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Winkelstraat in Tilburg
Armoei, kindersterfte, dwangarbeid en hei
bestaan niet meer. We zijn van winters wei-
en zomers hooiland helemaal vervreemd, en
wat ooit de verschillen waren tussen beemd
en eeuwsel, niemand weet het meer. De tijd
liet de gemene gronden van het nageslacht
alleen wat weemoed na, een soort respijt,
een voorgevoel. Alsof er wordt gewacht.
Paul Bezembinder
Winkelstraat in Tilburg
Gedicht
Paul Bezembinder studeerde theoretische natuurkunde in Nijmegen. In zijn poëzie zoekt hij vooral in klassieke versvormen en thema’s naar de balans tussen serieuze poëzie, pastiche en smartlap. Zijn gedichten en vertalingen (Russisch-Nederlands) verschenen in verschillende (online) literaire tijdschriften. Bundels: Kwatrijnen (Fantom E-books, 2018), Gedichten (2020, heruitgave), Parkzicht (2020). Meer voorbeelden van zijn werk vindt u op: www.paulbezembinder.nl.
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Geluksvogels bevat een keuze uit Luigi Pirandello’s Novellen voor een jaar, in een blinkend nieuwe vertaling van Yond Boeke en Patty Krone.
Pirandello schreef deze opmerkelijk hoogwaardige verzameling verhalen tussen 1894 en 1936. Zijn dood belette hem het project – één novelle voor elke dag van het jaar – te voltooien.
De diversiteit van zijn verhalen, die getuigen van groot psychologisch inzicht, een buitengewoon scherp gevoel voor humor en immens mededogen, is exemplarisch voor Pirandello’s enorme veelzijdigheid als schrijver.
Hij voert een breed scala aan markante personages ten tonele: van arme Siciliaanse boeren die tevergeefs strijden tegen de clerus tot wufte stedelingen die verstrikt raken in hun eigen overspel, van een wanhopige patiënt die in een New Yorks ziekenhuis uit het raam springt tot een geëxalteerde actrice die het moet opnemen tegen een vleermuis.
Pirandello laveert virtuoos tussen vlotte dialogen, van weemoed doortrokken landschapsbeschrijvingen en filosofische bespiegelingen over het aardse bestaan. Sommige verhalen blijken ook nu nog verrassend actueel.
Luigi Pirandello (1867-1936), geboren in een gegoede familie op Sicilië, kreeg in 1934 de Nobelprijs voor de Literatuur. De verfilming van zijn verhalen door Paolo en Vittorio Taviani, Kaos, werd wereldberoemd.
# new translations
Geluksvogels Verzamelde verhalen
Auteur: Luigi Pirandello
Taal: Nederlands
Vertaald door Yond Boeke & Patty Krone
Hardcover
Druk: 1 februari 2022
832 pagina’s
ISBN 9789028213142
€ 45,00
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The Anti-Sufragists
Fashionable women in luxurious homes,
With men to feed them, clothe them, pay their bills,
Bow, doff the hat, and fetch the handkerchief;
Hostess or guest; and always so supplied
With graceful deference and courtesy;
Surrounded by their horses, servants, dogs–
These tell us they have all the rights they want.
Successful women who have won their way
Alone, with strength of their unaided arm,
Or helped by friends, or softly climbing up
By the sweet aid of “woman’s influence”;
Successful any way, and caring naught
For any other woman’s unsuccess–
These tell us they have all the rights they want.
Religious women of the feebler sort–
Not the religion of a righteous world,
A free, enlightened, upward-reaching world,
But the religion that considers life
As something to back out of !– whose ideal
Is to renounce, submit, and sacrifice.
Counting on being patted on the head
And given a high chair when they get to heaven–
These tell us they have all the rights they want.
Ignorant women–college bred sometimes,
But ignorant of life’s realities
And principles of righteous government,
And how the privileges they enjoy
Were won with blood and tears by those before–
Those they condemn, whose ways they now oppose;
Saying, “Why not let well enough alone?”
Our world is very pleasant as it is”–
These tell us they have all the rights they want.
And selfish women–pigs in petticoats–
Rich, poor, wise, unwise, top or bottom round,
But all sublimely innocent of thought,
And guiltless of ambition, save the one
Deep, voiceless aspiration–to be fed!
These have no use for rights or duties more.
Duties today are more than they can meet,
And law insures their right to clothes and food–
These tell us they have all the rights they want.
And, more’s the pity, some good women too;
Good, conscientious women with ideas;
Who think–or think they think–that woman’s cause
Is best advanced by letting it alone;
That she somehow is not a human thing,
And not to be helped on by human means,
Just added to humanity–an “L”–
A wing, a branch, an extra, not mankind–
These tell us they have all the rights they want.
And out of these has come a monstrous thing,
A strange, down-sucking whirlpool of disgrace,
Women uniting against womanhood,
And using that great name to hide their sin!
Vain are their words as that old king’s command
Who set his will against the rising tide.
But who shall measure the historic shame
Of these poor traitors–traitors are they all–
To great Democracy and Womanhood!
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
(1860-1935)
The Anti-Sufragists
Suffrage Songs and Verses
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Rondeel
Zong ik mijn lief een liedekijn,
ik koos een mooie, zware brom,
ik zong van jeugd en ouderdom,
en dat het fijn voor ons zou zijn.
Van cocktails en van ambrozijn,
van slapen saam en kerels stom
zong ik mijn lief een liedekijn –
ik koos een mooie, zware brom.
Van instrument, muziek, refrein,
van slagwerk en van stille trom,
van ochtendlicht en ouderdom
zong ik een liedje klein en fijn,
zong ik mijn lief een liedekijn.
Paul Bezembinder
Rondeel
Gedicht
(Meer over Paul Bezembinder is te vinden op zijn website: www.paulbezembinder.nl)
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Dichterschap
Hij gaf verdwenen talen. Aan een school
in Rotterdam. Daaruit ontstond misschien
die diepe eenzaamheid die in hem school,
de angst dat iemand hem zou willen zien
om wie hij was, – om wie hij had te zijn,
een fluisteraar van oude stemmen zacht
die zich in peppels om de woning klein
verstopten voor de stiltes van de nacht.
Paul Bezembinder
Dichterschap
Gedicht
Foto: J.H. Leopold (1865 – 1925)
Paul Bezembinder studeerde theoretische natuurkunde in Nijmegen. In zijn poëzie zoekt hij vooral in klassieke versvormen en thema’s naar de balans tussen serieuze poëzie, pastiche en smartlap. Zijn gedichten en vertalingen (Russisch-Nederlands) verschenen in verschillende (online) literaire tijdschriften. Bundels: Kwatrijnen (Fantom E-books, 2018), Gedichten (2020, heruitgave), Parkzicht (2020). Meer voorbeelden van zijn werk vindt u op: www.paulbezembinder.nl.
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More in: #Editors Choice Archiv, Archive A-B, Archive A-B, Bezembinder, Paul, Leopold, J.H.
A timeless, visionary collection of poems from one of China’s most acclaimed poets-now available in English for the first time in a generation and featuring a foreword by his son, contemporary artist and activist Ai Weiwei
One of the most influential poets in Chinese history, Ai Qing is mostly unknown to Western readers, but his work has shaped the nature of poetry in China for decades. Born between the fall of imperial Manchurian rule and the establishment of the Communist People’s Republic, Ai Qing was at one time an intimate of Mao Zedong.
He would eventually fall out with the leader and be sentenced to hard labor during the Cultural Revolution, when he was exiled to the remote part of the country known as “Little Siberia” with his family, including his son, Ai Weiwei.
In his work, Ai Qing tells the story of a China convulsing in change, leaving behind a legacy of feudalism and imperialism but uncertain what the future will hold. Breaking with traditional forms of Chinese poetry, Ai Qing innovatively adapted free verse, writing with a simple sincerity in clear lines that could be understood by everyday readers.
Selected Poems of Ai Qing is an extraordinary collection that traces the powerful inner life of this influential poet who crafted poems of protest, who longed for a newer, happier age, and who wrote with a profound lyricism that reaches deep into the heart of the reader.
Selected Poems by Ai Qing (Author),
Ai Weiwei (Introduction), Robert Dorsett (Translator)
Ai Qing is regarded as one of the finest modern Chinese poets, whose free verse was influential in the development of new poetry in China.
Ai Weiwei is one of the world’s most important living artists. Born in 1957, he lives in Cambridge, UK.
Allan H. Barr is the author of a study in Chinese of a literary inquisition in the early Qing dynasty, Jiangnan yijie: Qing ren bixia de Zhuangshi shi’an, and the translator of several books by contemporary Chinese authors, including Yu Hua’s China in Ten Words and Han Han’s This Generation. He teaches Chinese at Pomona College in California.
# new poetry
Selected Poems by Ai Qing (Author),
Ai Weiwei (Introduction),
Robert Dorsett (Translator)
Publisher: Vintage Classics
2 Nov. 2021
Language: English
Hardcover
128 pages
ISBN-10: 1784877662
ISBN-13: 978-1784877668
£12.99
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Met zijn nieuwe dichtbundel Komijnsplitsers zet Marieke Lucas Rijneveld opnieuw een grote stap in zijn dichterschap.
In acht afdelingen onderzoekt Rijneveld wat het betekent om te wonen: in een huis, in jezelf en in verhoudingen tot anderen. Wie of wat heb je nodig om een compleet mens te zijn?
In een van de gedichten wordt verhaald over het verlangen één ruimte te zijn; iemand zoekt een brandtrap uit deze dag, trekt in plaats van een grijs vest een jongen aan.
De vrees om iemand te worden die de ander niet kan hebben – ‘om de verkeerde mens om je beenderen te vormen’ – vormt het grootste gevaar voor het maar al te herkenbare en hoopvolle verlangen naar groei.
In een taal die naar adem hapt en het zweet van het voorhoofd veegt, staat ‘Komijnsplitsers’ als een huis. In 2020 won Marieke Lucas Rijneveld de International Booker Prize voor ‘De avond is ongemak’.
Komijnsplitsers
Marieke Lucas Rijneveld
Uitgever: Atlas Contact
Taal: Nederlands
Bladzijden: 104 pp.
Bindwijze: Paperback
Genre: Poezie
ISBN 9789025471200
Verwacht 20-1-2022
€19,99
# new poetry
Komijnsplitsers
Marieke Lucas Rijneveld
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Delight
I’ve been delighting in your face
since the Eureka mess of our embrace,
the cork of fizzing kissing taken place,
the sexual notation of blushing staves,
a lust-compass flashing up radar blips.
Sloppy corners, edges in melted clips
of our manic laughter, on risky ships,
in the city’s darkness and muddy trips,
naked tangles on private sandy strips,
isolated scrub lands and forest bits,
disused canal tunnel with freezing tits,
stopping the car in shadowy lay-bys,
alleyways, echoing blissed-out cries,
she delighted, ripping open my flies.
And through our lustiness a miracle came,
the pneumatic forces created the near-same,
through the acrobatic propagated struggle
in the hospital you pushed out of the bubble
when we saw you delight in your life force.
Now we are celebrating the main course
of us all together, as a loving source,
of the wonderful blended mix,
of our delight, our scented lives transfixed
we have built the home as well as the bricks.
Vincent Berquez
Delight
Vincent Berquez is a London–based artist and poet. He has published in Britain, Europe, America and New Zealand. His work is in many anthologies, collections and magazines worldwide (f.i. fleursdumal.nl).
# new book of poetry by Vincent Berquez:
The Sound of Blossom Falling
Author: Vincent Berquez
Paperback
Language: English
86 pages
Publisher: Cyberwit.net
2021
ISBN-10: 9390601096
ISBN-13: 978-9390601097
£10.89
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Dancing into
the cream of the night
You said take me dancing
in the cream of the night
like we did that time
when the music was jasper Spanish.
The seated flamenco women clapped
out the velocity of chattering rhythms
pushing the black and scarlet music
to the edge of our half-conscious world,
exciting the bloody pump with the drum
of temptation that agitated our lustiness.
The partnership of limbs tangled
loquacious, heady, demanding.
We took to the slippery dance floor
where I held the spine of your wet skin
in the stretch of my flexed palm –
you said your heart needed to dance with me
until the silver slit cracked into the shock
of the smoky grey marbled morning.
In charged anarchy, we succumbed
to fog drunkenly and lost ourselves till then.
Vincent Berquez
Dancing into the cream of the night
# Vincent Berquez is a London–based artist and poet. He has published in Britain, Europe, America and New Zealand. His work is in many anthologies, collections and magazines worldwide (f.i. fleursdumal.nl).
# new book of poetry by Vincent Berquez:
The Sound of Blossom Falling
Author: Vincent Berquez
Paperback
Language: English
86 pages
Publisher: Cyberwit.net
2021
ISBN-10: 9390601096
ISBN-13: 978-9390601097
£10.89
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In about: blank, Tracy Fuad builds a poetics of contemporary dissociation.
Funny, plaintive, and cutting, this formally inventive debut probes alienation in place and in language through the author’s consideration of her own relationship to Iraqi Kurdistan. about: blank–the title of which is the universal URL for a blank web page–complicates questions of longing and belonging. Interrogating the language of internet chatrooms, Yelp reviews, and the Kurdish dictionary, the poems here leap surprisingly between subjects to find new meaning.
Written before and during the years the author spent living in Iraqi Kurdistan, the collection documents the alienation of being inside, outside, and between language(s) and the always-already terror of grammar. At once haunted and humorous, about: blank inhabits and exhibits the disorientation and fragmentation that is endemic to the internet era, and mourns the loss of a more embodied existence.
Tracy Fuad is the author of PITH, winner of the Gloria Anzaldúa Prize, and DAD DAD DAD DAD DAD DAD DAD. Her work has appeared in Poetry, the Best New Poets Anthology, the New Republic, and elsewhere. She is a graduate of the Rutgers-Newark MFA program and a 2021-2022 Writing Fellow at the Providence Fine Arts Work Center.
Title: about: blank
by Tracy Fuad
Language: English
Publish Date: October 19, 2021
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
Pages 96
Type: Paperback
EAN/UPC 9780822966685
Price $18.00
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Jim Harrison: Complete Poems is the definitive collection from one of America’s iconic writers.
Introduced by activist and naturalist writer Terry Tempest Williams, this tour de force contains every poem Harrison published over his fifty-year career and displays his wide range of poetic styles and forms. Here are the nature-based lyrics of his early work, the high-velocity ghazals, a harrowing prose-poem “correspondence” with a Russian suicide, the riverine suites, fearless meditations inspired by the Zen monk Crazy Cloud, and a joyous conversation in haiku-like gems with friend and fellow poet Ted Kooser.
Weaving throughout these 1000 pages are Harrison’s legendary passions and appetites, his love songs and lamentations, and a clarion call to pay attention to the life you are actually living. The Complete Poems confirms that Jim Harrison is a talented storyteller with a penetrating eye for details, or as Publishers Weekly called him, “an untrammeled renegade genius… a poet talking to you instead of around himself, while doing absolutely brilliant and outrageous things with language.”
Jim Harrison (1937–2016) was the author of over three dozen books, including Legends of the Fall and Dalva, and served as the food columnist for the magazines Brick and Esquire.
He published fourteen volumes of poetry, the final being Dead Man’s Float (2016). His work has been translated into two dozen languages and produced as four feature-length films. As a young poet he co-edited Sumac magazine with fellow poet Dan Gerber, and earned fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation.
In 2007, he was elected into the Academy of American Arts and Letters. Regarding his most beloved art form, he wrote: “Poetry, at its best, is the language your soul would speak if you could teach your soul to speak.” Jim Harrison certainly spoke the language.
#new poetry
Complete Poems
by Jim Harrison
Joseph Bednarik (Editor)
Terry Tempest Williams (Introduction)
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Copper Canyon Press
December 7, 2021
Language: English
944 pages
ISBN-10: 155659593X
ISBN-13: 978-1556595936
$40.00 list price
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Like Richard Ellmann’s James Joyce, Richard Zenith’s Pessoa immortalizes the life of one of the twentieth century’s greatest writers.
Nearly a century after his wrenching death, the Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935) remains one of our most enigmatic writers. Believing he could do “more in dreams than Napoleon,” yet haunted by the specter of hereditary madness, Pessoa invented dozens of alter egos, or “heteronyms,” under whose names he wrote in Portuguese, English, and French.
Unsurprisingly, this “most multifarious of writers” (Guardian) has long eluded a definitive biographer—but in renowned translator and Pessoa scholar Richard Zenith, he has met his match.
Relatively unknown in his lifetime, Pessoa was all but destined for literary oblivion when the arc of his afterlife bent, suddenly and improbably, toward greatness, with the discovery of some 25,000 unpublished papers left in a large, wooden trunk. Drawing on this vast archive of sources as well as on unpublished family letters, and skillfully setting the poet’s life against the nationalist currents of twentieth-century European history, Zenith at last reveals the true depths of Pessoa’s teeming imagination and literary genius.
Much as Nobel laureate José Saramago brought a single heteronym to life in The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis, Zenith traces the backstories of virtually all of Pessoa’s imagined personalities, demonstrating how they were projections, spin-offs, or metamorphoses of Pessoa himself. A solitary man who had only one, ultimately platonic love affair, Pessoa used his and his heteronyms’ writings to explore questions of sexuality, to obsessively search after spiritual truth, and to try to chart a way forward for a benighted and politically agitated Portugal.
Although he preferred the world of his mind, Pessoa was nonetheless a man of the places he inhabited, including not only Lisbon but also turn-of-the-century Durban, South Africa, where he spent nine years as a child. Zenith re-creates the drama of Pessoa’s adolescence—when the first heteronyms emerged—and his bumbling attempts to survive as a translator and publisher.
Zenith introduces us, too, to Pessoa’s bohemian circle of friends, and to Ophelia Quieroz, with whom he exchanged numerous love letters.
Pessoa reveals in equal force the poet’s unwavering commitment to defending homosexual writers whose books had been banned, as well as his courageous opposition to Salazar, the Portuguese dictator, toward the end of his life. In stunning, magisterial prose, Zenith contextualizes Pessoa’s posthumous literary achievements—especially his most renowned work, The Book of Disquiet.
A modern literary masterpiece, Pessoa simultaneously immortalizes the life of a literary maestro and confirms the enduring power of Pessoa’s work to speak prophetically to the disconnectedness of our modern world.
Richard Zenith (1956, Washington, D.C.) is an American-Portuguese writer and translator, winner of Pessoa Prize in 2012.
Pessoa
A Biography
by Richard Zenith (Author)
Published by Liveright
July 20, 2021
Language : English
Hardcover : 1088 pages
ISBN-10 : 0871404710
ISBN-13 : 978-0871404718
$40.00
# new biography
Fernando Pessoa
Richard Zenith
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