CruelestMonth.com

Happy New Year, Y'all!

The New Year approaches and along with it so does the Cruelest Month's second birthday. Conceived on a muggy winter afternoon, born and reared by the imprint Ecco, it stands, in the twilight of 2007, on a crumbling precipice. Where have the posts been? Will the sounding of the New Year also ring the final tolls for this happy little blog? I aver that I don't know. Maybe, maybe not. Possibly. But possibly maybe.

Not that you require me to justify myself, it's only a natural reaction when one knows what they should be doing and they aren't. I think they call that a sin of omission. But let's hope I manage, for your sake and mine, that I keep the posts worthwhile. Is this post worthwhile? Well, it's just got to be.

Anyway, I wanted to thank everyone who has stayed up with the site. Thanks for all your wonderful comments and enthusiasm for poetry and literature. I look forward to all that comes next...with us...together in a committed relationship...sharing everything.

Happy New Year!

Happy Holidays!

Portraits

I've lifted this from a post on Paper Cuts, where you can find more information on the paintings and the video's creator. 

Marginalia

Here are a few things you may want to do, read, or see:

The Academy of American Poets and Viking Penguin present A Tribute to Robert Fagles.
Tuesday, December 11
The Times Center, 242 West 41st Street
7:00 p.m.

From the official copy: "Please join Francine du Plessix Gray, Edith Grossman, Shirley Hazzard, Richard Howard, J.D. McClathcy, Charles McGrath, Gregory Rabassa, David Remnick, and C.K. Williams in this celebration of poet and translator Robert Fagles's repeated success in illuminating the ground between "the features of an ancient author and the expectation of a contemporary reader." 

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Prague Summer Program with Stuart Dybek

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Poets House presents "Our Emily Dickinson: A 21st Century Response by Artists & Writers" @ Tribeca Peforming Arts Center, 199 Chambers Street.  Thursday, December 6, 7:00 p.m.

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Beth Dow - Fieldwork is showing until December 8th at the Jen Bekman gallery at 6 Spring Street.  I popped in over the weekend.  There are thirteen black and white photographs printed in silver platinum-palladium process; the technical aspects of which I can tell you nothing about.  And never forget Jen's generous, nay, genius website 20x200!

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Read, see, and do when Esther K. Smith, author of How to Make Books, speaks at Cooper Union's Great Hall (7 East 7th Street, Free).  Follow the link above for the official copy.

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And when you've finally tuckered yourself out, when all the dishes are drying on the rack, when the hallway lights are off, when the curtains are drawn, but not before you brush your teeth, dip into Sleeping and Waking by Michael O'Brien or The Selected Writings of Daniil Kharms.  Assuming you have a hallway.  Pff.

Preening

You may have gleaned from my posts that I'm learning French or, more accurately, that I'm enrolled in French classes.  Whether there has been any learning remains to be seen.  Happily, I find one of the best modes of instruction is reading French poetry.  (I mean, what do you know?)  Here's a poem from one of my favorite authors, Raymond Queneau.  See what you can understand (translation below).  (And it helps to read the original aloud with a rhee-di-kuh-lus Frauench aghsennt.)

“L’Espèce Humaine”

L’espèce humaine m’a donné
le droit d’être mortel
le devoir d’être civilisé
la conscience humaine
deux yeux qui d’ailleurs ne fonctionnent pas très bien
le nez au milieu du visage
deux pieds deux mains
le langage
l’espèce humaine m’a donné
mon père et ma mère
peut-être des frères on ne sait
des cousins à pelletées
et des arrière-grands-pères
l’espèce humaine m’a donné
ses trois facultés
le sentiment l’intelligence et la volonté
chaque chose de façon modérée
l’espèce humaine m’a donné
trente-deux dents un cœur un foie
d’autres viscères et dix doigts
l’espèce humaine m’a donné
de quoi se dire satisfait

"The Human Species"

The human species has given me
the right to be mortal

the duty to be civilized

a conscience

2 eyes that don't always function very well

a nose in the middle of my face

2 feet 2 hands

speech

the human species has given me

my father and mother

some brothers maybe who knows

a whole mess of cousins

and some great-grandfathers

the human species has given me

its 3 faculties

feeling intellect and will

each in moderation

32 teeth 10 fingers a liver

a heart and some other viscera

the human species has given me

what I'm supposed to be satisfied with

--translated by Teo Savory (The Random House Book of Twentieth Century French Poetry, edited by Paul Auster, 1984)

Now may be an opportune moment to mention exactly how I feel about the book above.  Go buy it!  The introduction is fantastic.  The translations were all crafted by leading literary figures of the 20th century.  The original poems are by the most impeccable French poets.  Plus the books looks très moderne, so people will think you are wicked smart.  That may not have been exactly how I feel, but it dances near enough to the truth.

More of the Man

Will you look at that?  Fanciness for the Buk.  We've got broadsides.  I've got five with your name on them.  Some of you are already rather adept at writing [email protected] (for which I am extremely grateful) but for anyone new to the game, to receive a broadside be one of the first five readers to email me with the subject heading "Buduku Broadside" and with your mailing address in the body of the message.  So here's what I'm talking about: