Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Paris indeed

paris indeed

haven't been writing HERE because of living THERE, as in Paris, for a thesis defense, MUCH ENJOYED, on surrealist exhibitions in North America (and Mexico, some stress upon), from 1930, 31 --first, Wadsworth Atheneum, in Hartford, directed by Chick Austin (whose daughter, Sally Austin, made Joseph Cornell-like boxes, and whose biography, brief, I was asked to write), and then Julien Levy, in New York, more famous, and where the excitement  continued. Dali's entrance into America sent the surrealism publicity into tailspin, AND made the movement more (perhaps alas) acceptable to the cultural atmosphere. Then the really big things, in 1940... 1960, around which this thesis -- interestingly written by Susan Power -- turns. I loved being on the jury, because you get flown over and hotelled for 3 days, AND you get to see the people you wanted to see anyway, AND you feel part of things. And lunch at La Palette, just munching outside... and Le Procope, which I like FAR LESS than the old standby on Monsieur-le-Prince, oh what's it's name, you know if you are reading this, POLIDOR,  no reservations, and then you can rush down the street to the cinema,
 and having breakfast at Le Rostand, across from the Luxembourg gardens, best croissants in Paris, and the hot milk in a little jug...
In fact, it was so grand just wandering around one's Paris streets (for me, only the 5th and the 6th arrondissements), and seeing Marilyn Hacker, great Translator of poetry, Monique Chefdor, world's authority on Eugene Guillevic, the Breton poet, and also Blaise Cendrars, and so on, including my favorite poet living in France, Yves Bonnefoy, and the wonderful art writer, Alain Madeleine-Perdrillat, and staying a bit -- ah, too short, with Marie-Claire Dumas, my French sister, because of her generosity from way back, she who knows everything about Robert Desnos, easily the greatest surrealist poet, to my mind. AND we went to see Pierrette Leveque, who is involved in the rue Blomet, and the idea of Blomet Paradiso, hope someday to have an exhibition about that -- am now writing on Miro and his poet friends...when I dislodge myself from Pierre Reverdy and all the translations of his greatest poems I am gathering....
ah, the joys of caring about poetry!
And now back in New York, how not to love being here? the park and the well everything...

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