Vanitas Magazine: December 2008

Saturday, December 20, 2008

Introducing the Vanitas Blog! + Vanitas 3 Launch, September 10, 2008

Welcome to the blog for Vanitas! We are going to put up some actions relating to the publishing, and also open space for guest bloggers. Right now, I am writing from São Paulo, where we are, taking in some late afternoon light and Antarctica Cerveja Pilsen. Exciting recent events (that means this fall — Vanitas/Libellum embraces the slowness of life — as Rudy Burckhardt proposed, updating the ancient dictum, ars brevis, vita longa — more on slowness in the fullness of time, but digressions and interjections are extremely useful, v. Herodotus) — include the launch for Vanitas issue 3 at the Bowery Poetry Club; the publication of Basil King's In The Field Where Daffodils Grow; the appearance of Vanitas/Libellum at the Small Publishers Fair in London and the Editions/Artists Book Fair in NYC. Upcoming totally to be savored: the publication of Norma Cole's book of poems, Natural Light; issue 4 of Vanitas; and a book of new poems by Tom Clark.

To begin with the launch:
September 10, 2008 at the Bowery Poetry Club
Jack Pierson, Master of Ceremonies
Readings and Performances by

Elaine Equi
Cliff Fyman
Alix Lambert
Linda Herlihy reads Morgan Russell
Charles North
Raphael Rubinstein

Cyro Baptista percussion solo

Vincent, Isaac, Oliver Katz & Bob Holman with Cyro Baptista

It is the Popular Song issue, and there were great performances to be savored: Elaine reading her "Fool On The Hill" poem, Raphael reading his poems based on Ian Curtis and the Manchester sound; Morgan Russell's "Ginger Cat" read by Linda Herlihy; Charles North excellent, Cliff Fyman revealing; Alix Lambert read a tiny poem and screened a mysterious, underwater film with crescendoing sound. Cyro Baptista regaled us with a solo of his homemade percussion instruments, sampled and layered in a rainforest-like life-form. We had hoped for Susan Wheeler to join us to read her terrific "Penny Lane" poem, but traffic prevented her collaboration. She was missed.

Jack Pierson at Vanitas 3 Launch

Elaine Equi reading at Vanitas 3 Launch

Raphael Rubinstein reading at Vanitas 3 Launch

Bob Holman & Cyro Baptista at Vanitas 3 Launch

Raphael's Shoes!

More soon!

Vanitas 7 : The Self

For the seventh and final issue of VANITAS, we examine the idea of The Self. The work featured in issue 7 tests just how far the self can be stretched, partially as an exercise in self-expression, partially in search of what used to be called experience. Self, not so much in personae as in faces, in the sense the Mods used the term — referring to someone with style, perhaps within a culture of style, but an individual expression of that culture, or perhaps someone who can seemingly invent her own style, just standing there.

This issue features new work by Bruce Andrews, Mary Jo Bang, Anselm Berrigan, Steve Dickison, Danielle Dutton, Tonya Foster, John Godfrey, Robert Hunter, Paolo Javier, Ann Lauterbach, Kimberly Lyons, Dan Machlin, Gerard Malanga, Judith Malina, Filip Marinovich, Harry Matthews, Michael McClure, Anna Moschovakis, Stephen Motika, Jennifer Moxley, Michael Palmer, Aram Saroyan, Lewis Warsh, and many more. Featuring artwork by Diana Michener, Carol Szymanski, Gerard Malanga, Rudy Burckhardt, and Vivien Bittencourt.

Available through Small Press Distribution

Available from Libellum !!!

Tom Clark: The New World
Tom Clark: TRANS/VERSIONS
We are excited to announce the publication of not just one but two books by Tom Clark — first and foremost his remarkable collection of new poems, The New World. In these poems, Clark trains his limpid style and eye on current street life in Berkeley, California. Clark's observational skill is informed by acute social critique and most significantly a heightened sense of time's rapid passage. There is personal history here, too, in poems to Philip Whalen and Robert Duncan. Youth is seen in retrospect, working up to present tense, ultimate doubts as it ends, or seems to. This book is accompanied by Clark's TRANS/VERSIONS, seven poems that are translations or homages to modern masters. Available through Small Press Distribution.

Recent Libellum Publications : Norma Cole and Basil King

Norma Cole : Natural Light
Norma Cole’s book presents new poems by a modern master of the found and formulated — this book is divided into three sequences: “Pluto’s Disgrace,” “In Our Own Backyard,” and “Collective Memory.” Personal, global, universal: all three shift and interlock in repeating cadences. Their lock on reality provides consolation for these times.

Basil King : In The Field Where Daffodils Grow
Part of King’s series “Learning to Draw” that brings to bear his talents both as writer and visual artist. This book contains the autobiography of a painting and contemplation of some heroes — Hartley, H.D., Williams, Demuth, Giotto, Nijinsky, Emily Carr, Virginia Woolf and her sister, Vanessa Bell. "Paintings stay alive because people look at them. And when they don't, they die."

Available through Small Press Distribution

Vanitas Magazine

Saturday, December 20, 2008

Introducing the Vanitas Blog! + Vanitas 3 Launch, September 10, 2008

Tom Clark blogs on Vanitas Site!!

Vanitas 7 : The Self

Available from Libellum !!!

Recent Libellum Publications : Norma Cole and Basil King

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