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“And I? May I say nothing, my lord?” With these words, Oscar Wilde’s courtroom trials came to a close. The lord in question, High Court justice Sir Alfred Wills, sent Wilde to the cells, sentenced to two years in prison with hard labor for the crime of “gross indecency” with other men.
As cries of “shame” emanated from the gallery, the convicted aesthete was roundly silenced.
But he did not remain so. Behind bars and in the period immediately after his release, Wilde wrote two of his most powerful works—the long autobiographical letter De Profundis and an expansive best-selling poem, The Ballad of Reading Gaol.
In The Annotated Prison Writings of Oscar Wilde, Nicholas Frankel collects these and other prison writings, accompanied by historical illustrations and his rich facing-page annotations. As Frankel shows, Wilde experienced prison conditions designed to break even the toughest spirit, and yet his writings from this period display an imaginative and verbal brilliance left largely intact.
Wilde also remained politically steadfast, determined that his writings should inspire improvements to Victorian England’s grotesque regimes of punishment. But while his reformist impulse spoke to his moment, Wilde also wrote for eternity.
At once a savage indictment of the society that jailed him and a moving testimony to private sufferings, Wilde’s prison writings—illuminated by Frankel’s extensive notes—reveal a very different man from the famous dandy and aesthete who shocked and amused the English-speaking world.
Nicholas Frankel is Professor of English at Virginia Commonwealth University.
“Frankel provides a valuable service in comprehensively editing these works for a fresh generation of readers.” — Joseph Bristow, University of California, Los Angeles
The Annotated Prison Writings of Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde
Edited by Nicholas Frankel
Harvard University Press
Paperback
408 pages
Publication: May 2018
ISBN 9780674984387
€17.00
# more books
The Annotated Prison Writings of Oscar Wilde
-Clemency Petition to the Home Secretary, 2 July 1896
-De Profundis
-Letter to the Daily Chronicle, 27 May 1897
-The Ballad of Reading Gaol
-Letter to the Daily Chronicle, 23 March 1898
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Literary and music group Feest der Poëzie brings a theatrical lecture on the life and work of Oscar Wilde and one of his favorite beverages – absinthe. This Saturday at the Pianola Museum, 8.30 PM.
Immerse yourself in the story of one of the best-loved writers in the English language with prose, poetry, songs and drama by Oscar Wilde and his contemporaries, on a journey through his rise and fall.
Poet and absintheur David Kwa will demonstrate the absinthe ritual and read manifold roles, such as that of the dreaded Marquess of Queensberry.
Daan van de Velde (piano) and Susanne Winkler (soprano) will perform Irish and English art songs, as performing poet Simon Mulder takes on the roles of narrator and Oscar Wilde (indeed, wearing a contemporary pair of silk breeches) in the fascinating story of his life.
Also, Van de Velde and Mulder will bring the very special performance of a long lost work for piano and voice on Wilde’s ‘Ballad of Reading Gaol’ by early 20th century composer Henri Zagwijn.
The Poetry Bar will bring you carefully prepared absinthe, along with a decadent sonnet.
Saturday the 24th of November 2018
venue open: 8 PM
start: 8.30PM
(English spoken)
venue:
Pianola Museum
Westerstraat 116
Amsterdam
Tickets: € 15/12.50
www.feestderpoezie.nl
trailer: www.youtube.com/watch?v=-V6yx3X8rwg
Music, stories, absinthe and more during ‘The Green Hour’ with Oscar Wilde
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Proceeding from Hélène Cixous’s charge to “kill the false woman who is preventing the live one from breathing,” The Fix forges that woman’s reckoning with her violent past, with her sexuality, and with a future unmoored from the trappings of domestic life.
These poems of lyric beauty and unflinching candor negotiate the terrain of contradictory desire—often to darkly comedic effect.
In encounters with strangers in dive bars and on highway shoulders, and through ekphrastic engagement with visionaries like William Blake, José Clemente Orozco, and the Talking Heads, this book seeks the real beneath the dissembling surface.
Here, nothing is fixed, but grace arrives by diving into the complicated past in order to find a way to live, now.
Often I am permitted to return to this kitchen
tipsy, pinned to the fridge, to the precise
instant the kiss smashed in.
When the jaws of night are grinding
and the double bed is half asleep
the snore beside me syncs
to the traffic light, pulsing red, ragged up
in the linen curtain.
(From “Woman Seated with Thighs Apart”)
Lisa Wells is a poet and nonfiction writer who lives in Tucson, Arizona. Her work has appeared in Best New Poets, the Believer, Denver Quarterly, Rumpus, Third Coast, and the Iowa Review.
Lisa Wells (Author)
The Fix
Publisher: University Of Iowa Press
1 edition (April 15, 2018)
Series: Iowa Poetry Prize
Language: English
Product Dimensions:
6 x 0.3 x 8 inches
ISBN-10: 1609385470
ISBN-13: 978-1609385477
Paperback
70 pages
$19.95
new poetry
lisa wells: the fix
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Jenny Xie’s award-winning debut, Eye Level, takes us far and near, to Phnom Penh, Corfu, Hanoi, New York, and elsewhere, as we travel closer and closer to the acutely felt solitude that centers this searching, moving collection.
“Magnificent . . . [Jenny Xie] braids in the lonesomeness and sorrow of being unmoored and on your own.”—The Paris Review, Staff Picks
Animated by a restless inner questioning, these poems meditate on the forces that moor the self and set it in motion, from immigration to travel to estranging losses and departures. The sensual worlds here―colors, smells, tastes, and changing landscapes―bring to life questions about the self as seer and the self as seen.
As Xie writes, “Me? I’m just here in my traveler’s clothes, trying on each passing town for size.” Her taut, elusive poems exult in a life simultaneously crowded and quiet, caught in between things and places, and never quite entirely at home. Xie is a poet of extraordinary perception―both to the tangible world and to “all that is untouchable as far as the eye can reach.”
Jenny Xie was born in Hefei, China, and raised in New Jersey. She holds degrees from Princeton University and New York University, and has received fellowships and support from Kundiman, the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, the Elizabeth George Foundation, and Poets & Writers. She is the recipient of the 2017 Walt Whitman Award of the Academy of American Poets for Eye Level and the 2016 Drinking Gourd Chapbook Prize for Nowhere to Arrive. Her poems have appeared in the American Poetry Review, Harvard Review, the New Republic, Tin House, and elsewhere. She teaches at New York University.
“For years now, I’ve been using the wrong palette.
Each year with its itchy blue, as the bruise of solitude reaches its expiration date.
Planes and buses, guesthouse to guesthouse.
I’ve gotten to where I am by dint of my poor eyesight,
my overreactive motion sickness.
9 p.m., Hanoi’s Old Quarter: duck porridge and plum wine.
Voices outside the door come to a soft boil.”
(from “Phnom Penh Diptych: Dry Season”)
Title Eye Level
Subtitle Poems
Author Jenny Xie
Publisher Graywolf Press
Format Paperback
ISBN-10 1555978029
ISBN-13 9781555978020
Publication Date 03 April 2018
Main content page count 80
$16.00
new poetry
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Lyrics and never-before-seen poetry and sketches from the iconic musician of Florence and the Machine
Songs can be incredibly prophetic, like subconscious warnings or messages to myself, but I often don’t know what I’m trying to say till years later.
Or a prediction comes true and I couldn’t do anything to stop it, so it seems like a kind of useless magic.
Since forming Florence + The Machine in 2007, Florence Welch has written three albums, Lungs, Ceremonials, and How Big How Blue How Beautiful, all of which have been chart toppers all over the world, and she has been nominated and has won numerous international awards.
Useless Magic
Lyrics and Poetry
By Florence Welch
Hardcover
Publ. Jul 10, 2018
288 Pages
$35.00
Published by Crown Archetype
ISBN 9780525577157
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The Tables Turned
(An Evening Scene on the Same Subject)
Up! up! my Friend, and quit your books;
Or surely you’ll grow double:
Up! up! my Friend, and clear your looks;
Why all this toil and trouble?
The sun, above the mountain’s head,
A freshening lustre mellow
Through all the long green fields has spread,
His first sweet evening yellow.
Books! ’tis a dull and endless strife:
Come, hear the woodland linnet,
How sweet his music! on my life,
There’s more of wisdom in it.
And hark! how blithe the throstle sings!
He, too, is no mean preacher:
Come forth into the light of things,
Let Nature be your Teacher.
She has a world of ready wealth,
Our minds and hearts to bless
Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health,
Truth breathed by cheerfulness.
One impulse from a vernal wood
May teach you more of man,
Of moral evil and of good,
Than all the sages can.
Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;
Our meddling intellect
Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things:
We murder to dissect.
Enough of Science and of Art;
Close up those barren leaves;
Come forth, and bring with you a heart
That watches and receives.
William Wordsworth (1770 – 1850)
Poem: The Tables Turned
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To Mary
If I had thought thou couldst have died,
I might not weep for thee;
But I forgot, when by thy side,
That thou couldst mortal be:
It never through my mind had past
The time would e’er be o’er,
And I on thee should look my last,
And thou shouldst smile no more!
And still upon that face I look,
And think ’twill smile again;
And still the thought I will not brook,
That I must look in vain.
But when I speak–thou dost not say
What thou ne’er left’st unsaid;
And now I feel, as well I may,
Sweet Mary, thou art dead!
If thou wouldst stay, e’en as thou art,
All cold and all serene–
I still might press thy silent heart,
And where thy smiles have been.
While e’en thy chill, bleak corse I have,
Thou seemest still mine own;
But there–I lay thee in thy grave,
And I am now alone!
I do not think, where’er thou art,
Thou hast forgotten me;
And I, perhaps, may soothe this heart
In thinking too of thee:
Yet there was round thee such a dawn
Of light ne’er seen before,
As fancy never could have drawn,
And never can restore!
Charles Wolfe
(1791-1823)
To Mary
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Helas
To drift with every passion till my soul
Is a stringed lute on which all winds can play,
Is it for this that I have given away
Mine ancient wisdom, and austere control?
Methinks my life is a twice-written scroll
Scrawled over on some boyish holiday
With idle songs for pipe and virelay,
Which do but mar the secret of the whole.
Surely there was a time I might have trod
The sunlit heights, and from life’s dissonance
Struck one clear chord to reach the ears of God.
Is that time dead? lo! with a little rod
I did but touch the honey of romance
And must I lose a soul’s inheritance?
Oscar Wilde
(1854 – 1900)
Helas
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Liu Xia, China, is a poet, artist, and founding member of the Independent Chinese PEN Centre. Xia has been held under unofficial house arrest in her Beijing apartment since her late husband, the poet Liu Xiaobo, was named the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in October 2010.
For seven years, Liu Xia (1961) was held in her apartment without access to phones, internet, doctors of her choice, or visitors. Following the death of her husband in July 2017 and the expression of concern for her wellbeing, Xia appeared in a video in which she asked to be left alone to mourn – it is thought that she may have done this at the behest of the authorities.
The Independent PEN Centre (ICPC) report that the restrictions applied against Liu Xia have relaxed somewhat; she has access to a telephone and is allowed to leave her home, but is under constant surveillance. Colleagues at ICPC report that Liu Xia has been removed from Beijing for the duration of the National People’s Congress; it is expected that she will be returned to her Beijing home after this date.
There are reports that Liu Xia’s mental and physical health continue to suffer due to her detention.
PEN International believes that the ongoing, extra-judicial house arrest of Liu Xia is a form of punishment for the human rights work carried out by her husband, Liu Xiaobo, and is extremely concerned for her physical and psychological integrity.
Please take action for Liu Xia.
# More information and how to act, see website PEN UK
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Menno Wigman (Beverwijk, 10 oktober 1966 – Amsterdam, 1 februari 2018) was een Nederlands dichter, bloemlezer en vertaler. Hij stierf vandaag op 51-jarige leeftijd in het VU medisch centrum in Amsterdam.
Van 1984 tot aan zijn dood publiceerde Wigman 14 dichtbundels. Voor zijn werk ontving Menno Wigman in 2002 de Jan Campert-prijs en in 2015 de A. Roland Holst-Penning. In de jaren 2012-2013 was hij stadsdichter van Amsterdam.
Vandaag schreef zijn uitgever Prometheus in een verklaring: “Wij treuren om het verlies van een van de grootste dichters van ons taalgebied. Menno Wigman was een van die weinige dichters die zowel zijn vakgenoten als het grote, in literatuur geïnteresseerde publiek voor zijn dichtkunst wist te winnen. Zijn dood is een slag voor de Nederlandse poëzie.”
Nu lig ik op een zaal, mijn hart, die logge spier,
verlaat me, laf als een gedicht laat het me staan
en voor het eind van deze avond zakt de dood
mijn longen in.
De zon was mij nooit opgevallen als hij niet
steeds onderging. Geen lucht, geen flonkering, geen hoop.
Waarom, mijn lichaam, heb ik nooit in je geloofd?
(uit: Afscheid van mijn lichaam)
# Link naar Menno Wigman en zijn werk op website K. B.
Foto: Menno Wigman op het poëziefestival Het Tuinfeest in Deventer, 6 augustus 2016 (Oskardebot, Wikipedia Commons)
in memoriam
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Wüsste man nichts von Jan Wagners lyrischem Werk, man würde überhaupt nur noch Essays von ihm lesen wollen.
Ob er über Bibliotheken, Buchhandlungen, Lyrik oder Kunst schreibt, ob er literarische Postkarten aus Rom oder Los Angeles sendet oder die Epiphanie eines Rosmarins im schwäbischen Garten feiert – man glaubt diesem charmanten Geschichtenerzähler alles.
Es bleibt kaum Zeit, die rhetorische Fingerfertigkeit zu bewundern, mit der da zwischen souveräner Gelehrsamkeit unerwartet die nächste Anekdote aus dem Ärmel gezogen wird, und man kann nicht anders als staunen über die Trouvaillen, die Jan Wagner von seinen Entdeckungsreisen quer durch Epochen und Kontinente mitbringt.
Jan Wagner, 1971 in Hamburg geboren, lebt in Berlin. 2001 erschien sein erster Gedichtband Probebohrung im Himmel. Es folgten Guerickes Sperling (2004), Achtzehn Pasteten (2007), Australien (2010), Die Eulenhasser in den Hallenhäusern (2012) und zuletzt der Sammelband Selbstporträt mit Bienenschwarm (2016). Zudem ist er Mitherausgeber der Minnesang-Anthologie Unmögliche Liebe (Die Kunst des Minnesangs in neuen Übertragungen, 2017). Für seine Lyrik wurde Jan Wagner vielfach ausgezeichnet. Mit seinem Gedichtband Regentonnenvariationen (2014) gewann er 2015 den Preis der Leipziger Buchmesse, außerdem wurde er 2017 mit dem Georg-Büchner-Preis ausgezeichnet.
Jan Wagner:
Der verschlossene Raum.
Beiläufige Prosa
EAN: 9783446254756
ISBN: 3446254757
Libri: 2557154
Hanser Berlin
2017 – 268 Seiten
gebunden € 22,00
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Hendrik Nicolaas Werkman (1882-1945) wordt in 1919 lid van de ‘Groninger Kunstkring De Ploeg’.
Men waardeert hem vooral als drukker. In 1922, wanneer hij zakelijk een stap terug moet doen, maakt Werkman kennis met het gebruik van typografisch zetmateriaal als vorm van drukkunst. Hij begint de mogelijkheden ervan te onderzoeken.
De eerste proeve van zijn kunnen is de uitgave van The Next Call, een serie van negen achtbladige cahiers bestaande uit teksten en abstracte composities die hij tussen 1923 en 1926 aan vrienden en andere mogelijk geïnteresseerden toestuurt. Talrijk zijn de aanwijzingen dat Werkman zich daarbij heeft laten inspireren door het dadaïstische en constructivistische idioom van de internationale avant-garde. Een modernistisch tijdschrift als een van de vele andere is The Next Call niet. Teksten en druksels laten zien dat het gaat over Werkman zelf, over wat hem in deze cruciale periode van zijn leven wezenlijk beroert
Peter Jordens:
Hendrik Werkman en De Ploeg.
The Next Call en het constructivisme
Dit boek verschijnt in oktober 2017
€ 22,50
ISBN 9789462582286
Formaat: 20 x 26,5 cm
Aantal pagina’s 176
In samenwerking met Museum Belvédère
Circa 150 afbeeldingen in kleur
Jaar 2017
Uitvoering: Gebonden
Uitg.: wbooks
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