Fleurs du Mal Magazine
Sydney
In her grey majesty of ancient stone
She queens it proudly, though the sun’s caress
Her piteous cheeks, ravished of bloom, confess,
And her dark eyes his bridegroom glance have know.
Robed in her flowing parks, serene, alone,
She fronts the east; and with the tropic stress
Her smooth brow ripples into weariness;
Yet hers the sea for footstool, and for throne
A continent predestined. Round her trails
The turbid squalor of her streets, and dim
Into the dark heat-haze her domes flow up;
Her long lean fingers, with their grey-old nails,
Giving her thirsty lips to the cool brim
Of the bronze beauty of her harbour’s cup.
Arthur Adams
(1872-1936)
Sydney
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Since 1985, Gregor Schneider has occupied an abandoned house next to one of the largest chasms in the world—the lignite-rich surface mine near Rheydt-Mönchengladbach known as the Garzweiler—which is also next to where his parents ran their business.
In the building, which he named Haus u r, he proceeded to build rooms within rooms.
These eerie spaces are constructed from materials salvaged from the houses that were to be crushed by juggernaut-sized bucket-wheel excavators to expand the mine.
With this publication, art historian Raimund Stecker reconnects with his first visit to Haus u r. Schneider and Stecker have known each other since the artist’s student years at the Münster Academy of Art in the late 1980s.
In 1992, Stecker curated one of Schneider’s first exhibitions, and has closely followed his career ever since.
This book is published on the occasion of Konschthal Esch’s inaugural exhibition, curated by Christian Mosar.
# new books
Gregor Schneider
by Raimund Stecker (Ed.)
January 2022,
German/English
13.4×20.3 cm
112 pages
18 b/w ill.
softcover
ISBN 978-3-95679-635-7
Sternberg Press
Design: Cropmark
Copublisher: Konschthal Esch
Available
€28.00
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Venedig
Ich bin so krank und sterben möcht’ ich gerne
Hier in Venedig, und begraben liegen
In dieser Flut, dem Ruheplatz der Sterne!
In jeder Nacht pfleg’ ich mich drauf zu wiegen,
Und ihrer Tiefe schwärzeste Geschichten
Behorch’ ich dann mit schaurigem Vergnügen. –
Beschloß der Rat der Drei, geheim zu richten
Ein Opfer, des Geschrei’s im Volke wegen,
Und galt’s ein schnell und spurenlos Vernichten:
Da glitt um Mitternacht, dem Mond entgegen,
Die Gondel aus der Seufzerbrücke Schatten,
So schwarz und still, wie alle Gondeln pflegen.
Und lautlos durch Galeeren und Fregatten
Kroch sie hindurch, bis wo des Meeres Enge
Sich dehnt zu breiteren, smaragdnen Matten.
Dort hielt sie still. Dann aber war’s, als sprenge
Ein dumpfer Fall die kaum bewegte Fläche,
Und leise Kreise zitterten in Menge.
Auch war’s den Schiffern, die im Nachtgespräche
An Lido’s Ufern stellten ihre Stricke,
Als ob ein Schrei im Wellenschlag zerbräche.
Die stille Gondel aber schwamm zurücke,
Wie sie gekommen, spurlos und verborgen,
Und schwand im Schattenstreif der Seufzerbrücke:
Doch der Verbrecher starb am andern Morgen.
Moritz von Strachwitz
(1822 – 1847)
Venedig
Moritz Karl Wilhelm Graf von Strachwitz (1822-1847), deutscher Dichter
Lithographie von Josef Kriehuber, 1841
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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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Joris-Karl Huysmans (1848-1907) wordt door velen tot de fine fleur van de Franse letteren gerekend. Zelf omschreef hij zich vaak als een ‘Parijse Hollander’.
Met het hoofd in Frankrijk, met het hart in Nederland en met de pen in een spagaat werkte deze auteur aan een uitzonderlijk oeuvre, doorspekt met verwijzingen naar – en reflecties op – de Nederlandse cultuur, volksaard, schilderkunst en religie.
Dit boek brengt deze Hollandse kant van Huysmans in kaart. Aan de hand van zijn biografie (Huysmans en Nederland), zijn kritische onthaal in de literaire journalistiek (Huysmans in Nederland) en zijn thematiek (Nederland in Huysmans), wordt een rijk en verrassend beeld gevormd van deze sleutelfiguur uit het Franse fin-de-siècle.
Huysmans omschreef zichzelf graag als een ‘Parijse Hollander’. Met zijn ene been in het artistieke leven van de Franse hoofdstad en met zijn andere in de Brabantse klei, werkte deze auteur aan een uitzonderlijk oeuvre doorspekt met verwijzingen naar – en reflecties op – de Nederlandse cultuur, volksaard, schilderkunst en religie. Dit boek brengt deze Hollandse kant van Huysmans in kaart. Aan de hand van zijn biografie, zijn kritische onthaal in de literaire journalistiek en zijn thematiek, wordt een rijk en verrassend beeld gevormd van deze sleutelfiguur uit het fin-de-siècle. Charles-Georges Huijsmans. Joris-Karl Huysmans. Met het hoofd in Frankrijk, met het hart in Nederland, met de pen in een spagaat.
# new books
Joris-Karl Huysmans (1848-1907)
Een Parijse Hollander
Auteur: Marc Smeets
Taal: Nederlands
ISBN: 9789087049256
NUR codes: 654 , 647
Jaar van uitgave: 2021
Druk 1
Uitgeverij Verloren
Bindwijze: paperback
Aantal bladzijdes: 226
Met illustraties
€20,00
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From the creator of UlyssesGuide.com, this essential guide to James Joyce’s masterpiece weaves together plot summaries, interpretive analyses, scholarly perspectives, and historical and biographical context to create an easy-to-read, entertaining, and thorough review of Ulysses.
In The Guide to James Joyce’s Ulysses, Patrick Hastings provides comprehensive support to readers of Joyce’s magnum opus by illuminating crucial details and reveling in the mischievous genius of this unparalleled novel.
Written in a voice that offers encouragement and good humor, this guidebook maintains a closeness to the original text and supports the first-time reader of Ulysses with the information needed to successfully finish and appreciate the novel.
Patrick Hastings is the English Department Chair at Gilman School in Baltimore, Maryland, where he teaches sophomores and seniors and coaches the JV soccer team. He began creating UlyssesGuide.com in the summer of 2016, and that project evolved into The Guide to James Joyce’s Ulysses. His interest in Joyce began during the summer of 2003, when he lived and worked at Shakespeare & Company Bookstore in Paris. He has been published in James Joyce Quarterly and has presented at conferences on topics ranging from classroom use of digital humanities to hip hop and postmodernism. He grew up in Atlanta, Georgia.
# new books
The Guide to James Joyce’s Ulysses
by Patrick Hastings
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
Publication date: 1 Feb 2022
Paperback
328 pages
Language : English
ISBN-10 : 142144349X
ISBN-13 : 978-1421443492
Reading age: 18 years and up
€ 26.00
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In this powerful collection of interviews, Noam Chomsky exposes the problems of our world today, as we stand in this period of monumental change, preparing for a more hopeful tomorrow.
‘For the left, elections are a brief interlude in a life of real politics, a moment to ask whether it’s worth taking time off to vote . . . Then back to work. The work will be to move forward to construct the better world that is within reach.’
He sheds light into the phenomenon of right-wing populism, and exposes the catastrophic nature and impact of authoritarian policies on people, the environment and the planet as a whole. He captures the dynamics of the brutal class warfare launched by the masters of capital to maintain and even enhance the features of a dog-eat-dog society. And he celebrates the recent unprecedented mobilizations of millions of people internationally against neoliberal capitalism, racism and police violence.
We stand at a precipice and we must fight to pull the world back from it.
Noam Chomsky is Institute Professor in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston. A member of the American Academy of Science, he has published widely in both linguistics and current affairs. His books include At War with Asia, Towards a New Cold War, Fateful Triangle: The U. S., Israel and the Palestinians, Necessary Illusions, Hegemony or Survival, Deterring Democracy, Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy and Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media.
C. J. Polychroniou is a regular contributor to Truthout as well as a member of Truthout’s Public Intellectual Project. He has published several books and his articles have appeared in a variety of journals, magazines, newspapers, and popular news websites.
# new books
The Precipice: Neoliberalism, the Pandemic
and the Urgent Need for Radical Change
by Noam Chomsky
and C. J. Polychroniou
Publisher : Penguin Books Ltd
June 24, 2021
Language : English
ISBN-10: 0241993938
ISBN-13: 978-0241993934
Paperback
368 pages
€ 7,99
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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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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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The Eviction
In early morning twilight, raw and chill,
Damp vapours brooding on the barren hill,
Through miles of mire in steady grave array
Threescore well-arm’d police pursue their way;
Each tall and bearded man a rifle swings,
And under each greatcoat a bayonet clings:
The Sheriff on his sturdy cob astride
Talks with the chief, who marches by their side,
And, creeping on behind them, Paudeen Dhu
Pretends his needful duty much to rue.
Six big-boned labourers, clad in common freize,
Walk in the midst, the Sheriff’s staunch allies;
Six crowbar men, from distant county brought, –
Orange, and glorying in their work, ’tis thought,
But wrongly,- churls of Catholics are they,
And merely hired at half a crown a day.
The hamlet clustering on its hill is seen,
A score of petty homesteads, dark and mean;
Poor always, not despairing until now;
Long used, as well as poverty knows how,
With life’s oppressive trifles to contend.
This day will bring its history to an end.
Moveless and grim against the cottage walls
Lean a few silent men: but someone calls
Far off; and then a child ‘without a stitch’
Runs out of doors, flies back with piercing screech,
And soon from house to house is heard the cry
Of female sorrow, swelling loud and high,
Which makes the men blaspheme between their teeth.
Meanwhile, o’er fence and watery field beneath,
The little army moves through drizzling rain;
A ‘Crowbar’ leads the Sheriff’s nag; the lane
Is enter’d, and their plashing tramp draws near,
One instant, outcry holds its breath to hear
“Halt!” – at the doors they form in double line,
And ranks of polish’d rifles wetly shine.
The Sheriff’s painful duty must be done;
He begs for quiet-and the work’s begun.
The strong stand ready; now appear the rest,
Girl, matron, grandsire, baby on the breast,
And Rosy’s thin face on a pallet borne;
A motley concourse, feeble and forlorn.
One old man, tears upon his wrinkled cheek,
Stands trembling on a threshold, tries to speak,
But, in defect of any word for this,
Mutely upon the doorpost prints a kiss,
Then passes out for ever. Through the crowd
The children run bewilder’d, wailing loud;
Where needed most, the men combine their aid;
And, last of all, is Oona forth convey’d,
Reclined in her accustom’d strawen chair,
Her aged eyelids closed, her thick white hair
Escaping from her cap; she feels the chill,
Looks round and murmurs, then again is still.
Now bring the remnants of each household fire;
On the wet ground the hissing coals expire;
And Paudeen Dhu, with meekly dismal face,
Receives the full possession of the place.
William Allingham
(1824 – 1889)
The Eviction
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In her first poetry collection since the award-winning Countries of the Body, Tishani Doshi returns to the body as a central theme, but extends beyond the corporeal to challenge the more metaphysical borders of space and time.
These poems are powerful meditations born on the joineries of life and death, union and separation, memory and dream, where lovers speak to each other across the centuries, and daughters wander into their mothers’ childhoods.
As much about loss as they are about reclamation, Doshi’s poems guide us through an ‘underworld of longing and deliverance’, making the exhilarating claim that through the act of vanishing, we may be shaped into existence again.
Everything Begins Elsewhere was followed by two further collections, Girls Are Coming Out of the Woods in 2018, and A God at the Door in 2021.
These poems move in different directions, as true poetry should. We hear in them joy and sadness, praise and lament, love and disenchantment – simultaneously. Tishani Doshi speaks courageously about herself, about her choices, about the growing shadows. It’s a beautiful book’ – Adam Zagajewski
Tishani Doshi is an award-winning poet and dancer of Welsh-Gujarati descent. She was born in Madras, India, in 1975. She received her masters in writing from the Johns Hopkins University in America and worked in London in advertising before returning to India in 2001 to work with the choreographer Chandralekha, with whom she performed on many international stages. An avid traveller, she has been trekking in the Ethiopian Bale Mountains, visited Antarctica with a group of high-school students, and documented the largest transgender gathering in Koovakam. She has written about her travels in newspapers such as the Guardian, International Herald Tribune, The Hindu and the Financial Times.
She won an Eric Gregory Award for her poetry in 2001. In 2006, she won the All-India Poetry Competition, and her debut collection, Countries of the Body (Aark Arts), won the Forward Prize for Best First Collection. Her first novel, The Pleasure Seekers (Bloomsbury, 2010), was longlisted for the Orange Prize and shortlisted for the Hindu Fiction Award, and has been translated into several languages. Her second poetry collection, Everything Begins Elsewhere, was published by Bloodaxe Books in 2012. Fountainville: new stories from the Mabinogion was published by Seren in 2013. Her third collection, Girls Are Coming Out of the Woods (Bloodaxe Books, 2018), is a Poetry Book Society Recommendation and was shortlisted for the Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry 2018 in the UK, and for the poetry category of the 2019 Firecracker Awards in the US. Her second novel, Small Days and Nights (Bloomsbury, 2019), was shortlisted for the RSL Ondaatje Prize. Her fourth poetry collection, A God at the Door (Bloodaxe Books, 2021), was shortlisted for the 2021 Forward Prize for Best Collection.
Tishani Doshi lives on a beach between two fishing villages in Tamil Nadu with her husband and dogs. She is currently Visiting Associate Professor of Practice, Literature and Creative Writing at New York University, Abu Dhabi. For more information, see her website www.tishanidoshi.com.
# more poetry
Tishani Doshi
Everything Begins Elsewhere
2012
Paperback
Pages: 72
ISBN: 9781852249366
Bloodaxe Books Ltd
£10.99
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