glorify the night.
The angels came from heaven high,
And they were clad with wings;
And lo, they brought a joyful song
The host of heaven sings.
The kings they knocked upon the door,
The wise men entered in,
The shepherds followed after them
To hear the song begin.
The angels sang through all the night
Until the rising sun,
But little Jesus fell asleep
Before the song was done.
Sara Teasdale
(1884-1933)
Christmas Carol
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More in: 4SEASONS#Winter, Archive S-T, Archive S-T, Teasdale, Sara
The Holy Night
We sate among the stalls at Bethlehem;
The dumb kine from their fodder turning them,
Softened their horned faces
To almost human gazes
Toward the newly Born:
The simple shepherds from the star-lit brooks
Brought their visionary looks,
As yet in their astonished hearing rung
The strange sweet angel-tongue:
The magi of the East, in sandals worn,
Knelt reverent, sweeping round,
With long pale beards,
their gifts upon the ground,
The incense, myrrh, and gold
These baby hands were impotent to hold:
So let all earthlies and celestials wait
Upon thy royal state.
Sleep, sleep, my kingly One!
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
(1806-1861)
The Holy Night
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Hans van Manen (1932 – 2025) was een Nederlands balletdanser, choreograaf en fotograaf. Hij overleed op 17 december op 93-jarige leeftijd in zijn woonplaats Amsterdam. Van Manen maakte meer dan 150 choreografieën die door meer dan 90 dansgezelschappen, over de hele wereld, zijn opgevoerd.
Foto: Roland Gerrits 1986
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More in: # Music Archive, Archive M-N, DANCE & PERFORMANCE, THEATRE
Vachel Lindsay
(1879 – 1931)
To Jane Addams at the Hague
I. SPEAK NOW FOR PEACE
Lady of Light, and our best woman, and queen,
Stand now for peace, (though anger breaks your heart),
Though naught but smoke and flame and drowning is seen.
Lady of Light, speak, though you speak alone,
Though your voice may seem as a dove’s in this howling flood,
It is heard to-night by every senate and throne.
Though the widening battle of millions and millions of men
Threatens to-night to sweep the whole of the earth,
Back of the smoke is the promise of kindness again.
II. TOLSTOI IS PLOWING YET
Tolstoi is plowing yet. When the smoke-clouds break,
High in the sky shines a field as wide as the world.
There he toils for the Kingdom of Heaven’s sake.
Ah, he is taller than clouds of the little earth.
Only the congress of planets is over him,
And the arching path where new sweet stars have birth.
Wearing his peasant dress, his head bent low,
Tolstoi, that angel of Peace, is plowing yet;
Forward, across the field, his horses go.
Vachel Lindsay poetry
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More in: Archive K-L, Archive K-L, Lindsay, Vachel
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