Winter, Sebald, Norwich, Poetry Marathon, Soju, & more
Hendrick Avercamp, Winter Landscape, 1610, Rijksmuseum
A quiet evening spent looking out at the wintery landscape here in Brooklyn while spending time online, nomadically moving from one site to another, finally reading Le Monde’s political pages, then its book section keeping Pierre Assouline’s blog La république des livres for last, which in turn led me to a strange and marvelous blog the last post of which opened with the Avercamp winter landscape reproduced above. The bloggiste en question is someone named Sébastien Chevalier. The blog is called “Norwich” and speaks of, it says, “Du temps et des lieux, chez W. G. Sebald et quelques autres,” i.e. “the times and places of W.G. Sebald and some others.” Quite a find — & if you have any interest in Sebald & have some French, & like maps and strange visuals and Borgesian travel, check it out!
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The day before yesterday — i.e. New Year’s Day — we (Miles, Nicole & I) took part in the 36th St Marks Poetry Project marathon reading — with Nicole also working the foodline by cooking crêpes for some 4 hours. Much fun was had — some excellent, excellent readings & performances, a lot of good talk with old friends & new acquaintances. I can’t resist to send you to Nicole’s Collectages blog, where you can watch the video of her and Miles’ performance, and read up on the previous night’s debaucheries in K-town’s Soju bars. Enjoy.
“Todesguge/Deathfugue”
“Interglacial Narrows (Poems 1915-2021)”
“Always the Many, Never the One: Conversations In-between, with Florent Toniello”
“Conversations in the Pyrenees”
“A Voice Full of Cities: The Collected Essays of Robert Kelly.” Edited by Pierre Joris & Peter Cockelbergh
“An American Suite” (Poems) —Inpatient Press
“Arabia (not so) Deserta” : Essays on Maghrebi & Mashreqi Writing & Culture
“Barzakh” (Poems 2000-2012)
“Fox-trails, -tales & -trots”
“The Agony of I.B.” — A play. Editions PHI & TNL 2016
“The Book of U / Le livre des cormorans”
“Memory Rose Into Threshold Speech: The Collected Earlier Poetry of Paul Celan”
“Paul Celan, Microliths They Are, Little Stones”
“Paul Celan: Breathturn into Timestead-The Collected Later Poetry.” Translated & with commentary by Pierre Joris. Farrar, Straus & Giroux
(Okay, so glad that I can now look at Nicole’s performance. I missed it New Year’s because I was doing my stint as a volunteer.)
I just have to thank Nicole for her wonderful crepes, for carrying out her grandfather’s tradition and and recipe.
Those yummy crepes, served with a tickle of lemon: Heavenly…delicious…inspiring…part of the secret magic of making the New Year’s Day Poetry Marathon so warm and profound.
I was actually inspired to make crepes myself this morning, because Nicole’s were so good. (Mine weren’t as fabulous, but they hit the spot. Thanks for inspiring me to cook something special…)
Beautiful performance!
(And, thanks for the shout-out for Dave’s Portable Boog Reader)
😉