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This is the first publication in English of the anthology that contains Breton’s definitive statement on l’humour noir, one of the seminal concepts of Surrealism, and his provocative assessments of the writers he most admired.
While some of the authors featured in The Anthology of Black Humor are already well known to American readers–Swift, Kafka, Rimbaud, Poe, Lewis Carroll, and Baudelaire among them (and even then, Breton’s selections are often surprising)–many others are sure to come as a revelation.
The entries range from the acerbic aphorisms of Swift, Lichtenberg, and Duchamp to the theatrical slapstick of Christian Dietrich Grabbe, from the wry missives of Rimbaud and Jacques Vache to the manic paranoia of Dali, from the ferocious iconoclasm of Alfred Jarry and Arthur Craven to the offhand hilarity of Apollinaire at his most spontaneous.
For each of the forty-five authors included, Breton has provided an enlightening biographical and critical preface, situating both the writer and the work in the context of black humor–a partly macabre, partly ironic, and often absurd turn of spirit that Breton defined as “a superior revolt of the mind.”
“Anthologies can aim to be groundbreaking or thought-provoking; few can be said to have introduced a new phrase–or a new concept–into the language. No one had ever used the term “black humour” before this one came along, unless, perhaps, it was from a racial angle.”–The Guardian
Andre Breton (1896-1966), the founder and principal theorist of the Surrealist movement, is one of the major literary figures of the past century. His best-known works in English translation include Nadja, Mad Love, The Manifestoes of Surrealism, The Magnetic Fields (with Philippe Soupault), and Earthlight. Mark Polizzotti is the author of Revolution of the Mind: The Life of Andre Breton.
Mark Polizzotti is an author, translator, and publisher living in New York. His books include Revolution of the Mind: The Life of André Breton, Highway 61 Revisited, Sympathy for the Traitor: A Translation Manifesto, and Why Surrealism Matters.
His essays and reviews have appeared in The New York Times, The New Republic, The Wall Street Journal, Apollo, ARTnews, The Nation, Parnassus, Bookforum, and elsewhere. His translations of works by Gustave Flaubert, Arthur Rimbaud, Scholastique Mukasonga, Patrick Modiano, Marguerite Duras, André Breton, Eric Vuillard, among others, have won the English PEN Award and been shortlisted for the National Book Award, the International Booker Prize, the NBCC/Gregg Barrios Prize, and the French-American Foundation Translation Prize.
He is a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and the recipient of an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award for Literature.
Anthology of Black Humor
by André Breton
Translator: Mark Polizzotti
Publisher: City Lights Publishers
Language: English
356 pages
ISBN-10: 0872863212
ISBN-13: 978-0872863217
Paperback 1997
Price: $26.95
E-book 2021 (978-0872868496)
Price: $18,99
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Aubade chantée à Laetare l’an passé
C’est le printemps viens-t’en Pâquette
Te promener au bois joli
Les poules dans la cour caquètent
L’aube au ciel fait de roses plis
L’amour chemine à ta conquête
Mars et Vénus sont revenus
Ils s’embrassent à bouches folles
Devant des sites ingénus
Où sous les roses qui feuillolent
De beaux dieux roses dansent nus
Viens ma tendresse est la régente
De la floraison qui paraît
La nature est belle et touchante
Pan sifflote dans la forêt
Les grenouilles humides chantent
Guillaume Apollinaire
(1880 – 1918)
Poéme: Aubade chantée à Laetare l’an passé
Recueil: Alcools (1913)
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Annie
Sur la côte du Texas
Entre Mobile et Galveston il y a
Un grand jardin tout plein de roses
Il contient aussi une villa
Qui est une grande rose
Une femme se promène souvent
Dans le jardin toute seule
Et quand je passe sur la route bordée de tilleuls
Nous nous regardons
Comme cette femme est mennonite
Ses rosiers et ses vêtements n’ont pas de boutons
Il en manque deux à mon veston
La dame et moi suivons presque le même rite
Guillaume Apollinaire
(1880 – 1918)
Poéme: Annie
Recueil: Alcools (1913)
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Joyce Mansour (1928–1986), a Syrian Jewish exile from Egypt, was born in England.
She became a well known female poet, author of 16 books of poetry, as well as a number of important prose and theatre pieces.
Mansour was 25 years old when she published her first book in Paris in 1953.
Her fierce, macabre, erotically charged works caught the eye of André Breton, who welcomed her into his Surrealist group and became her lifelong friend and ally.
Despite her success in surrealist circles, her books received scant attention from the literary establishment, which is hardly surprising since Mansour’s favorite topics happened to be two of society’s greatest fears: death and unfettered female desire.
She lived in Paris, France until her death in 1986 at the age of 58.
Now, over half a century later, Mansour’s time has come. Emerald Wounds collects her most important work, spanning the entire arc of her career, from the gothic, minimalist fragments of her first published work to the serpentine power of her poems of the 1980s.
In fresh new translations, Mansour’s voice surges forth uncensored and raw, communicating the frustrations, anger, and sadness of an intelligent, worldly woman who defies the constraints and oppression of a male-dominated society. Mansour is a poet the world needs today.
“You know very well, Joyce, that you are for me –and very objectively too– the greatest poet of our time. Surrealist poetry, that’s you.” –André Breton
“A woman created the sun
Inside her
And her hands were beautiful
The earth plunged beneath her feet
Assailing her with the fertile breath
Of volcanoes “
Emerald Wounds: Selected Poems
by Joyce Mansour (Author)
Garrett Caples (Editor)
Emilie Moorhouse (Translator)
Published by City Lights
ISBN: 9780872869011
July 25, 2023
217 pages
Paperback
26,99 euro
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L’Homme à la hache
D’après et pour P. Gauguin
A l’horizon, par les brouillards,
Les tintamarres des hasards,
Vagues, nous armons nos démons
Dans l’entre-deux sournois des monts.
Au rivage que nous fermons
Dome un géant sur les limons.
Nous rampons à ses pieds, lézards.
Lui, sur son char tel un César
Ou sur un piédestal de marbre,
Taille une barque en un tronc d’arbre
Pour debout dessus nous poursuivre
Jusqu’à la fin verte des lieues.
Du rivage ses bras de cuivre
Lèvent au ciel la hache bleue.
Alfred Jarry
(1873-1907)
L’Homme à la hache
D’après et pour P. Gauguin
(1894)
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FILMAVOND BOER OF DUTY
film Dick Verdult
02.02 2023
In het kader van de tentoonstelling van Vincent Dams wordt op deze avond de film ‘Boer of Duty’ van Dick Verdult vertoond. Dams zegt:
‘Het toppunt van surrealisme is optimisme!
Twee zomers geleden hielp ik in de lockdown mee op een filmset van goede vriend en collega Dick Verdult. Dus toen de vraag vanuit PARK kwam om een filmavond te organiseren gingen mijn gedachten gelijk daar naartoe. Maar aangezien die film, ‘Als uw gat maar lacht’, 29 januari aanstaande pas in première gaat op het Rotterdams filmfestival was het zeer begrijpelijk niet echt mogelijk die enkele dagen later te tonen in PARK.
“Je kan misschien wel ‘Boer of Duty’ laten zien”, zei Dick, waarop ik na wat peinzen reageerde, “dat is eigenlijk best een goed idee”.
Op het ontwerp van de oude VHS hoes las ik de zin ‘Het toppunt van surrealisme is optimisme’ waarmee het mooi direct aansluiting vindt bij mijn tentoonstelling over optimisme in rare tijden bij PARK. En terwijl ik als negenjarig jongetje scènes uit Tour of Duty, de welbekende serie over de Vietnamoorlog na speelde in de bosjes en struiken van Veldhoven, deed in 1993 Dick dus hetzelfde, 10 km verderop in de bossen en landerijen van Nederwetten, alleen dan mét camera.
Deze ‘eerste gezellige Brabantse oorlogsfilm’, die we gerust een cultklassieker kunnen noemen, wiens cast bijna volledig uit oude gerenommeerde Brabantse kunstenaars bestaat zoals Jo Gijsen, Jan de Bie, Peer de Wit, Theo Kuijpers en Arie Berkulin, beleeft dus 30 jaar later eindelijk zijn Tilburgse première.’
Vincent Dams verricht op deze avond ook de introductie.
Credits van de film: Dick Verdult / Ibw / G-Force Videos.
Donderdag 2 februari 2023
Zaal open 19.30 uur
Aanvang 20.00 uur
De film duurt 60 minuten, na afloop is er gelegenheid voor een drankje
Toegang € 5,-
ParkTilburg
Wilhelminapark 53, 5041 ED Tilburg
park(at)park013.nl
Twitter.com/ParkTilburg
Facebook.com/Park013
https://www.instagram.com/park_tilburg/
PARK ligt op 10 minuten loopafstand van het Centraal Station Tilburg in de nabijheid van Museum De Pont. Er is beperkt parkeergelegenheid voor de deur.
Brabants eerste gezellige oorlogsfilm
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What is it like to grow up in a place where the same police officer who told your primary school class they were special stops and searches you at 13 because ‘you fit the description of a man’ – and where it is possible to walk two and a half miles through an estate of 1,444 homes without ever touching the ground?
In Poor, Caleb Femi combines poetry and original photography to explore the trials, tribulations, dreams and joys of young Black boys in twenty-first century Peckham.
He contemplates the ways in which they are informed by the built environment of concrete walls and gentrifying neighbourhoods that form their stage, writes a coded, near-mythical history of the personalities and sagas of his South London youth, and pays tribute to the rappers and artists who spoke to their lives.
Above all, this is a tribute to the world that shaped a poet, and to the people forging difficult lives and finding magic within it. As Femi writes in one of the final poems of this book: ‘I have never loved anything the way I love the endz.’
Raised on the North Peckham estate in South London, Caleb Femi is a poet and director. He has written and directed short films for the BBC and Channel 4, and poems for Tate Modern, the Royal Society for Literature, St Paul’s Cathedral, the BBC, the Guardian and more. He has been featured in the Dazed 100 list of the next generation shaping youth culture. From 2016 to 2018, he served as the Young People’s Laureate for London. He recently wrote the liner material for Kano’s 2019 album Hoodies All Summer. This is his first book.
Poor
by Caleb Femi
Paperback
5 Nov. 2020
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Language: English
160 pages
ISBN-10 : 0141992158
ISBN-13 : 978-0141992150
Dimensions : 13.2 x 1.2 x 20 cm
£9.99
# new poetry
Caleb Femi
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BANNED BOOKS WEEK
September 26 – October 2 for the 2021
celebration of the right to read!
Across the United States, divisive book bans and censorious threats have taken hold in schools, academia, and the public square, particularly in regards to books that center racism, history, and diversity. This has raised questions: Who is allowed to be heard? Who decides? This year, as we celebrate Banned Books Week, PEN America uplifts the books, authors, teachers, and writers who insist on telling stories and examining history with truth, honesty, and complexity.
In an effort to unpack these current challenges, PEN America is hosting a series of virtual and in-person events. These events will offer a clear-eyed view of the current assaults on the freedom to express, the freedom to read, and the freedom to learn.
Join PEN America Today
Defend free expression, support persecuted writers, and promote literary culture.
Read more about what PEN America is doing to fight back against book bans during 2021 Banned Books Week.
BANNED BOOKS WEEK
September 26 – October 2 for the 2021
celebration of the right to read!
Banned Books Week is the annual celebration of the freedom to read. The event is sponsored by a coalition of organizations dedicated to free expression, including American Booksellers Association; American Library Association; American Society of Journalists and Authors; Association of University Presses; Authors Guild; Comic Book Legal Defense Fund; Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE); Freedom to Read Foundation; Index on Censorship; National Coalition Against Censorship; National Council of Teachers of English; PEN America; People For the American Way Foundation; and Project Censored. It is endorsed by the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress. Banned Books Week also receives generous support from DKT Liberty Project and Penguin Random House.
Read more about the 2021 Banned Books Week.
→ https://bannedbooksweek.org/
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How do you begin a future that has essentially already ended, separated from your home, your language and yourself by a stretch of water? Kurt Schwitters is forty-nine years old when the Nazis force him to flee Germany. His success, work, possessions, parents, and wife Helma stay behind – and art gives way to the art of survival.
Schwitters’s second life in a foreign language begins in Norway, then takes him to London and finally to the Lake District. Wantee, the new woman at his side, keeps him on course and his head above water, even when the word artist falls silent. With his Merzbau installation, Schwitters has discovered a new way to capture sky and serenity, shimmering meadows and transparent air. He is ludicrously disciplined, to the point of exhaustion. As we watch him at work, we learn that art doesn’t interpret the world: It translates it into forms that move us.
In Schwitters in the Lakes, Ulrike Draesner follows the writer and artist Kurt Schwitters into exile, giving voice to Kurt, his wife, his son and his lover. Through a virtuoso blend of fact and fiction, she has created a panorama of a time when the struggle for freedom and art was renewed in the face of a world on fire.
A profound yet witty novel about the power of art in dark times.
Ulrike Draesner, born in 1962, is a lyricist, novelist and essayist. She studied English, German and philosophy and has worked as an academic, translator and editor. She has published poetry collections, short stories, and novels, and held posts at several renowned universities such as the Swiss Literature Institute in Biel. She was a Visiting Fellow at New College, Oxford and at the Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities and is professor for German Literature and Creative Writing at the Deutsche Literaturinstitut Leipzig. Ulrike Draesner has received numerous awards.
Ulrike Draesner
Schwitters in the Lakes
Hardcover with jacket
480 pages
13.5 x 21.5 cm
Publishing House: Penguin
ISBN: 978-3-328-60126-5
Date of publication: August 24, 2020
€ 25.00
# new novel
Schwitters in the Lakes
Kurt Schwitters (1887 – 1948)
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‘Jardin de Tendresse’ (Tuin der Tederheid) in het ‘Metropolitan Museum Tilburg’
De raamtentoonstellingen aan de Stedekestraat (‘Metropolitan Museum Tilburg’) laten deze zomer een ‘tuin der tederheid’ zien, waarmee het museum wederom reageert op deze donkere tijden van corona. Te zien vanaf vrijdagavond 12 juni 2020, Stedekestraat 15 te Tilburg.
De ‘anderhalvemetersamenleving’, ze is er dan toch van gekomen. Afstand als nieuwe normaal. Wie had dat ooit kunnen denken? Geen hand meer reiken om de ander vriendelijk te begroeten? Geen spontane omhelzingen meer met vrienden en vriendinnen? Geen knuffels meer aan kinderen en kleinkinderen? Niet meer zoenen op het zebrapad? Nooit meer vrijen op het strand? Waar leven we nog voor? Veiligheid voor alles? Echt waar? Gelamineerd door het leven en virtuele gemeenschap?
“Alles van waarde is weerloos,” schreef de dichter Lucebert, meteen gevolgd door de magistrale regel: “wordt van aanraakbaarheid rijk en aan alles gelijk!” Aanraking, hoe lang kan een mens zonder? Zonder af te glijden naar een troosteloos robottenbestaan? Waar gaan we heen?
Vandaar een tentoonstelling. Heeft kunst tenminste nog enige zin in deze donkere dagen. En dus nodigen wij u met alle plezier uit voor de expositie ‘Jardin de Tendresse’ (‘Tuin der Tederheid’) van Sjon Brands. Een speelse ‘exposition dansante’, uitgevoerd in bewegende assemblages van alledaagse gebruiksvoorwerpen en speelgoed. Een onbevangen feest van aanraking, tederheid en kwetsbaarheid, te zien in het ‘Metropolitan Museum Tilburg’. Welkom! Komt dat zien! Dag en nacht, zeven dagen in de week! Reserveren niet nodig.
◊ Dorith van der Lee
Raamtentoonstelling Sjon Brands:
‘Jardin de Tendresse’ (‘Tuin der Tederheid’)
vrijdag 12 juni t/m 15 september 2020
dagelijks, dag en nacht, toegang vrij
‘Metropolitan Museum Tilburg’
Stedekestraat 15, 5041DM Tilburg
website: www.metropolitanmuseum.nl
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Brought together for the first time, here are 100 pieces of ‘Oulipo’ writing, celebrating the literary group who revelled in maths problems, puzzles, trickery, wordplay and conundrums.
Featuring writers including Georges Perec, Raymond Queneau and Italo Calvino, it includes poems, short stories, word games and even recipes. Alongside these famous Oulipians, are ‘anticipatory’ wordsmiths who crafted language with unusual constraints and literary tricks, from Jonathan Swift to Lewis Carroll.
Philip Terry is a translator, and a writer of fiction and poetry. He has translated the work of Georges Perec, Stéphane Mallarmé and Raymond Queneau, and is the author of the novel tapestry, shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize.
His poetry volumes include Oulipoems, Shakespeare’s Sonnets, Dante’s Inferno (a Times Literary Supplement Book of the Year, London Review Bookshop Book of the Week, and recipient of a Society of Authors Travelling Scholarship Prize), Quennets, and Dictator, a version of the Epic of Gilgamesh in Globish.
He is currently translating Ice Age signs from the caves at Lascaux.
• ‘Philip Terry’s collection is packed with fabulous, wide-ranging work that displays the full ingenuity, brio and originality of Oulipian ideals in action. An exhilarating feat of in-depth reading, and translating, it takes its place as the definitive anthology in English for decades to come.’ – Marina Warner
• Philip Terry’s playful selection will appeal to lovers of word games, puzzles and literary delights.
The Penguin Book of Oulipo
Queneau, Perec, Calvino and the Adventure of Form
Edited by Philip Terry
Imprint: Penguin Classics
Published: 31/10/2019
ISBN: 9780241378427
Hardcover
Length: 576 Pages
Dimensions: 240mm x 49mm x 162mm
RRP: £25.00
# new books
The Penguin Book of Oulipo
Queneau, Perec, Calvino and the Adventure of Form
Philip Terry (Edited by)
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