Not long before the pandemic this was the artwork at the entryway to a pub on Fifth Avenue located directly across the street from the entrance to the main branch of the New York Public Library, famed for its vast holdings and archival collections. Like many enterprises here in the city, the pub is now gone. So is the artwork. It’s reassuring to report, however, that the library and its holdings are still there.
Youth + Talent + Dedication
Amélie, An Artist in Her Own Right
A precociously talented student artist — Amélie by name — drew our attention in 2020 with her studies of a Daumier drawing and again with studies of natural forms. Now 15, she has achieved such splendid results that it is perhaps no exaggeration to say she is already an artist. Recent drawings and sculptures testify to that.
‘I Am That I Am’ ‘I Am That, Am I?’
Brion Gysin and the Divine Tautology
“The whole idea of the permutations came to me visually on seeing the so-called Divine Tautology in print. It looked wrong, to me, non-symmetrical. The biggest word, That, belonged in the middle but all I had to do was switch the last two words and It asked a question: ‘I Am That, Am I?’ The rest followed.” — Brion Gysin
The Brooklyn-based publisher DABA Press is bringing out the most complete edition of Brion Gysin’s permutated poems published and recorded to date. The book is gorgeous to look at, sets the poems in their rightful context, and does justice to Ian Sommerville’s computer collaboration.
Q&A with Lucy Glendinning
Extraordinary British Sculptor Works from Inside Out
Her sculptures, to be exhibited at Art Miami, have a striking “innerness,” an interiority of gaze and stance, as well as a primal quality that seems a function of their feathery or furry surfaces. In all their variations, they express a human connection to animal origins.
‘so unlike the realm of / love and ardor’
In a world of trouble
so unlike the realm of
love and ardor
the singularity of death
has come to this —
we shrink,
abandoned, into history. …
Paul Valéry Reminds Us
‘A Poem Is Never Finished, Only Abandoned’
Mine have never been finished either. And so . . . an updated, revised, redesigned, and expanded collection in both hardcover and paperback editions is out now, with a new title: “All That Would Ever After Not Be Said.”
William Burroughs Reminds Us
‘The Rulers of This Most Insecure of All Worlds Are Rulers By Accident, Inept Frightened Pilots’
‘Not one-man rule or rule of aristocracy or plutocracy but a small group elevated to positions of power by random pressures and subject to political and economic factors that leave little room for decisions. They are representatives of abstract forces that reach power through surrender of self.’
The Uninhibited Bite of Dutch Mordant
With an artist as prolific and versatile as Gerard Bellaart, it is not easy to pinpoint his “style.” His paintings bring a dream world out of hiding. His drawings look spontaneous. But you can be sure they are supported by years of deep training. You can also be sure they are not “easy” viewing.
Mustill Artworks Newly Archived at Emory University
Norman Ogue Mustill (1931-2013) was an American artist, who primarily used collage as his medium. He was born in Montreal, Canada and was educated at the Montreal Museum of Art and Ecole Des Beaux Artes. During the 1950s, Mustill lived in New York (New York), Los Angeles (California), and Mexico City (Mexico). He moved to San Francisco (California) in 1960, which led to collaboration with filmmakers, painters, and poets of the beat generation. Mustill was not interested in being a public figure and avoided the art world. He adopted the middle name “Ogue,” which he took from the fashion magazine Vogue to protest the fashionable.” — Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library
Moloko to Publish Dutch Mordant
“All drawing from the imagination I’d consider a form of automatic drawing; if it exists, it will exist only for the first time. … I think [my images] arise from the instinctive tendency to not look for semblances or analogies. Meaning, to find all that happens in spite of me—imagination versus verisimilitude. One forever seems to be looking for a dimension not directly visible and through the technique at one’s disposal express the sensation that evokes.” — Gerard Bellaart
Heathcote Williams’s Credo
‘If Poetry Isn’t Revolutionary, It’s Nothing’
This is a collectors alert. Open Head Press is about to release “Juggling Ghosts”, a series of pamphlets of previously published poems and essays by Heathcote Williams in a slipcased, numbered edition of 500 copies about his encounters — live and otherwise — with William Burroughs, Harold Pinter, Dylan Thomas, Sinclair Beiles, Christopher Marlowe, Lord Buckley, Christopher Smart, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Michael Lesser, Alan Turing, Diogenes of Synope, William Blake and the Tigers of Wrath.
Making a Chapbook of Poems and Drawings
A high-speed look at the dummy shows the pages in sequence. See the spreads on Barcham Green paper ready for sewn binding.
Mustill’s ‘Critic’ in Motion
Norman O. Mustill made “Critic” on paper, in 1971. He didn’t put much trust in critics. The musical symbols cascade down the page, the letter decays beneath them, and they all disappear into nothingness. I take it as satirical comment.
Essays in the Works About That ‘Bastard Angel’
The late poet Harold Norse, né Rosen, was a born maverick. His splendid Memoirs of a Bastard Angel is a delicious account of his life and involvement with too many literary legends to name. But what the hell, here goes: William Carlos Williams and W.H. Auden, Tennessee Williams and James Baldwin, Robert Graves and Paul Bowles, Anaïs Nin and Dylan Thomas, William S. Burroughs and Charles Bukowski. I’ll stop there. Now Clemson University Press is planning to bring out a collection of personal and scholarly essays about his poetry and his life, edited by A. Robert Lee and Douglas Field.
Bloggers, Poets, Writers . . .
“Words cascade like an avalanche in spring. Try chewing your pencil and staring out the window in despair every so often.” — Wislawa Szymborska
‘Ode to Idealism’
A Contemporaneous ‘Day of Imagination’ in Brooklyn
Contemporaneous, an ensemble of some two dozen musicians, started out at Bard College as the brainchild of a pair of undergrads. Now, more than a decade later, the ensemble is based in New York City and continues to thrive professionally. It will present its largest production to date on Sept. 18. Billed as The Day of Imagination, the program at the Irondale Center in Brooklyn will feature three sets over a full day, four world premieres, six hours of music, and 50 artists.
‘Runaway’: New Folio from Cold Turkey Press
Great beauty from great despair unbends the mind. In a pointless hostile universe that is every poet’s goal.