The Prince and the Genie

by John MacCombie.

A classic example of how every group - the surrealists, Satanists, symbolists, nihilists, existentialists, etc. - eventually tries to "claim" Rimbaud. Paul Claudel was no exception. In this book, John MacCombie demonstrates that, rather than Rimbaud the voyant, the homosexual, the sordid, sadistic, inconoclastic enfant terrible, it was Rimbaud the mystic, the spiritual seeker, the subtle poetic technician who influenced the deeply religious Claudel and who was the younger poet's poetic model as well as spiritual mentor.

Illuminations

Translation by John Ashbery.

The long-awaited Ashbery translation. My copy is a "not for sale" proof copy which was, of course, sold to me on ebay. A paperback version of a book that so far exists only in hardcover, which makes this copy something of a rarity.

The translation is crisp, vibrant, lively and every other thing you'd expect from an Ashbery translation. Having said that, it's probably not quite as radical as I might have expected. But it's very, very good.

Here is Ashbery's version of my favourite Illumination, "H":

All the monstrosities violate the atrocious gestures of Hortense. Her solitude is the erotic mechanism; her lassitude, the energy of love. Under the surveillance of a childhood she has been, at various epochs, the passionate hygiene of the races. Her door is open to human misery. There, the morality of present day beings is disincorporated into her passion or her action -- O terrible shudder of novice lovers, on the bloody ground and under the illuminating hydrogen! find Hortense.

Magnificent!

There is a superb review, here: http://quarterlyconversation.com/illuminations-by-arthur-rimbaud

My Poor Arthur

by Elisabeth Hanson.

Early biography. I picked up my copy in a second-hand store in Sydney, about twenty years ago. It's a pretty battered copy. I could doubtless find a superior copy online, but to me it has always been about the contents of a book, not the physicality of it.

The title, of course, refers to a line written by Madame Rimbaud to describe her son, after his death. "My poor Arthur, who never asked for anything ..."

The Poetics of Indeterminacy

By Marjorie Perloff.

Perloff argues that the map of Modernist poetry needs to be redrawn to include a central tradition which cannot properly be situated within the Romantic-Symbolist tradition dominating the early twentieth century.

Essentially, Perloff points out the limits of a linear narrative.

A very good book

5 Poems After Rimbaud

by Sean Bonney.


Five poem broadside from Grasp Press, 2010. The poems are quite good, too.


According to the information on the back of the broadside the poems originally appeared at http://abandonedbuildings.blogspot.com/


Second printing of a mere 30 copies.

A Season In Hell, Illuminations, Poems, Last Lines

I won this miniature book on ebay, part of a series called The Miniature Classics Library. It measures a mere two inches by one and one half inches. This one was published in Madrid, Spain in 2003, though the price written in pencil inside the front cover reads "4 pounds". It's quite a pleasing little edition and, whilst I don't carry it around with me in my shirt pocket, one could easily do so.


The translation, though uncredited, is that of Paul Schmidt.


It is exactly these type of quirky items that makes trawling ebay, worthwhile.

Rimbaud In Abyssinia

by Alain Borer.

The first book that looked primarily at Rimbaud's African years. It was groundbreaking work at the time. Its basic thesis, however, that Rimbaud was a failed businessman during these African ventures was, essentially discredited by the later work done by Charles Nicholl in his very excellent Somebody Else: Rimbaud In Africa.

Nevertheless, this is an essential book if you are even remotely interested in Rimbaud's non-poet life.