“While Lawrence Ferlinghetti certainly deserves all of the accolades he’s received, the fact of the matter is there would literally be no City Lights without Nancy Peters. Beyond shepherding City Lights through various fiscal crises and providing the steady anchor that allowed Ferlinghetti to travel the world as a poet and activist, Nancy’s vision as an editor and acumen as a publisher were a vital key to the success and longevity of City Lights Publishers.”
Stadlichter Presse Small Animals Now Published in Bilingual Edition
‘Great beauty from great despair unbends the mind. Achieved or not, that is every poet’s goal.’ Click to enlarge. From the publisher: The author has called his sonnets “wounds that have scabbed over.” They are his rare worldly goods, bringing personal ghosts to life on the page. The poetry critic of the London-based MÜ Magazine, David […]
Bellaart’s ‘Noirs’
For the Pleasure of Charcoal Sketching
Between July 2020 and June 2022, Gerard Bellaart filled 11 spiral-bound, 80-page sketchbooks with charcoal drawings. Some sketches were preparatory for larger drawings and some were studies for paintings. But most were for the sake of sketching itself. Of the nearly 1,000 drawings, he selected more than 100 for this chapbook.
The Eloquence of Erich Maria Remarque’s Last Novel
After reading the prologue, tell me you’re not drawn into this refugee’s tale:
“Behind me lay a long and perilous road, the Via Dolorosa of all those who had fled from the Hitler regime. … Even after leaving Germany we were not safe. Only a very few of us had valid passports or visas. When the police caught us, we were thrown into jail and deported. Without papers we could not work legally or stay in one place for long. We were perpetually on the move.”
Jamie MacGillivray: The Renegade’s Journey
John Sayles Talks About His New Novel and a Lot More
Earlier this month he was at The Poisoned Pen Bookstore in Scottsdale, Arizona. Next stop Wednesday, March 15, in Salisbury, Connecticut.
Malanga to Make a Rare Combo Poetry-Film Appearance
Anyone who has seen the 1954 movie “Friendly Persuasion” might wonder if Gerard Malanga was the precocious child actor cast for comic relief with a pet goose that keeps chasing him around the family farm.
Of course he wasn’t. That was Richard Eyer. Malanga is the noted poet and photographer who once was part of Andy Warhol’s inner circle.
Elsa Triolet on Mayakovsky’s Precious ‘Poetic Reserves’
Elsa Triolet’s short memoir of Vladimir Mayakovsky gives both an intimate view of the man and a broader sense of the stature he enjoyed in his time. What intrigued me most, however, was the chapter about a little book he wrote, “How Verses Are Made.”
Small Animals / Kleine Tiere
‘Great beauty from great despair unbends the mind. Achieved or not, that is every poet’s goal.’
Erich Maria Remarque
All Quiet on East 57th Street
Now that the German-language adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque’s famous 1928 antiwar novel “All Quiet on the Western Front” has won best picture at the British equivalent of the Oscars, the staff here thought it worth noting that Remarque lived for the last 20 years of his life neither in Germany nor the UK but on Manhattan’s East Side.
David Erdos: ‘The Batchelor’s Promise’
‘Brutally Honest, Brave, Possibly Foolish . . .’
‘Death is divorce in its most basic sense …
This is how it was with my parents
Who when I was 15 split apart
Bound by the need to move on
Despite the connection between them …’
And Now . . . for a Lively Change of Pace
Nine years ago William Osborne posted this trailer for Cybeline, a multimedia music theater work performed by Abbie Conant with music by Osborne. The staff finds it remarkable at how fresh it remains.
Stadtgelichter Nr. 15
A Serious Poetry Journal . . . Showed Up in the Mail
For more than 25 years, Stadtlichter Presse has brought out poetry books in bilingual (German-English) editions with a special interest in Beat literature and its post-Beat legacy.
‘He told ambling, long-limbed tales . . .’
SHOOTER: A Fragment is the tale of Jerry Crane, a photographer for the tabloids. Born Jiri Kiranek, he’s a truthtelling fabulist, tall and lean, a refugee from wealth and privilege. In his younger days he was often high on speed, always riffing, full of imagination. Having reached almost middle age, he still has a facile street-smart intellect. He tells ambling, long-limbed tales. It’s a peculiar form of truth-telling. When he decided to ambush Rod Bangs for a tabloid shoot, he expected the usual rock star excess: party drugs, sex, fancy toys, bad taste. But white supremacy did not make the list … until now.
The Complete Poems: 1965-2020
Michael Butterworth’s Radical Legacy in Verse
For more than half a century the dissident British author, editor, and underground publisher Michael Butterworth has been “a quiet unobtrusive voice in poetry, with roots both in the small press poetry journals of the 1960s and ’70s and New Wave science fiction.”
‘Shall we be lighthearted . . .’
‘Or shall we / bite our elbows / to the bone?’
A Great One Died 11 Years Ago Today
And there he was in a dream. We are in some restaurant, a San Francisco dream. He gives me a manuscript to read on elegant Mary Beach / Claude Pélieu stationery with raised black lettering in delicate type. He’s terminal. We both know it. He’s being objective about it. He indicates, somehow without words, not to get worked up about it. Take it as it comes. Happens to all. End of dream.
Are We Past Those Pandemic Ghosts?
A pub directly across the street from the main branch of the New York Public Library has replaced the pub that was shuttered there during the pandemic. Doorway artwork now invites the “thirsty” in for a drink, replacing the two ghostly figures seen there previously.