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The Broken Heart
He is stark mad, whoever says,
That he hath been in love an hour,
Yet not that love so soon decays,
But that it can ten in less space devour;
Who will believe me, if I swear
That I have had the plague a year?
Who would not laugh at me, if I should say
I saw a flash of powder burn a day?
Ah, what a trifle is a heart,
If once into love’s hands it come!
All other griefs allow a part
To other griefs, and ask themselves but some;
They come to us, but us love draws;
He swallows us and never chaws;
By him, as by chain’d shot, whole ranks do die;
He is the tyrant pike, our hearts the fry.
If ’twere not so, what did become
Of my heart when I first saw thee?
I brought a heart into the room,
But from the room I carried none with me.
If it had gone to thee, I know
Mine would have taught thine heart to show
More pity unto me ; but Love, alas!
At one first blow did shiver it as glass.
Yet nothing can to nothing fall,
Nor any place be empty quite;
Therefore I think my breast hath all
Those pieces still, though they be not unite;
And now, as broken glasses show
A hundred lesser faces, so
My rags of heart can like, wish, and adore,
But after one such love, can love no more.
John Donne
(1572 – 1631)
The Broken Heart
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A landmark collection of poetry by acclaimed fiction writer, translator, and MacArthur Fellow John Keene, PUNKS: NEW & SELECTED POEMS is a generous treasury in seven sections that spans decades and includes previously unpublished and brand new work.
With depth and breadth, PUNKS weaves together historic narratives of loss, lust, and love. The many voices that emerge in these poems—from historic Black personalities, both familial and famous, to the poet’s friends and lovers in gay bars and bedrooms—form a cast of characters capable of addressing desire, oppression, AIDS, and grief through sorrowful songs that “we sing as hard as we live.”
At home in countless poetic forms, PUNKS reconfirms John Keene as one of the most important voices in contemporary poetry.
John Keene is a writer, translator, professor, and artist who was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2018. In 1989, Keene joined the Dark Room Writers Collective, and is a Graduate Fellow of the Cave Canem Writers Workshops. He is the author of Annotations, and Counternarratives, both published by New Directions, as well as several other works, including the poetry collection Seismosis, with artist Christopher Stackhouse, and a translation of Brazilian author Hilda Hilst’s novel Letters from a Seducer. Keene is the recipient of many awards and fellowships—including the Windham-Campbell Prize, the Whiting Foundation Prize, the Republic of Consciousness Prize, and the American Book Award. He teaches at Rutgers University-Newark.
# new poetry
Punks: New & Selected Poems
John Keene
Pub Date:12/1/2021
Publisher: The Song Cave
ISBN: 978-1-73727-752-1
Binding: Paperback
Pages:234
Price: $ 20.00
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Kingdomland is the debut poetry collection of Rachael Allen – a writer of rare vision and flair.
The world she creates is suffused with surreal images and uncanny incidents. Unexplained violences and strange metamorphoses take shape in the ‘glowering dusk’. And yet, all too clearly, we recognise life here on earth, its everyday griefs, dysfunctions and injustices.
Where distinctions between murder and bloodletting, corruption and consumption are blurred. Where a pet tarantula or mimic octopus might find itself beside glands and processed meats. Landscapes shift and identities dissolve: ‘the red bricks of the day’ exist ‘in a woman’s chest’, a human presence is ’embedded in the walls’. All appears changed, but familiar.
Intercut with oblique verse fragments and a series of linked sequences, Allen blends elements of fiction and ekphrasis to create a haunting and unforgettable debut.
Rachael Allen was born in Cornwall and studied at Goldsmiths College. She is the co-author of Jolene, a book of poems and photographs with Guy Gormley, and Nights of Poor Sleep, a book of poems and paintings with Marie Jacotey. She has received a Northern Writers’ Award and an Eric Gregory Award, and was made a Faber New Poet in 2014. She is poetry editor at Granta and co-founder of the poetry press clinic and online journal tender.
( . . . )
The white ocean spreads itself
like the badly iced top of a cake
seen through the smeared Plexiglas
of a cheap hotel restaurant.
I grate flesh into garlanded toilet water,
rearrangements of a desiccated sky.
( . . . )
# new poetry
Kingdomland
by Rachael Allen (Author)
Paperback
80 pages
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Main edition
17 Jan. 2019
Language : English
ISBN-10 : 057134111X
ISBN-13 : 978-0571341115
Dimensions: 12.7 x 0.76 x 19.3 cm
€ 18,99
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La Pendule Arrêtée
C’est une chambre peinte à fresque
Avec de hauts murs lambrissés;
Lorsque l’on entre, on croirait presque
Rentrer dans les siècles passés.
On éprouve une gêne étrange
Dans cet endroit silencieux:
Il semble que l’on y dérange
Un rendez-vous mystérieux.
Je ne sais point pour quelle cause
L’appartement fut délaissé;
La fenêtre en est toujours close,
Sous le grand store bien baissé.
Il s’y passa, l’on peut le croire,
Autrefois des faits importants,
Mais nul ne connaît plus l’histoire
Que recouvre la nuit du temps.
On y voit sur la cheminée,
Entre deux flambeaux vermoulus,
Une pendule très ornée
Qui depuis longtemps ne va plus.
Il s’est enfui bien des années
Tandis qu’inactive elle dort,
Ses aiguilles comme enchaînées
Par le silence de la mort.
Que fut l’heure mystérieuse
Dont elles ne sauraient bouger?
Quelle est la main triste ou joyeuse,
Qui retint le battant léger?
C’est un secret et je l’ignore,
Un secret que l’oubli scella…
Les meubles seuls pourraient encore
Raconter cette histoire-là;
Car dans la vieille et triste chambre
Tout parle encor du temps ancien,
Même le léger parfum d’ambre
Qui vous saisit lorsqu’on y vient.
Les ans, dans leur marche sévère.
Ont fui, par les jours emportés,
Mais la pendule solitaire
Ne les a pas même comptés.
Il n’est plus qu’une heure pour elle,
Heure égale à l’éternité,
Et cette heure unique c’est celle
Où son battant fut arrêté.
Ainsi parfois sur cette terre
Où nous avons été placés,
Nous rencontrons, triste mystère,
Des cœurs vivant aux jours passés.
Comme la pendule fidèle
Dans la salle aux lambris doré,
Ils se sont de l’heure actuelle
Volontairement séparés.
Pour eux aussi, toute la vie,
L’instant présent et l’avenir,
Est dans une heure évanouie
Qui ne doit jamais revenir…
Le temps a beau marcher sans trêve,
Ils ne l’entendent pas couler,
Et trop absorbés par leur rêve,
Ils ne peuvent s’en éveiller.
Qu’importe si les jours s’amassent,
Qu’il soit le matin ou le soir,
Que les ans s’arrêtent ou passent,
Ils ne veulent pas le savoir.
Désormais, leur être demeure
Sur le même point arrêté;
Ils ne connaissent plus qu’une heure,
Et c’est pour eux l’éternité.
4 février 1881
Alice De Chambrier
(1861-1882)
La PenduleArrêtée
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De lente lonkt, het virus blaast de aftocht, tijd voor een lustige expositie in het ‘Metropolitan Museum Tilburg’, de raamtentoonstellingen aan de Stedekestraat. Het museum presenteert u ‘TUTTI FRUTTI’ van de veelzijdige Tilburgse kunstenaar Antoine Timmermans.
De meester pakt uitbundig uit met een reeks sprankelende portretten, spontane, bijkans impulsieve, schilderijen waar de kleurenrijkdom vanaf spat. Doeken met fleurige geliefden en gestorvenen, echte en gedroomde, ze kijken u allen doordringend aan.
Het werk van Timmermans is doortrokken van het ‘echte’ leven, iets waar, volgens hem, kunst over zou moeten gaan: “we hebben betere verhalen nodig voor onze toekomst!” Nu met canvas, penselen en olieverf. En zoals altijd met humor. De kunstenaar is daarnaast bekend als decorbouwer, ontwerper van flamboyante kleding, theatermaker, maar vooral als de dragqueen ‘Cybersissy’. U kent haar vast van Roze Maandag of uit de vele clubs in binnen- en buitenland.
De schilder volgde zijn kunstopleidingen in Breda, Arendonk, Den Haag en Den Bosch. In weerwil wat destijds in zwang was legde hij zich toe op de figuratieve kunst. In prikkelende beelden, extravagante kostuums, bonte pruiken en mutsen, en natuurlijk in zijn schilderijen. Deze laatsten kunt u zien in het ‘Metropolitan Museum’ van vrijdag 18 maart t/m zondag 8 mei 2022, Stedekestraat 15, 5041DM Tilburg. Dagelijks, dag en nacht open, toegang vrij.
‘Metropolitan Museum Tilburg’
Stedekestraat 15
5041DM Tilburg
vrijdag 18 maart t/m zondag 8 mei 2022
‘TUTTI FRUTTI’ Antoine Timmermans
# 18 maart t/m 8 mei 2022
# dagelijks, dag en nacht, toegang vrij
# ‘Metropolitan Museum | Tilburg’
Stedekestraat 15, 5041DM Tilburg
telefoon: 013 5358041 / 06 20325030
email: post@metropolitanmuseum.nl
website: www.metropolitanmuseum.nl
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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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A master of documentary poetry, Erika Meitner takes up the question of desire and intimacy in her latest collection of poems.
In her previous five collections of poetry, Erika Meitner has established herself as one of America’s most incisive observers, cherished for her remarkable ability to temper catastrophe with tenderness. In her newest collection Useful Junk, Meitner considers what it means to be a sexual being in a world that sees women as invisible—as mothers, customers, passengers, worshippers, wives.
These poems render our changing bodies as real and alive, shaped by the sense memories of long-lost lovers and the still thrilling touch of a spouse after years of parenthood, affirming that we are made of every intimate moment we have ever had.
Letter poems to a younger poet interspersed throughout the collection question desire itself and how new technologies—Uber, sexting, Instagram—are reframing self-image and shifting the ratios of risk and reward in erotic encounters.
With dauntless vulnerability, Meitner travels a world of strip malls, supermarkets, and subway platforms, remaining porous and open to the world, always returning to the intimacies rooted deep within the self as a shout against the dying earth.
Boldly affirming that pleasure is a vital form of knowledge, Useful Junk reminds us that our bodies are made real and beautiful by our embodied experiences and that our desire is what keeps us alive.
Erika Meitner is the author of five books of poems, including Ideal Cities (Harper Perennial, 2010), which was a 2009 National Poetry Series winner, Copia (BOA Editions, 2014), and Holy Moly Carry Me (BOA Editions, 2018). Her poems have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Tin House, The New Republic, Virginia Quarterly Review, Oxford American, Best American Poetry, Ploughshares, and elsewhere. In 2015, she was the US-UK Fulbright Distinguished Scholar in Creative Writing at the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry at Queen’s University Belfast, and she has also received fellowships from The MacDowell Colony, the Virginia Center for Creative Arts, the Blue Mountain Center, and the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing. She is currently an associate professor of English at Virginia Tech, where she directs the MFA and undergraduate programs in Creative Writing.
# new poetry
Useful Junk
By: Erika Meitner
Regular price $ 17.00
Publisher: BOA Editions Ltd.
April 5, 2022
Language: English
Paperback: 104 pages
ISBN-10: 1950774538
ISBN-13: 978-1950774531
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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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Beat! Beat! Drums!
Beat! beat! drums!–Blow! bugles! blow!
Through the windows–through doors–burst like a ruthless force,
Into the solemn church, and scatter the congregation;
Into the school where the scholar is studying;
Leave not the bridegroom quiet–no happiness must he have now with his bride;
Nor the peaceful farmer any peace, plowing his field or gathering his grain;
So fierce you whirr and pound, you drums–so shrill you bugles blow.
Beat! beat! drums!–Blow! bugles! blow!
Over the traffic of cities–over the rumble of wheels in the streets:
Are beds prepared for sleepers at night in the houses? No sleepers must sleep in those beds;
No bargainers’ bargains by day–no brokers or speculators–Would they continue?
Would the talkers be talking? would the singer attempt to sing?
Would the lawyer rise in the court to state his case before the judge?
Then rattle quicker, heavier drums–you bugles wilder blow.
Beat! beat! drums!–Blow! bugles! blow!
Make no parley–stop for no expostulation;
Mind not the timid–mind not the weeper or prayer;
Mind not the old man beseeching the young man;
Let not the child’s voice be heard, nor the mother’s entreaties;
Make even the trestles to shake the dead, where they lie awaiting the hearses,
So strong you thump, O terrible drums–so loud you bugles blow.
Walt Whitman
(1819 – 1892)
Poem: Beat! Beat! Drums!
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The armed conflict in the east of Ukraine in 2017 brought about an emergence of a distinctive trend in contemporary Ukrainian poetry: the poetry of war.
Directly and indirectly, the poems collected in this volume engage with the events and experiences of war, reflecting on the themes of alienation, loss, dislocation, and disability; as well as justice, heroism, courage, resilience, generosity, and forgiveness.
In addressing these themes, the poems also raise questions about art, politics, citizenship, and moral responsibility. The anthology brings together some of the most compelling poetic voices from different regions of Ukraine. Young and old, female and male, somber and ironic, tragic and playful, filled with extraordinary terror and ordinary human delights, the voices recreate the human sounds of war in its tragic complexity.
Oksana Maksymchuk is an author of two award-winning books of poetry in the Ukrainian language, and a recipient of Richmond Lattimore and Joseph Brodsky-Stephen Spender translation prizes. She works on problems of cognition and motivation in Plato’s moral psychology. Maksymchuk teaches philosophy at the University of Arkansas.
Max Rosochinsky is a poet and translator from Simferopol, Crimea. His poems had been nominated for the PEN International New Voices Award in 2015. With Maksymchuk, he won first place in the 2014 Brodsky-Spender competition. His academic work focuses on twentieth century Russian poetry, especially Osip Mandelshtam and Marina Tsvetaeva.
Published by Academic Studies Press (Boston, MA) and Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute (Cambridge, MA), Words for War: New Poems from Ukraine is available in hardback, paperback, and digital ebook formats.
New Poems from Ukraine by:
Anastasia Afanasieva
Vasyl Holoborodko
Borys Humenyuk
Yuri Izdryk
Aleksandr Kabanov
Kateryna Kalytko
Lyudmyla Khersonska
Boris Khersonsky
Marianna Kiyanovska
Halyna Kruk
Oksana Lutsyshyna
Vasyl Makhno
Marjana Savka
Ostap Slyvynsky
Lyuba Yakimchuk
Serhiy Zhadan
# new poetry
Words for War: New Poems from Ukraine
Edited by Oksana Maksymchuk & Max Rosochinsky
with an introduction by Ilya Kaminsky and an afterword by Polina Barskova
Publisher: Academic Studies Press
Series: Ukrainian Studies
Pages: 242 pp.
16 illus. (color)
Publication Date: December 2017
English
ISBN: 9781618116666 (cloth) 32,99 euro
ISBN: 9781618118615 (paper) 24,99 euro
More information: https://www.wordsforwar.com/
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we will walk back, even with bare feet
if we don’t find our home in the place where we left it
we will build another one in an apricot tree
out of luscious clouds, out of azure ether
Apricots of Donbas—by award-winning contemporary Ukrainian poet Lyuba Yakimchuk—is the 7th book in the Lost Horse Press Contemporary Ukrainian Poetry Series. As are previous volumes in the Series, it has been released in a dual-language edition.
Born and raised in a small coal-mining town in Ukraine’s industrial east, Yakimchuk lost her family home in 2014, when the region was occupied by Russian-backed militants, and her parents and sister were forced to flee as refugees.
Reflecting the complex emotional experiences of a civilian witnessing a gradual disintegration of her familiar surroundings, Yakimchuk’s poetry is versatile, ranging from sumptuous verses about the urgency of erotic desire in a war-torn city to imitations of child-like babbling about the tools and toys of military combat.
Playfulness in the face of catastrophe is a distinctive feature of Yakimchuk’s voice, evoking the legacy of the Ukrainian Futurists of the 1920s. The poems’ artfulness goes hand in hand with their authenticity, offering intimate glimpses into the story of a woman affected by a life-altering situation beyond her control.
(…)
my friends are hostages
and I can’t reach them, I can’t do netsk
to pull them out of the basements
from under the rubble
yet here you are, writing poems
ideally slick poems
high-minded gilded poems
beautiful as embroidery
there’s no poetry about war
just decomposition
only letters remain
and they all make a single sound — rrr
(…)
Lyuba Yakimchuk from Decomposition,
translated from the Ukrainian by Oksana Maksymchuk and Max Rosochinsky
Lyuba Yakimchuk
is a poet, playwright, and screenwriter. Her two collections of poetry, Moda (2009) and Abrykosy Donbasu (2015) won prestigious awards, including the International Slavic Poetic Award (Ukraine) and the International Poetic Award of the Kovalev Foundation (USA). Since 2019, her play The Wall has been running at the Ivan Franko National Academic Drama Theater, the largest in Ukraine. She also authored the script for the film The Slovo House: An Unfinished Novel, reflecting on the literary life in the 1930’s Kharkiv. Born and raised in a small town near Luhansk, Yakimchuk now lives in Kyiv, Ukraine.
Born and raised in a small coal-mining town in Ukraine’s industrial east, Yakimchuk lost her family home in 2014 when the region was occupied by Russian-backed militants and her parents and sister were forced to flee as refugees. Reflecting her complex emotional experiences, Yakimchuk’s poetry is versatile, ranging from sumptuous verses about the urgency of erotic desire in a war-torn city to imitations of childlike babbling about the tools and toys of military combat. Playfulness in the face of catastrophe is a distinctive feature of Yakimchuk’s voice, evoking the legacy of the Ukrainian Futurists of the 1920s. The poems’ artfulness go hand in hand with their authenticity, offering intimate glimpses into the story of a woman affected by a life-altering situation beyond her control.
# new poetry
APRICOTS OF DONBAS
poems by Lyuba Yakimchuk
Translated by Oksana Maksymchuk,
Max Rosochinsky & Svetlana Lavochkina
Oktober 2021
Paperback
166 pp
ISBN 978-1-7364323-1-0
Lost Horse Press
$30.00
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And Yet
They drew him from the darkened room,
Where, swooning in a peace profound,
Beneath a heavy fragrance drowned
Her grey form glimmered in the gloom.
Death smoothed from her each sordid trace
Of Life; at last he read the scroll;
For all the meaning of her soul
Flowered upon her perfect face.
“In other worlds her soul finds scope;
Her spirit lives; she is not dead,”
In his dulled ear they said and said,
Suave-murmuring the ancient Hope.
“You loved her; she was worthy love.
Think you her spheral soul can cease?
Nay, she has ripened to release
From this bare earth, and waits above.”
His brain their clamour heard aloof;
He, too, had said the self-same thing;
But now his heart was quivering
For more than comfort — parched for proof.
He put them from him. “Let me be;
You proffer in my bitter need
The coward comfort of a creed
That tears her soul apart from me.
“She waits in no drear Heaven afar.
Her woman’s soul in all its worth,
Yearning for me, for homely earth,
No gates of beaten gold could bar.
“No, she is near me, ever close;
One with the world, but free again;
One with the breezes and the rain;
One with the mountain and the rose.
“She knows me not; her voice is dumb;
But aching through the twilight peers,
And, unremembering, yet with tears,
She strives to say she cannot come.
“Yes, she is changed, but not destroyed;
The words that were her soul are hushed;
The gem that was her heart is crushed —
Its fragments white stars in the void.
“And I shall see her in disguise;
In the grey vistas of the street
A face that hints of her I meet;
Whispers her soul from alien eyes.
“In Time’s great garden, spring on spring,
The blossoms glow; then at a breath
Their petals flutter down to death —
Ah love, how brief your blossoming!
“Death has but severed part from part.
Borne on an ever-moving air
The fragrance of her life somewhere
Freshens some lonely wistful heart!
“No word of hers can God forget;
Her laughter Time dare not disperse;
It shakes the tense-strung universe,
And with the chord it trembles yet.
“Each mood of hers, each fancy slight,
In deep pulsations, ring on ring,
Dilating, ever-widening,
Ripples across the outer night.
“Her life with deathless charm was fraught,
And God with smiles remembers now
The puzzled pucker of her brow
Ruffled with sudden gusts of thought.
“And in His cosmic memory wise
Still live her subtle features thin,
Her dear iconoclastic chin,
The grave enigma of her eyes.
“And if beyond she might draw breath.
And know that I was not with her,
The wistful eyes of her despair
Would be more desolate than death.
“But not to meet her in the wide
Night-spaces I must wander through;
To kiss the pretty pout I knew,
And nevermore to hear her chide;
“To speak those childish words that were
So foolish-sweet, so passionate-wise;
Her subtle fragrance recognise
And hear the whispers of her hair! . . .
“Her sun has set; but still, sublime,
She is a star, of God a part;
She is a petal at the heart
Of the eternal flower of Time.
“I triumph so beyond regret,
I win her immortality:
Where, Death, your vaunted victory?
Where, Grave, your sting? And yet — and yet——!”
Arthur Adams
(1872-1936)
And Yet
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