Swept Up By Art: An Art Critic in the Post-Avant-Garde Era

Literary Nonfiction. Art. "Pioneering critic, on-site art historian, and art community activist of countless causes, Irving Sandler, now in his 90s, is above all the faithful, indefatigable 'griot' of the New York School in all its plural forms and the wisest, most generous elder of his diverse tribe. In this, the second installment of his memoirs, he bears witness to his era as no other writer of his moment and milieu is capable of doing; as if art, even that of the past, was always in the present tense."—Robert Storr, Dean, Yale University School of Art "Irving Sandler's second memoir should be required reading for every young artist and for anyone interested in contemporary art and its histories."—Deborah Kass, Artist "Over the past sixty-five years no one in New York has seen more shows, known more artists, or kept better notes of it all than Irving Sandler. His ubiquity complemented by his lucidity makes his writing nonpareil."—Richard Armstrong, Director, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation

Literature & Fiction

SANDLER, Irving

History & Criticism

Rail Editions

Poetry. Fiction. Translated from the Italian by Evgenia Matt. CEPHALONIA 1943-2001 is a narrative poem in the form of a dialogue or rather, a two- voiced monologue: a fragmented epic, contextualizing the massacre of Italian soldiers perpetrated by German troops in the days following the armistice, signed between Italy and the Allied Forces on September 8, 1943. The voices belong to Ettore B, an Italian soldier fallen in combat, but possibly executed, and Hans D, a German businessman born with a silver spoon in his mouth, that is a man who always lands on his feet, before, during and above all after the war.

Cephalonia

Ballerini, Luigi

Poetry

Poetry. Translated and edited by Vyt Bakaitis. The Brooklyn Rail is excited to present a two-part publication WORDS APART AND OTHERS / MESSAGE AHEAD, from Rail Editions, which celebrates the poetry and artistic legacy of pioneering filmmaker Jonas Mekas (b.1922 Semeniškiai, Lithuania). WORDS APART AND OTHERS is translated and edited by long-time translator and poet Vyt Bakaitis, who brings poems spanning three decades of Mekas's career (1967-1998) to English audiences for the first time. The book opens with a timely and discerning preface by poet Anne Waldman. "In his poems, Jonas Mekas, the legendary filmmaker and artist, takes a Dantean journey down through the circles that surround the self. And like Dante, instead of seeing horizontally from some fixed place to the horizon, Mekas sees vertically, but from the lit world into the depths of experience. Besides enacting a vertiginous examination of the meaning of a life, the striking verticality of his lines functions like an auger 'going / deeper, / deeper / in.'"--Forrest Gander "Just like his films, Jonas Mekas's poems hold his dignity, their pace unfolding as the poet looks down at mountains from a plane. Later he's a bit of an actor sitting on the shore, anticipating darkness, uses 'soul' as singular, remembers being little and those old friends and then it is day, bright yellow and he is beginning again. The colors here are true, the experience is so real. Mekas's poems are a plain joy to read, timely and refreshing like a perfect glass of water."--Eileen Myles

Words Apart and Others

Mekas, Jonas

Literary Nonfiction. The Brooklyn Rail is excited to present a two-part publication WORDS APART AND OTHERS / MESSAGE AHEAD, from Rail Editions, which celebrates the poetry and artistic legacy of pioneering filmmaker Jonas Mekas (b.1922 Semeniškiai, Lithuania). MESSAGE AHEAD is a devoted companion to the collection of poetry, WORDS APART AND OTHERS, and features twenty-one distinguished poets and critics, friends and admirers, reflecting on Mekas's pioneering contribution to contemporary art and culture, as the "godfather of the American avant-garde." "Jonas Mekas. Saying the name brings home a range of agitating mind sensations, mainly an accumulation of often challenging film experience from the last half-century. Practically a rubric for the whole phenomenon of radically new cinema, it's an experienced name, coming to us with compressed suggestion--that is, a name with its own poetics. If saying it now resonates for me in new ways without entirely losing the old ways, it's on account of having read his poetry."--George Quasha "Over his long lifetime, Jonas Mekas has adhered to a radical aesthetic of openness, and the poetry he has made into books and films posts clear-cut markers along the trail as his journey continues...The poet Jonas Mekas creates durable works, and fellow poets gather here to appraise, for clarity and currency, certain of the poems he has published."--Vyt Bakaitis "Oh Jonas, I walk the muddy roads with you, take stock of the brush by the wayside. Note the small blue flowers that pinch through the soil. The poems, like the rush of clouds overhead, are on the move. The sky turns pale then blue then indigo. The lamp is lit, then extinguished. The wind sighs against the eaves of the house, the trees croak in unison, your words are like stepping stones through an ancient river bed, where the waters swirl, then ebb, then fall away to a stony, dry, empty place that suddenly wells up with emotions, so simple, so basic, like bread, like milk, like wine."--Penny Arcade

Message Ahead

Biographies & Memoirs

Arts & Literature

Poetry. Translated by Billie J. Maciunas.The first collection of Florbela Espanca's (1894-1930) incandescent poetry to appear in English, OUR BOOK is a song of the self--a proclamation of love, torment, and erotic exaltation in sonnet form--all intricately linked to the poet's life, mythologized as it transgressed the lot of women in Portuguese society. "To talk about poetry of the first half of the 20th century without talking about Florbela Espanca is to me the same as talking about poetry of the 19th century without talking about Emily Dickinson or Rimbaud."--Jonas Mekas "These haunted sonnets, each elegant and perfectly formed as a tear, drew me close to a poet I had not known, a short-lived woman who called herself Sóror Saudade--as we might say Sister Yearning for all that never was and always will be. She reminds me of a poet of melancholy elegance from the furthest end of the European world, Cavafy: both poets veiled and took strength from the sorrow of their secret loves. Reading Espanca in Maciunas's lucid translations, I think that maybe all real love is forbidden love, and all we can do about it is be beautiful."--Robert Kelly "Florbela Espanca's stirring Symbolist sonnets, gathered in OUR BOOK, ring through time and translation. This Portuguese poet died young and her passionate lyrics attest to a difficult and troubled life as 'a sunset of pain.' She questions existence with striking delicate images ('All our lives the chimera / weaves fragile laces in fragile fingers') yet the poems are strong and soar in a language that seems to transcend place and time, rising through Lisbon's modernist bustle of the 1920s and 1930s. Some of her poems have become Fado songs, a perfect fit for these songs of the heart."--Anne Waldman "A primary pleasure of OUR BOOK is that it offers an encounter with this poet's immense and powerful spiritual progress. An increasingly daring and engaged achievement is a surrender to all experience. With Espanca's employment of emerging selves and ironic play of identification with Portugal's decaying empire, no wonder Pessoa embraced her as a sister. The names Rimbaud, Dickinson, and Juana Inés de la Cruz also come to mind--if not in actual lineage, then in a poetic affinity."--Kimberly Lyons

Our Book: Florbela Espanca Selected Poems

Espanca, Florbela

Poetry. Translated by Billie J. Maciunas.The first collection of Florbela Espanca's (1894-1930) incandescent poetry to appear in English, OUR BOOK is a song of the self--a proclamation of love, torment, and erotic exaltation in sonnet form--all intricately linked to the poet's life, mythologized as it transgressed the lot of women in Portuguese society."To talk about poetry of the first half of the 20th century without talking about Florbela Espanca is to me the same as talking about poetry of the 19th century without talking about Emily Dickinson or Rimbaud."--Jonas Mekas"These haunted sonnets, each elegant and perfectly formed as a tear, drew me close to a poet I had not known, a short-lived woman who called herself Sóror Saudade--as we might say Sister Yearning for all that never was and always will be. She reminds me of a poet of melancholy elegance from the furthest end of the European world, Cavafy: both poets veiled and took strength from the sorrow of their secret loves. Reading Espanca in Maciunas's lucid translations, I think that maybe all real love is forbidden love, and all we can do about it is be beautiful."--Robert Kelly"Florbela Espanca's stirring Symbolist sonnets, gathered in OUR BOOK, ring through time and translation. This Portuguese poet died young and her passionate lyrics attest to a difficult and troubled life as 'a sunset of pain.' She questions existence with striking delicate images ('All our lives the chimera / weaves fragile laces in fragile fingers') yet the poems are strong and soar in a language that seems to transcend place and time, rising through Lisbon's modernist bustle of the 1920s and 1930s. Some of her poems have become Fado songs, a perfect fit for these songs of the heart."--Anne Waldman"A primary pleasure of OUR BOOK is that it offers an encounter with this poet's immense and powerful spiritual progress. An increasingly daring and engaged achievement is a surrender to all experience. With Espanca's employment of emerging selves and ironic play of identification with Portugal's decaying empire, no wonder Pessoa embraced her as a sister. The names Rimbaud, Dickinson, and Juana Inés de la Cruz also come to mind--if not in actual lineage, then in a poetic affinity."--Kimberly Lyons

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Books by Rail Editions

See the best price to sell, buy or rent books by the Rail Editions publisher. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Swept Up By Art: An Art Critic in the Post-Avant-Garde Era

Swept Up By Art: An Art Critic in the Post-Avant-Garde Era

Cephalonia

Words Apart and Others

Message Ahead

Our Book: Florbela Espanca Selected Poems

Our Book: Florbela Espanca Selected Poems