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Like a long, funny letter from an old friend, an album of drawings by the legendary singer and activist for social justice, Joan Baez.
Since retiring from active performing, Baez has focused her formidable talents on painting and drawing. This collection of drawings shows another side of Baez: lovingly loose and charming sketches on reoccurring themes such as politics, relationships, women, animals, and family.
Each section, organized thematically, includes an introductory piece by the artist. Baez approaches her line drawings as exercises in freedom: she begins drawing upside down—often using her non-dominant hand—without any preconceived notion of where the lines might lead her.
Beginning with her seminal debut album in 1960, Baez has been a musical force of nature of incalculable influence whose earliest recordings fed a host of traditional ballads into the rock vernacular.
In 1963, she introduced Bob Dylan to the world, beginning a tradition of mutual mentoring that continued across her many recordings.
As a lifetime advocate for non-violent social change, she marched on the front line of the civil rights movement with Martin Luther King Jr., shined a spotlight on the Free Speech Movement, took to the fields with Cesar Chavez, organized resistance to the Vietnam War, and inspired Vaclav Havel in his fight for a Czech Republic.
Joan Baez is a dynamic force of nature. Her commitment to music and social activism has earned global recognition, ranging from induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, to the Ambassador of Conscience Award, Amnesty International’s highest honor. Retired from active performing since 2019, she has devoted much of her time to the “Mischief Makers” series of paintings, portraits that immortalize risk-taking visionaries she has known, who have brought about social change through history, from Dr. Martin Luther King and Bob Dylan to the Dalai Lama and Patti Smith.
Am I Pretty When I Fly?:
An Album of Upside Down Drawings
by Joan Baez
Publisher: David R. Godine
Published: 2023
Language: English
Hardcover
120 pages
ISBN-10: 567927548
ISBN-13: 978-1567927542
$40.50
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Ain new lied herr Ulrichs von Hutten
1
Ich habs gewagt mit sinnen
und trag des noch kain rew,
mag ich nit dran gewinnen,
noch muoß man spüren trew;
dar mit ich main nit aim allain,
wenn man es wolt erkennen:
dem land zuo guot, wie wol man tuot
ain pfaffenfeind mich nennen.
2
Da laß ich ieden liegen
und reden was er wil;
hett warhait ich geschwigen,
mir wären hulder vil:
nun hab ichs gsagt, bin drum verjagt,
das klag ich allen frummen,
wie wol noch ich nit weiter fliech,
villeicht werd wider kummen.
3
Umb gnad wil ich nit bitten,
die weil ich bin on schuld;
ich hett das recht gelitten,
so hindert ungeduld,
daß man mich nit nach altem sit
zuo ghör hat kummen laßen;
villeicht wils got und zwingt sie not
zuo handlen diser maßen.
4
Nun ist oft diser gleichen
geschehen auch hie vor,
daß ainer von den reichen
ain guotes spil verlor,
oft großer flam von fünklin kam,
wer waiß ob ichs werd rechen!
stat schon im lauf, so setz ich drauf:
muoß gan oder brechen!
5
Dar neben mich zuo trösten
mit guotem gwißen hab,
daß kainer von den bösten
mir eer mag brechen ab
noch sagen daß uf ainig maß
ich anders sei gegangen,
dann eren nach, hab dise sach
in guotem angefangen.
6
Wil nun ir selbs nit raten
dis frumme nation,
irs schadens sich ergatten,
als ich vermanet han,
so ist mir laid; hie mit ich schaid,
wil mengen baß die karten,
bin unverzagt, ich habs gewagt
und wil des ends erwarten.
7
Ob dann mir nach tuot denken
der curtisanen list:
ain herz last sich nit krenken,
das rechter mainung ist;
ich waiß noch vil, wöln auch ins spil
und soltens drüber sterben:
auf, landsknecht guot und reuters muot,
last Hutten nit verderben!
Ulrich von Hutten
Ritter und Dichter
(* 21.04.1488, † 29.08.1523)
Ain new lied herr Ulrichs von Hutten
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When Helen lived
We have cried in our despair
That men desert,
For some trivial affair
Or noisy, insolent sport,
Beauty that we have won
From bitterest hours;
Yet we, had we walked within
Those topless towers
Where Helen walked with her boy,
Had given but as the rest
Of the men and women of Troy,
A word and a jest.
William Butler Yeats
(1865-1939)
When Helen lived
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The poems in Mirabilia test the relationship between art and politics.
They are ekphrastic poems complicated by historical narrative; or, they are political poems, inspired by artworks. The title poem is a tribute to the pangolin, the world’s most-trafficked mammal – implicated, some say, in the evolution of coronavirus.
Written in Fibonacci syllabics, it is also a reflection on Marianne Moore’s poem ‘The Pangolin’, with its sense of nature’s perpetuity – lost in the years since her poem was written. The final sequence ‘Great World Atlas’ tracks the destructive extent of nuclear testing across the world in the 1960s. It was written for Izabela Pluta’s artist’s book Figures of Slippage and Oscillation.
The sequence ‘Tongue’ reflects on da Vinci’s 1478 painting The Benois Madonna, including the circumstances of its creation in the Pazzi conspiracy and the life of Fioretta del Cittadino – perhaps the painting’s model – who gave birth to the child of the murdered man.
Her child was taken; she was written out of the record. In other poems too, Gorton reflects on the experience of the female muse, wife, or mother.
Shortlisted: NSW Premier’s Literary Awards – Poetry 2023
Lisa Gorton has a PhD on the poetry of John Donne from the University of Oxford. She is a poet and novelist, essayist and reviewer. Her first poetry collection Press Release won the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Poetry; her second, Hotel Hyperion was awarded the Philip Hodgins Memorial Medal; and her third, Empirical, was shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s and NSW Premier’s Literary Awards for Poetry. Her novel The Life of Houses was the co-winner of the 2016 Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Fiction. She is the author of Cloudland, a novel for children.
Mirabilia
Poetry
by Lisa Gorton
Publisher: Giramondo Publishing (1 August 2022)
Language: English
Paperback: 96 pages
ISBN-10: 1922725307
ISBN-13: 978-1922725301
Dimensions: 20 x 14 x 1.5 cm
Price: aus. $ 25.00
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In mei 1940 is de dichter Gerrit Kouwenaar (1923-2014) zestien jaar en schrijft hij zijn eerste gedichten.
Zes jaar later en een wereldoorlog verder is hij, zonder dat nog te beseffen, op weg om een van de meest invloedrijke Vijftigers te worden.
De Tweede Wereldoorlog, die grote ontvormer van mens en moraal, heeft hem gemaakt tot de dichter die later liever ‘men’ dan ‘ik’ schreef en die, tot zijn dood in 2014, is uitgegroeid tot een van de grootste Nederlandse dichters van de twintigste eeuw.
In zijn dankwoord bij de uitreiking van de Prijs der Nederlandse Letteren in 1989 in Brussel sprak hij over de jaren 1940-1945 als een ‘leerschool die mij heeft bijgebracht dat woorden lege hulzen zijn als ze niet gevuld worden met je eigen leven en lichaam, je eigen sterfelijkheid.’
Morgen is het voor iedereen maandag belicht op uiterst boeiende wijze de periode van de bezetting en de eerste jaren na de oorlog, wanneer de dichter als kunstredacteur in dienst is van het communistische dagblad De Waarheid. Het verhaal is doorspekt met tal van niet eerder gepubliceerde gedichten, verhaal- en brieffragmenten.
Morgen wordt het voor iedereen maandag
De oorlog van Gerrit Kouwenaar
door Wiel Kusters
Taal: NL
Cossee
Mei 2023
ISBN: 9789464520767
Hardcover
450 pagina’s
€ 39,99
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In Customs, Solmaz Sharif examines what it means to exist in the nowhere of the arrivals terminal, a continual series of checkpoints, officers, searches, and questionings that become a relentless experience of America.
With resignation and austerity, these poems trace a pointed indoctrination to the customs of the nation-state and the English language, and the realities they impose upon the imagination, the paces they put us through.
While Sharif critiques the culture of performed social skills and poetry itself—its foreclosures, affects, successes—she begins to write her way out to the other side of acceptability and toward freedom.
Customs is a brilliant, excoriating new collection by a poet whose unfolding works are among the groundbreaking literature of our time.
This will be the last I write of it directly, I say each time.
This is a light that lights everything and dimly.
All my waiting at this railing.
All my writing is this squint.
Solmaz Sharif is the author of a Customs and Look, which was a finalist for the National Book Award and a New York Times Notable Book. She has received a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ award, a Lannan Literary Fellowship, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation. Her poetry has appeared in Granta, the New Republic, and Poetry. She is currently the Shirley Shenker Assistant Professor of English at U.C. Berkeley. ( https://solmazsharif.com/ )
Customs: Poems
by Solmaz Sharif
86 pages
Paperback
Publisher: Graywolf Press
March 1, 2022
Language: English
Paperback: 72 pages
ISBN-10:1644450798
ISBN-13:978-1644450796
$15.99
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The Dead Soldier
(In memory of Thomas Ashe)
Where the sword has opened the way the man will follow
“Look! they came, the triumphant army!
Over yon hill see their weapons peeping!”
Still I spoke not but my wheel sent turning,
I closed my eyes for my heart was weeping,
My heart was weeping for a dead soldier.
Who is he who looks towards me ?
“’Tis no man but a gay flag flying,”
Red was his mouth and his white brow thoughtful,
Blue his eyes — how my soul is crying,
My soul is crying for a dead soldier.
“Kneel ye down, lest your eyes should dare them,
Kneel ye down and your beads be saying.”
“Lord, on their heads Thy wrath deliver,”
This is the prayer that my lips are praying,
My heart is praying for a dead soldier.
“Best cheer the path of the men victorious,
For he is dead and his blade lies broken,
His march is far where no aid can follow,
And for his people he left no token,
He left no token, the dead soldier.”
The way of the sword a man can follow,
See the young child with his gold hair gleaming.
When falls the oak must the acorn perish?
He lifts the blade and his eyes are dreaming,
He dreams the dream of the dead soldier.
THE END
Dora Maria Sigerson Shorter
(1866 – 1918)
The Dead Soldier
(In memory of Thomas Ashe)
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Der Kuss
Du kamst des Wegs, durch den ich viel gelitten,
Du kamst, dem viel ich habe abzubitten,
Du Freund, du Feind, der über meinen Schritten
Einst herrschend hielt den Stab.
War’s Tag, war’s Traum? Die Stadt lag fremd im Lichte,
Von Wind durchbellt. Du schwanktest ohne Richte.
So blind! So grau! Ich las dir vom Gesichte
Das Grab, das fahle Grab.
Den ich vor wenig Wochen hier verlassen
Auf diesen Plätzen und in diesen Gassen,
Das war der Mann nicht mehr, stark und gelassen,
Den jetzt ich wankend traf.
Du sprachst zu mir. Ich hörte Worte fallen,
Sie schollen traurig und wie hohles Hallen.
Nicht Worte waren das, es war das Lallen,
Das trunkne, vor dem Schlaf.
In Weh und Scham von dir ich wollte weichen.
Du hobst die Hand, sie still mir herzureichen.
Da faßte mich ein Abschied ohnegleichen,
Daß Scham und Weh zerrann,
Und was sich niemals zwischen uns begeben:
Ein tiefer Kuß vereinte unser Leben,
Den noch kein Weib empfing, ein Kuß, so bebend,
Der Kuß von Mann zu Mann.
Nun kann ich nicht die Tür des Wachens finden.
Ich will den Traum des Kusses überwinden,
Verbergen mich, im Menschentag verschwinden,
Doch das Geheimnis brennt.
Ich fühl mich sprechen, lachen, schreiben, kramen.
Mein Herz ist schwarz geschluchzt, ach, und der Samen
Der fremden Liebe wächst, die keinen Namen
Und kein Geständnis kennt.
Franz Werfel
(1890 – 1945)
Der Kuss
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Melopee
Voor Gaston Burssens
Onder de maan schuift de lange rivier
Over de lange rivier schuift moede de maan
Onder de maan op de lange rivier schuift de kano naar zee
Langs het hoogriet
langs de laagwei
schuift de kano naar zee
schuift met de schuivende maan de kano naar zee
Zo zijn ze gezellen naar zee de kano de maan en de man
Waarom schuiven de maan en de man getweeën gedwee naar de zee
.
Paul van Ostaijen
(1896 – 1928)
Melopee
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In the poem-essays that comprise A Duration, writing is a physical act where writing and lived experience support one another in bodies—animal, plant, mineral, and word bodies—that are injured and heal, that die and continue in new forms, playing new roles.
Here, in his fifth book, Richard Meier transmutes years of daily practices of attention—be it to a line spoken by Lear’s Fool, a train to Kingston, or “red inside green stem below eight white petals in a spiral with space between them attached to the yellow center”—into mesmerizing trajectories through an always unfolding present.
In the collapse of the border between writing and the body, A Duration, “play[s] both hearts with a heartbeat and kinship of place, time, mundanity in the continuous onrushing imagined joy.”
Richard Meier’s second book of poetry, Shelley Gave Jane a Guitar, was published by Wave Books in 2006. His first book, Terrain Vague, was selected by Tomaž Šalamun for the Verse Prize and published by Verse Press in 2001. His book In the Pure Block of the Whole Imaginary was published by Omnidawn in 2012. He is writer-in-residence at Carthage College and lives in Chicago, IL and Madison, WI.
Richard Meier
A Duration
Publication: 6 June 2023
Publisher: Wave Books
Language: Engish
Paperback: 120 pages
ISBN-10:1950268780
ISBN-13:978-1950268788
Regular price $18.00
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Tod im Frühling
Ein Professor, fromm und tugendhaft,
war exorbitant normal im Winter;
zur Erhaltung deutscher Manneskraft
schlief er stets mit einem Werk von Dinter;
morgens steckte er ins Stahlbad Glied um Glied,
trieb am Reck dann Weltkriegsvorbereitung,
und, fürs arisch-reine Vaterland erglüht,
abonnierte er die »Deutsche Zeitung«.
Also lebte er zur Winterszeit. –
Doch beim ersten Lied der Nachtigallen
machte er sein Teleskop bereit,
um des Nachts durch das Gebüsch zu wallen;
Minne glühte auch in seiner Brust,
wenn er eine Wade wo erblickte;
und es war sein Wille groß wie seine Lust – –
nur, daß letztere ihm niemals glückte.
Mit der Blendlaterne spähte er
nach den unverschämten Gartenbänken,
zu den deutschen Göttern flehte er,
dieses Mobiliar der Juden zu versenken;
aber Unzucht blieb, kein Rächer kam,
und vergebens betete der Keusche,
während er, moral-geplagt, vernahm
außereheliche Nachtgeräusche.
Bald begannen Nase, Aug’ und Ohr
und der sechste Sinn sich auch zu schämen – –
außer sich geriet der Professor,
und er mußte endlich Anstoß nehmen;
unter einem weißen Fliederstrauch
tat er’s, ward erregt – und fand sein Ende . . .
Streng und sittlich flog sein letzter Hauch
wie ein keuscher Fluch durch das Gelände . . .
Joseph Roth
(1894 – 1939)
Tod im Frühling
Lachen links – 9. 5· 1924
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Sometimes In The Middle Autumn Days
Sometimes in the middle autumn days,
The windless days when the swallows have flown,
And the sere elms brood in the mist,
Each tree a being, rapt, alone,
I know, not as in barren thought,
But wordlessly, as the bones know,
What quenching of my brain, what numbness,
Wait in the dark grave where I go.
And I see the people thronging the street,
The death-marked people, they and I
Goalless, rootless, like leaves drifting,
Blind to the earth and to the sky;
Nothing believing, nothing loving,
Not in joy nor in pain, not heeding the stream
Of precious life that flows within us,
But fighting, toiling as in a dream.
O you who pass, halt and remember
What tyrant holds your life in bond;
Remember the fixed, reprieveless hour,
The crushing stroke, the dark beyond.
And let us now, as men condemned,
In peace and thrift of time stand still
To learn our world while yet we may,
And shape our souls, however ill;
And we will live, hand, eye and brain,
Piously, outwardly, ever-aware,
Till all our hours burn clear and brave
Like candle flames in windless air;
So shall we in the rout of life
Some thought, some faith, some meaning save,
And speak it once before we go
In silence to the silent grave.
George Orwell
(1903 – 1950)
Sometimes In The Middle Autumn Days
First published by The Adelphi, March 1933
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