World Food Books

Late Modernism: Politics, Fiction, and the Arts between the World Wars
by Tyrus Miller

1999, English
Softcover, 280 pages, 23.2 x 16.6 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by University of California Press / Berkley

$35.00 - In stock -

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Tyrus Miller breaks new ground in this study of early twentieth-century literary and artistic culture. Whereas modernism studies have generally concentrated on the vital early phases of the modernist revolt, Miller focuses on the turbulent later years of the 1920s and 1930s, tracking the dissolution of modernism in the interwar years.

In the post-World War I reconstruction and the worldwide crisis that followed, Miller argues, new technological media and the social forces of mass politics opened fault lines in individual and collective experience, undermining the cultural bases of the modernist movement. He shows how late modernists attempted to discover ways of occupying this new and often dangerous cultural space. In doing so they laid bare the ruin of the modernist aesthetic at the same time as they transcended its limits.

In his wide-ranging theoretical and historical discussion, Miller relates developments in literary culture to tendencies in the visual arts, cultural and political criticism, mass culture, and social history. He excavates Wyndham Lewis's hidden borrowings from Al Jolson's The Jazz Singer; situates Djuna Barnes between the imagery of haute couture and the intellectualism of Duchamp; uncovers Beckett's affinities with Giacometti's surrealist sculptures and the Bolshevik clowns Bim-Bom; and considers Mina Loy as both visionary writer and designer of decorative lampshades. Miller's lively and engaging readings of culture in this turbulent period reveal its surprising anticipation of our own postmodernity.

VG copy, first ed.

File under: Wyndham Lewis Alberto Giacometti Marcel Duchamp Wyndham Lewis Djuna Barnes Mina Loy Samuel Beckett Tyrus Miller University of California Press / Berkley Literary Theory / Semiotics / Language Art Theory / Essay Fiction / Poetry Out-of-print / Rare Sociology / Politics Surrealism Poetry

Charles Baudelaire: A Lyric Poet in the Era of High Capitalism
by Walter Benjamin

1983, English
Softcover, 192 pages, 20.5 x13 cm
Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Verso / London

$30.00 - In stock -

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Walter Benjamin's classic study of the French lyric poet Charles Baudelaire has been out of print for many years.

"When the book was first published in English in 1973, it received wide critical acclaim. It is a standard text for all readers interested in Benjamin or Baudelaire, and for students of French literature.
Benjamin was probably not exaggerating when he told Adorno that each idea in his book on Baudelaire and nineteenth-century Paris 'had to be wrested away from a realm in which madness lies'"—Susan Sontag

Very Good copy.

File under: Charles Baudelaire Walter Benjamin Verso / London Literary Theory / Semiotics / Language Theory / Essay Poetry Symbolism / Decadence / Fin de siècle Out-of-print / Rare

Milton: Poetical Works
by John Milton

1966, English
Softcover, 580 pages, 19.5 x 13 cm
Out of print title / used / good
Published by Oxford University Press / UK

$20.00 - Out of stock

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1966 Oxford edition of Milton's Poetical Works, featuring cover illustration from Gustave Doré's illustrations to Paradise Lost, 1882.

In this edition of Milton's complete poetical works, Douglas Bush has included all of his poetry in English, as well as in Latin, Greek, and Italian, including scraps of verse in the prose works which Milton did not include in his collected edition, and two important personal passages from the prose. The poems are printed in chronological order, so far as that is known; translations of the Greek, Latin, and Italian verse are by the editor and new to this edition. The text of the poems is modernized in spelling and sufficiently in punctuation to facilitate understanding; where the metre is not a guide to pronunciation, accents are used on a number of possibly puzzling words to indicate the stress.
This edition has been specially prepared with the student in mind. As well as his substantial Introduction dealing with Milton's life and thought and including an account of the prose works, Professor Bush provides headnotes to the individual poems, succinct explanatory notes, and a glossary of recurrent words and allusions in the poems.

Douglas Bush is Gurney Professor of English Literature, emeritus, at Harvard University. His critical books include two on the mythological tradition in English poetry, Science and English Poetry: A Historical Sketch, 1590-1950, and English Literature in the Earlier Seventeenth Century (Oxford History of English Literature)

Average copy.

File under: Gustave Doré John Milton Oxford University Press / UK Poetry Out-of-print / Rare

The Dada Almanac (Atlas Arkhive, 1)
Edited by Richard Huelsenbeck

1993 / 1998, English
Softcover, 176 pages, 23 x 21.6 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Atlas Press / London

$50.00 - In stock -

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First 1993 English edition from the legendary Atlas Press, London, 1998 printing.

"DADA MEANS NOTHING!" So proclaimed Tristan Tzara, the movement's tireless publicist. Yet this did not prevent the most fanatical and talented artists and writers across Europe from rushing to join its ranks. Anti-war, anti-art, anti-dada, from its beginnings in Zurich during the first World War the dadas swept aside the cultural, philosophical and political norms of their time. Utter disgust with a society that had created the war (and then expected to survive the peace) spurred them to ever greater demonstrations of revulsion and derision. Yet it was not all nihilism: many factions worked within the Dada Movement and it was Huelsenbeck's intention to embody most of them in the Dada Almanac. The largest collection of Dadaist texts ever assembled by the movement, it was originally published in 1920 in a mixture of French and German.

The Dada Almanac was truly international in scope, with substantial sections from the Swiss and French sections of the movement, it embodies Dada's failings as well as its successes, its excesses, its seriousness, its idiocy, but above all the anarchic vitality which made it such a vital precondition for so much that followed in the fields of art, literature and general cultural terrorism.

The editors of this first English translation have added dozens of other relevant texts, documents, portraits etc, as well as explaining contemporary references and events and providing biographies of the numerous personalities involved.

Very Good copy, only light wear/age but with some marginalia/underlining.

File under: Richard Huelsenbeck Atlas Press / London Dada Surrealism Out-of-print / Rare Literary Theory / Semiotics / Language Performance / Dance / Theater Fiction / Poetry Poetry

Obliques No. 14-15 : La Femme Surréaliste

1977, French
Softcover, 352 pages, 28 x 22 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Obliques / Paris

$160.00 - Out of stock

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The landmark, over-sized Obliques special double issue, "La Femme Surréaliste", published in Paris in 1977. The French literary journal Obliques (who published special issues on Artaud, Bellmer, Kafka, Klossowski, Vian, Sartre, Robbe-Grillet, Strindberg, Genet...) was the first publisher to present a comprehensive list of the literary and plastic production of Surrealist women with this gorgeous volume, long before the works of surrealist women, as a corpus, began to be more widely studied in the 1980s. Featuring well known names, but also many female artists neglected and seldom mentioned in the recent (strangely narrow-minded) re-evaluation of this period, this beautifully printed issue of Obliques is an incredibly valuable reference on a movement that was decidedly ‘feminine’. Edited by Roger Borderie with Michel Camus, it features profiles on the work and writing of Belen, Maya Bell, Bona, Leonora Carrington, Lise Deharme, Jacqueline Duprey, Aube Elléouët, Josette Exandier, Leonor Fini, Aline Gagnaire, Giovanna, Jane Graverol, Marianne Van Hirtum, Rozeta Hum, Valentine Hugo, Karskaya, Greta Knutson, Laure, Gina Pane, Annie Lebrun, Georgette Magritte, Manina, Joyce Mansour, Nora Mitrani, Meret Oppenheim, Mimi Parent, Valentine Penrose, Gisele Prassinos, Karina Raeck, Remedios Varo, Sibylle Ruppert, Colette Thomas, Toyen, Isabelle Waldberg, Unica Zurn, Cécile Reims, Dorothea Tanning, Greta Knutson, and more. Additional texts and works by Beatrice Didier, Cécile Reims, Michel Butor, Michel Sicard, Andre Pieyre De Mandiargues, Jean Roudaut, Rene Micha, Gerard Legrand, Jean Pfeiffer, Jacques Laurans, Michel Carassou, Annie Lebrun, Charles Bachat, Olivier Milliard, Robert Brechon, Jules Michelet, Jerome Prieur, Xaviere Gauthier, Elsa Thoresen Gouveia, plus a gallery by Titi Parant and Henri Maccheroni's Portraits Corrigés. Profusely illustrated with artworks, mostly in b/w with some colour sections.

Very Good copy of the lovely softcover edition with textured boards. Sunning to spine edge, light general wear.

File under: Belen Maya Bell Bona Leonora Carrington Lise Deharme Jacqueline Duprey Aube Elléouët Josette Exandier Leonor Fini Aline Gagnaire Giovanna Jane Graverol Marianne Van Hirtum Rozeta Hum Valentine Hugo Karskaya Greta Knutson Laure Gina Pane Annie Lebrun Georgette Magritte Manina Joyce Mansour Nora Mitrani Unica Zürn Karina Raeck Remedios Varo Sibylle Ruppert Colette Thomas Toyen Isabelle Waldberg Cecile Deux Dorothea Tanning Meret Oppenheim Mimi Parent Valentine Penrose Gisèle Prassinos Cécile Reims Henri Maccheroni Cécile Reims Beatrice Didier Michel Butor Michel Sicard Andre Pieyre De Mandiargues Jean Roudaut Rene Micha Gerard Legrand Jean Pfeiffer Jacques Laurans Michel Carassou Charles Bachat Olivier Millard Robert Brechon Jules Michelet Jerome Prieur Xaviere Gauthier Elsa Thoresen Gouveia Annie Lebrun Obliques / Paris Periodicals Out-of-print / Rare Surrealism Painting Sculpture / Installation Fiction / Poetry Poetry Literary Theory / Semiotics / Language Art Art Brut / Folk / Visionary / Fantastic Transgressive / Visceral / Abject Eros Film / Video Photography Drawing Gender Studies / Sexuality Philosophy Philosophy / Psychoanalysis

Furor & Mystery and Other Writings
by René Char

2011, English / French
Softcover, 558 pages, 23 x 15 cm
Published by Black Widow Press / Boston

$52.00 - In stock -

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René Char (1907-1988) was one of France's most respected 20th century poets. Part of the Surrealist group in the late 1920's-1930's, he gradually drifted away from the group. During WWII he joined the resistance and wrote his forceful prose poems describing what he saw and experienced. This large, bilingual anthology, includes all of his well known books Feuillets d'Hypnos and Fureur et Mystere as well as a sampling of other poems and prose poems. Insightful essays are provided by Sandra Bermann, Mary Ann Caws, and Nancy Kline.

File under: René Char Sandra Bermann Mary Ann Caws Nancy Kline Black Widow Press / Boston Surrealism Poetry Fiction / Poetry

The Complete C Comics
by Joe Brainard

2025, English
Hardcover, 200 pages, 36.2 x 22 cm
Published by The New York Review of Books / New York

$78.00 - In stock -

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In the mid-1960s, legendary artist and writer Joe Brainard (I Remember) teamed with poets such as John Ashbery, Frank O'Hara, Barbara Guest, Ron Padgett, Kenneth Koch, Ted Berrigan, and many more for these pioneering collaborative comic strips-unavailable for decades and collected here for the first time.

"PEOPLE OF THE WORLD... RELAX!"

In the creative hotbed of 1960s New York, Joe Brainard was a whirlwind. He was a maker of paintings, assemblages, collages, book covers, poetry-reading flyers, and more. But some of his most exciting work was done with his friends. In 1964, the twenty-two-year-old Brainard turned his talents to rewiring the lowly comic book form into something new and surprising. He invited his friends Frank O'Hara, Ted Berrigan, John Ashbery, Kenneth Koch, Peter Schjeldahl, Barbara Guest, Ron Padgett, and others-all of them New York School poets-to collaborate with him on comics that they would write and he would draw.

The results were unlike any comics seen before. Previously available only on the rare-book market (at very high prices) but available here under one cover for the first time, the two issues of C Comics still feel as fresh as when the first page rolled off the mimeograph machine more than sixty years ago. Brainard's energetic line and joyful humor charge across every page, illustrating O'Hara's recasting of a cowboy as a mash-note-writing lover, Padgett's experiments with traditional cartoon sound effects (ROAR! GRRR! SKREE!), cameos by Ernie Bushmiller's Nancy, and heaps of Dadaesque delights.

This edition includes a foreword from Padgett and an essay by comics historian Bill Kartalopolous, who details the creation (and creators) of C Comics. A masterpiece of collaboration and spontaneity, C Comics is a testament to the vastness of Brainard's creativity and his ability to push any artistic form in a new and powerful direction.

File under: Joe Brainard Joe Brainard Bill Kartalopoulos Ron Padgett Frank O'Hara Ted Berrigan John Ashbery Kenneth Koch Peter Schjeldahl Barbara Guest The New York Review of Books / New York Fiction / Poetry Poetry Illustration / Graphic Art / Bandes Dessinées LGBTQ+

I Remember
by Joe Brainard

2001, English
Softcover, 192 pages, 17.3 x 11.2 cm
Published by Granary Books / New York

$30.00 - In stock -

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The American artist's much-imitated memoir, described by Paul Auster as "one of the few totally original books I have ever read."

Edited by Ron Padgett.

Joe Brainard's I Remember is a literary and artistic cult classic, praised and admired by writers from Paul Auster to John Ashery and Edmund White. As autobiography, Brainard's method was brilliantly simple: to set down specific memories as they rose to the surface of his consciousness, each prefaced by the refrain "I remember"

"I remember when I thought that if you did anything bad, policemen would put you in jail."

Brainard's enduring gem of a book has been issued in various forms over the past thirty years. In 1970, Angel Hair books published the first edition of I Remember, which quickly sold out; he wrote two subsequent volumes for Angel Hair, More I Remember (1972) and More I Remember More (1973), both of which proved as popular as the original. In 1973, the Museum of Modern Art in New York published Brainard's I Remember Christmas, a new text for which he also contributed a cover design and four drawings. Excerpts from the Angel Hair editions appeared in Interview, Gay Sunshine, The World and the New York Herald. Then in 1975, Full Court Press issued a revised version collecting all three of the Angel Hair volumes and added new material, using the original title I Remember.

This complete edition is prefaced by poet and translator Ron Padgett.

File under: Joe Brainard Joe Brainard Ron Padgett Granary Books / New York Poetry Fiction / Poetry Art Illustration / Graphic Art / Bandes Dessinées LGBTQ+

Stroke by Stroke
by Henri Michaux

2006, English
Softcover, 160 pages, 15.24 x 1.91 x 16.51 cm
Published by Archipelago Books / New York

$40.00 - In stock -

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Stroke by Stroke is a pairing of two of Henri Michaux's most suggestive texts, Stroke by Stroke (Par des traits, 1984) and Grasp (Saisir, 1979), written towards the end of his life. Michaux's ideogrammic ink drawings accompany his poetic explorations of animals, humans, and the origins of language. This series of verbal and pictorial gestures is at once explosive and contemplative. Michaux emerges at his most Zen.

"I first encountered Michaux's astonishing work in Stroke By Stroke, a physically and conceptually beautiful little book . . . Reading Stroke By Stroke, I felt invited to travel "toward greater ungraspability"—and in our uncertain times, Michaux's ease with that is deeply reassuring."—Martha Cooley, The Common

Henri Michaux (1899-1994) was born in Namur, Belgium. His travels throughout the Americas, Asia, and Africa inspired his first two books, Ecuador and A Barbarian in Asia. In 1948, after the death of his wife, he devoted himself increasingly to his distinctive calligraphic ink drawings. Averse to publicity of any sort, in 1965 he refused the French Grand Prix National des Lettres. Michaux's other works in English translation include Emergences-Resurgences (Skira, 2001), Darkness Moves: An Henri Michaux Anthology (California, 1997), Tent Posts (Sun and Moon, 1997), and A Barbarian in Asia (New Directions, 1986).

Richard Sieburth's translations include Georg Büchner's Lenz, Friedrich Holderlin's Hymns and Fragments, Walter Benjamin's Moscow Diary, Gérard de Nerval's Selected Writings, Henri Michaux's Emergences/Resurgences, Michel Leiris' Nights as Day, Days as Night, and Gershom Scholem's The Fullness of Time. His English edition of the Nerval won the 2000 PEN/ Book-of-the-Month-Club Translation Prize. His recent translation of Maurice Sceve's Délie was a finalist for the PENTranslation Prize and the Weidenfeld Prize.

File under: Henri Michaux Richard Sieburth Archipelago Books / New York Art Fiction / Poetry Poetry Surrealism Drawing Painting

Unica Zürn
Alben: Books & Sketchbooks

2009, English / German
Hardcover, 336 pages, 23 x 30 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Brinkmann & Bose / Berlin

$300.00 - In stock -

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First limited hardcover edition of this wonderful Unica Zürn (1916-1970) collection of artworks. Beautifully produced, profusely illustrated, and long out-of-print, this rare volume is still one of the most cherished and comprehensive collections of Zürn's artwork ever published. This lovely limited-edition survey collects together her drawings done between 1954 and 1967, 300 drawings almost all unpublished, facsimiles of her sketch-books, and reproductions of her highly-collectible artist books produced throughout her life (Hexentexte, Oracles et Spectacles, etc.), all accompanied by bibliographic information, making it a invaluable reference. Illustrated introduction by publisher Erich Brinkmann. Texts in bi-lingual German and English.

The German artist and writer Unica Zurn (1916-1970) joined the ranks of Surrealism in the 1950s, after moving to Paris and taking up residence with the German-born Surrealist Hans Bellmer. Drawn to the movement's espousal of automatic drawing and writing, Zurn pursued Henri Michaux's declaration that "the hand dreams," making a vocation of these techniques with drawings and paintings that are labyrinthine in detail, as one form sprouts out of another. Zurn has left us an account of the sensation of automatic drawing: "After an initial moment when the pen 'swims' hesitantly on the paper, she discovers the place assigned to the first eye. It is only when she is being watched from the depths of the paper that she begins to get her bearings and, effortlessly, one motif is added to another." This lovely limited-edition survey reproduces drawings done between 1954 and 1967.

The German artist and writer Unica Zürn (1916-1970) joined the ranks of Surrealism in the 1950s, after moving to Paris and taking up residence with fellow German-born Surrealist Hans Bellmer. Already an accomplished author, Zürn was drawn to the Surrealist movement's espousal of automatic drawing and writing, Zürn pursued Henri Michaux's declaration that "the hand dreams," making a vocation of these techniques with her dense, otherworldly drawings and paintings that are labyrinthine in detail, as one form sprouts out of another. Also with her experimental anagrams, natural extensions of her established interest in hidden meanings and coincidences. Zürn produced most of her oeuvre during this intensive period in the 1950s and 60s, though one marked by her deteriorating mental health. Many of her works were made during periods of hospitalisation. In 1970, Zürn leapt to her death from the balcony of the Paris apartment she had shared with Bellmer. Upon his death in 1975, Bellmer was buried, at his request, next to Zürn in Paris’s Père-Lachaise Cemetery. Their grave is marked with the words Bellmer wrote for Zürn’s funeral wreath nearly five years before: “My love will follow you into Eternity.”

Zürn has left us an account of the sensation of automatic drawing: "After an initial moment when the pen 'swims' hesitantly on the paper, she discovers the place assigned to the first eye. It is only when she is being watched from the depths of the paper that she begins to get her bearings and, effortlessly, one motif is added to another."

Very Good copy, light wear.

File under: Unica Zürn Henri Michaux Hans Bellmer Unica Zürn Brinkmann & Bose / Berlin Surrealism Drawing Painting Out-of-print / Rare Poetry Fiction / Poetry Art Art Brut / Folk / Visionary / Fantastic

Atlas Anthology 3
Edited by Alastair Brotchie & Malcolm Green

1985, English
Softcover (w. paste-ins), 224 pages, 21 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Atlas Press / London

$100.00 - In stock -

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"A chrestomathy of dicey enchantments.'—CITY LIMITS

Now rare, long out-of-print 1985 Atlas Anthology 3, edited by Alastair Brotchie & Malcolm Green. "Benign Pollution, Enthused Writing". The third production from the legendary Atlas Press, the third general anthology and the first book to be actually typeset (a very expensive business in those days).

Features: Hans Carl Artmann, Pierre Albert-Birot, Wolfgang Bauer, Konrad Bayer, Pierre Bettencourt, Peter Blegvad, Andre Breton, Jean-Pierre Brisset, Günter Brus, René Crevel, David Gascoyne, Alfred Jarry, James Kirkup, Karl Kraus, Jean Lorrain, Harry Mathews, Gustave Meyrink, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Georges Perec, Benjamin Peret, Oskar Panizza, Raymond Queneau, Jacques Rigaut, Herbert Rosendorfer, Raymond Roussel, Paul Scheerbart, Mathew Phipps Shiel, Kurt Schwitters, Boris Vian, Austryn Wainhouse, Robert Walser, Unica Zürn, Etcetera Etc.

"Here is a prose based on Romanticism, in this century focused around the early Expressionism and the Surrealist movement. It is a literature of unusual beauty and bitter humour, political (in the widest sense), it asserts a complete freedom of form and content. Neither 'cool', restrained nor boring! An important collection of unjustly neglected authors, past and present, which includes many who are seldom translated into English."

Highest recommendation.
Good—Very Good copy complete with all the paste-ins. General wear and tanning.

File under: Peter Blegvad Kurt Schwitters Günter Brus Pier Paolo Pasolini Unica Zürn Alastair Brotchie Malcolm Green Hans Carl Artmann Pierre Albert-Birot Wolfgang Bauer Konrad Bayer Andre Breton André Breton Unica Zürn Pierre Bettencourt Peter Blegvad Günter Brus René Crevel Jean-Pierre Brisset David Gascoyne Alfred Jarry James Kirkup Karl Kraus Jean Lorrain Robert Walser Georges Perec Benjamin Péret Gustave Meyrink Harry Mathews Raymond Queneau Jacques Rigaut Raymond Roussel Paul Scheerbart Boris Vian Oskar Panizza Herbert Rosendorfer Mathew Phipps Shiel Kurt Schwitters Austryn Wainhouse Atlas Press / London Dada Renaissance / Neoclassicism / Romanticism Symbolism / Decadence / Fin de siècle Surrealism Out-of-print / Rare Fiction / Poetry Art Concrete Poetry Poetry Philosophy Situationism / Lettrism Sociology / Politics Theory / Essay Weird / Speculative / Science Fiction

Little Castles of Bohemia: Prose and Poetry
by Gérard de Nerval

2025, English
Softcover, 122 pages, 20.5 x 13.5 cm
Published by Wakefield Press / Cambridge

$40.00 - In stock -

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Translated, with an introduction by Napoleon Jeffries
Illustrations by Alfred Prunaire

We were young, always gay, often wealthy . . . But I’ve just struck a gloomy chord: our palace is razed to the ground. I trampled through its debris this past autumn.

Although Gérard de Nerval had originally intended it to be a small anthology of his early poetry, his 1853 Little Castles of Bohemia ended up as something more. As could be said of all his last works, the book was an effort at stability: worn out and financially impoverished from his travels and spells of mental turmoil, Nerval gathered his past writing in an attempt at assembling some sort of posterity, at creating a home for the vagabond pieces.

The melancholic, wandering castles presented here house pieces gathered from the range of Nerval’s literary life, from his autobiographic reminiscences of the bohemian neighborhood of Le Doyenné (destroyed by Baron Hausmann the year before this book’s initial publication), the lyrical “odelettes” that established Nerval as a poet early on, the one-act theatrical “proverb” Corilla, and the mystical sonnets of madness and existential despair that concluded his career.

In assembling together the shards of Nerval’s life, these castles depict both the birth and the decline of the Bohemian, as well as the struggle between Romantic idealism and realism that would formulate the tragic conclusions to the specific life of Nerval and the lives in general of the Bohemians of his time. The collapse of the boundary between art and life here leads to ruins.

Gérard de Nerval (1808–1855) was a writer, poet, and translator who wedded French and German romanticism and transformed his research into mystic thought and his bouts of mental illness into such visionary works as the posthumously published Aurélia, or Dream and Life. After his suicide, his work would grow in stature and go on to influence Marcel Proust, André Breton, Antonin Artaud, Michel Leiris, and countless others.

File under: Gérard de Nerval Napoleon Jeffries Wakefield Press / Cambridge Surrealism Fiction / Poetry Poetry

MEMORY
By Dorothea Lasky

2025, English
Softcover, 320 pages, 19.8 x 12.9 cm
Published by Semiotext(e) / Los Angeles

$36.00 - In stock -

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A spiritual homage to Bernadette Mayer’s monumental artwork of the same title, Dorothea Lasky’s MEMORY is a cycle of “poet’s essays” stirred by two profound questions. What constitutes personhood and consciousness? What memories get lost, and why?

Expansive in her quest for answers, Lasky launches an inspired investigation of the forces that form our lives and deepest senses of ourselves. She identifies three dimensions of memory—historical, personal, and artistic—and in her singularly clear voice, undertakes to enter into their mysteries. From those recesses, she returns with a wide-ranging collection of essays that like lyric poems find the universal inside the particular. MEMORY reflects on the banal, private emotions and ancestral trauma, dear departed poets (Lucie Brock-Broido, Diane di Prima, Kevin Killian), her father’s battle with Alzheimer’s, and cultural events that have become charged sites of collective reminiscence (the moon landing, the music of Neutral Milk Hotel). Other pieces face the flip side of memory, asking what’s left where memory is absent, and what’s “real” beyond the horizon of death. The book closes with “Time, the Rose, and the Moon,” an ars poetica published here in English for the first time, which offers the ancient symbol of the Ouroboros as a figure for the nonlinear processes of time, memory, and art.

Like Mayer before her, Lasky reveals memory to be huge and haunting, as she accumulates impressions that challenge the very possibility of fixed meaning. “Every rose has the scent of death,” she writes. “And poetry is a perfume. That will stay on your body forever. … Whatever happens this time around, remember that.”

File under: Dorothea Lasky Semiotext(e) / Los Angeles Poetry Literary Theory / Semiotics / Language

An Anthology of Concrete Poetry
Edited by Emmett Williams

1967, English
Hardcover, 342 pages, 23.5 x 15.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by edition hansjörg meyer / Düsseldorf

$190.00 - Out of stock

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Rare first 1967 European hardcover edition of An Anthology of Concrete Poetry, published by the legendary edition hansjörg meyer. The book's editor, Emmett Williams, "as one of the original practitioners of concrete poetry, has been in a unique position to observe the development of the movement since its beginnings, and the selection in this volume therefore reflects a view of this evolution from within the movement rather than from a distance." An Anthology of Concrete Poetry was the first anthology on the international movement of Concrete poetry, published subsequently by the legendary Something Else Press in 1967 in America. The movement itself began in the early 1950s, in Germany–through Eugen Gomringer, who borrowed the term “concrete” from the art of his mentor, Max Bill–and in Brazil, through the Noigandres group, which included the de Campos brothers and Decio Pignatari. Over the course of the 1960s it exploded across Europe, America and Japan, as other protagonists of the movement emerged, such as Dieter Roth, Öyvind Fahlström, Ernst Jandl, bpNichol, Mary Ellen Solt, Jackson Mac Low, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Bob Cobbing, Dom Sylvester Houédard, Pierre Garnier, Henri Chopin, Brion Gysin and Kitasono Katue. By the late 1960s, poet Jonathan Williams could proclaim: “If there is such a thing as a worldwide movement in the art of poetry, Concrete is it.” The work of the 77 writers collected in this anthology varies greatly in its aims and forms, but all can be said to emphasize the visual dimension of language, manipulating individual letters and minimal semantic units to produce poems that are for contemplating as much as for reading. Emmett Williams, the book’s editor, added explanatory commentary for the poems and biographies of their authors, making this volume–long out of print–the definitive anthology of this movement, which has so influenced artists and writers of subsequent generations.

Writers and artists included: Friedrich Achleitner, Alain Arias-Misson, H. C. Artmann, Ronaldo Azeredo, Stephen Bann, Carlo Belloli, Max Bense, Edgard Braga, Claus Bremer, Augusto de Campos, Haroldo de Campos, Henri Chopin, Carl Friedrich Claus, Bob Cobbing, Paul de Vree, Reinhard Döhl, Torsten Ekbom, Öyvind Fahlström, Carl Fernbach-Flarsheim, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Larry Freifeld, John Furnival, Heinz Gappmayr, Ilse and Pierre Garnier, Matthias Goeritz, Eugen Gomringer, Ludwig Gosewitz, Bohumila Grögerova and Josef Hiršal, José Lino Grünewald, Brion Gysin, Al Hansen, Václav Havel, Helmut Heissenbüttel, Åke Hodell, Dom Sylvester Houédard, Ernst Jandl, Bengt Emil Johnson, Ronald Johnson, Hiro Kamimura, Kitasono Katue, Jiri Kolar, Ferdinand Kriwet, Arrigo Lora-Totino, Jackson Mac Low, Hansjörg Mayer, Cavan McCarthy, Franz Mon, Edwin Morgan, Maurizio Nannucci, bp Nichol, Hans-Jørgen Nielsen, Seiichi Niikuni, Ladislav Novák, Yuksel Pazarkaya, Décio Pignatari, Vlademir Dias Pino, Luiz Angelo Pinto, Carl Fredrik Reuterswärd, Diter Rot, Gerhard Rühm, Aram Saroyan, John J. Sharkey, Edward Lucie Smith, Mary Ellen Solt, Adriano Spatola, Daniel Spoerri, Vagn Steen, Andre Thomkins, Enrique Uribe Valdivielso, Franz Van Der Linde, Franco Verdi, Emmett Williams, Jonathan Williams, Pedro Xisto and Fujitomi Yasuo.

"Emmett Williams, as one of the original practitioners of concrete poetry, has been in a unique position to observe the development of the movement since its beginnings, and the selection in this volume therefore reflects a view of this evolution from within the movement rather than from a distance. However it is far too soon to regard any anthology of Concrete Poetry as being definitive since the movement is extremely active and major new works have yet to appear in this most interesting of current poetry movements." -- from interior flap. Printed in black-and-white.

Very Good copy with some light edge wear to thick covers, general light age/tanning.

File under: Carl Fredrik Reuterswärd Bohumila Grögerova and Josef Hiršal José Lino Grünewald Václav Havel Helmut Heissenbüttel Åke Hodell Friedrich Achleitner Alain Arias-Misson H. C. Artmann Ronaldo Azeredo Stephen Bann Carlo Belloli Max Bense Edgard Braga Claus Bremer Augusto de Campos Haroldo de Campos Henri Chopin Carl Friedrich Claus Bob Cobbing Paul de Vree Reinhard Döhl Torsten Ekbom Öyvind Fahlström Carl Fernbach-Flarsheim Ian Hamilton Finlay Larry Freifeld John Furnival Heinz Gappmayr Ilse and Pierre Garnier Matthias Goeritz Eugen Gomringer Ludwig Gosewitz Dom Sylvester Houédard Ernst Jandl Bengt Emil Johnson Ronald Johnson Hiro Kamimura Kitasono Katue Jiri Kolar Ferdinand Kriwet Arrigo Lora-Totino Jackson Mac Low Hansjörg Mayer Cavan McCarthy Franz Mon Edwin Morgan Maurizio Nannucci bp Nichol Hans-Jørgen Nielsen Seiichi Niikuni Ladislav Novák Yuksel Pazarkaya Décio Pignatari Vlademir Dias Pino Luiz Angelo Pinto Diter Rot Gerhard Rühm Aram Saroyan John J. Sharkey Edward Lucie Smith Mary Ellen Solt Adriano Spatola Daniel Spoerri Vagn Steen Enrique Uribe Valdivielso Franz Van Der Linde Franco Verdi Emmett Williams Jonathan Williams Pedro Xisto Fujitomi Yasuo André Thomkins André Thomkins Friedrich Achleitner Alain Arias-Misson H. C. Artmann Ronaldo Azeredo Stephen Bann Carlo Belloli Max Bense Edgard Braga Claus Bremer Augusto de Campos Haroldo de Campos Henri Chopin Carl Friedrich Claus Bob Cobbing Paul de Vree Reinhard Döhl Torsten Ekbom Öyvind Fahlström Carl Fernbach-Flarsheim Ian Hamilton Finlay Larry Freifeld John Furnival Heinz Gappmayr Ilse and Pierre Garnier Matthias Goeritz Eugen Gomringer Ludwig Gosewitz Bohumila Grögerova and Josef Hiršal José Lino Grünewald Brion Gysin Al Hansen Václav Havel Helmut Heissenbüttel Åke Hodell Dom Sylvester Houédard Ernst Jandl Arrigo Lora-Totino Jackson Mac Low Hansjörg Mayer Cavan McCarthy Franz Mon Edwin Morgan Maurizio Nannucci bp Nichol Hans-Jørgen Nielsen Seiichi Niikuni Ladislav Novák Yuksel Pazarkaya Décio Pignatari Vlademir Dias Pino Luiz Angelo Pinto Carl Fredrik Reuterswärd Diter Rot Gerhard Rühm Aram Saroyan John J. Sharkey Edward Lucie Smith Mary Ellen Solt Adriano Spatola Daniel Spoerri Vagn Steen Andre Thomkins Enrique Uribe Valdivielso Franz Van Der Linde Franco Verdi Emmett Williams Jonathan Williams Pedro Xisto Fujitomi Yasuo Bengt Emil Johnson Ronald Johnson Jiří Kolář Hiro Kamimura Kitasono Katue Ferdinand Kriwet edition hansjörg meyer / Düsseldorf Concrete Poetry Conceptual Art Out-of-print / Rare Collage / Mail Art / Xerox Art Art Minimal Art Fiction / Poetry Poetry Fluxus

Feminist No. 4
(Eiko Ishioka cover)

1978, English
Softcover (staple-bound), 68 pages, 28 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by Feminist / Tokyo

$45.00 - In stock -

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Fourth 1978 (English-language) issue of "Feminist", a rare and important record of the women's liberation movement in Japan in the the 1970s and document of the cross-currents of international female theorists, artists, poets, authors, and activists in the women's movement. This special "East and West" issue addresses the different pathways that the women's movement must travel throughout Asia and in the western countries. "A source of information and forum for Japanese women, (Feminist) has had from its inception an international perspective." This first fully English-language edition opens the discourse around the Asian feminist movement to western readers, including many articles on the place of Japanese Women in society, and Feminist developments in Korea, Thailand, the Philippines, Burma (Myanmar), Indonesia, and Malaysia. With a cover feature/interview on legendary Japanese art director, costume designer, and graphic designer Eiko Ishioka (known for her production and costume designs for Grace Jones, Paul Schrader, Francis Ford Coppola, Björk, etc., shot by photographer Michiko Matsumoto, this issue, edited by Japanese critic, American literature researcher, and poet, Ikuko Atsumi (who also co-edited "Burning Hearts: Women Poets of Japan" with Kenneth Rexroth, The Seabury Press/New Directions, 1977), with Diane L. Simpson, features contributions from Australian filmmaker Solrun Hoaas, women's rights activist/journalist Yayori Matsui (noted for her work to raise awareness of sex slaves and sex tourism in post-war Asia), photographer Michiko Matsumoto, Japanese linguist Sachiko Ide, author Utsumi Aiko, poet Morgan Gibson, acclaimed Japanese-English translator and historian of the women's movement in Japan Nancy Andrew, critic Chizuko Ikegami, and many others.

"Images of women that arise from sexist ideologies are everywhere tied to an individual cultural milieu. In the Western tradition, woman is simultaneously virgin and seductress, both adored and condemned by men. In the Japanese tradition, she is the man's mother goddess, who nurtures and protects. Under the Confucian ethic in Korea she is defined only in relation to her father, husband and son and in Indonesia she is constrained by the Islamic view that sees her mainly as the bearer of the next generation. Whatever their form, such androcentric views deny women both autonomy and dignity while providing a rationale for social and economic subjugation.

In working to transform these distorted images and ideals, the women's movement in different countries will likely not take the same path. In Japan the enormous influence exerted by the media in promoting the traditional image of women requires that feminists direct considerable effort toward creating a social climate in which the independent women can be viewed positively. At the same time they want to correct the misinterpretations about themselves that pervade Japanese literature, films, and art. While women in the West now seek to create a women's culture, Japanese women seek to revive the women's culture that has always been an important, if sometimes un-recognized, source of their civilization."

Good—VG copy with age/wear to cover extremities, some foxing/staining.

File under: Michiko Matsumoto Eiko Ishioka Chizuko Ikegami Ikuko Atsumi Utsumi Aiko Morgan Gibson Nancy Andrew Sachiko Ide Yayori Matsui Diane L. Simpson Feminist / Tokyo Feminism Sociology / Politics Theory / Essay Poetry Out-of-print / Rare Periodicals Fashion Film / Video Gender Studies / Sexuality Japanese Photography

Eleanor Antin
Works 1965-2017

2025, English
Softcover, 220 pages, 32 x 24.5 cm
Published by Hatje Cantz / Berlin

$85.00 - Out of stock

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Edited by Vanessa Joan Müller, Bettina Steinbrügge.
Text by Lisa E. Bloom, Andrea Bowers, Haden Guest, Ingrid Luquet-Gad, Jason McBride, Christiane Meyer-Stoll, Olaf Nicolai, Letizia Ragaglia, Alexandro Segade, Bettina Steinbrügge.

Previously unpublished ephemera, poems and photographs accompany this sharp retrospective volume of Antin's 50 years of conceptual, feminist art, the most comprehensive publication on the artist to date, published to accompany the first survey on the artist in more than two decades.

For more than 50 years, Eleanor Antin (born 1935) has been a distinctive voice in postmodernism, traversing conceptual art and feminist movements. Her projects, often photographic series or performances, scrutinize the historic and contemporary roles of women, darkened by consumerist commentary on the ideal feminine. Crash dieting, Schick razors, mascara and pill bottles all play starring roles in her most famous works. This most comprehensive monograph to date accompanies Antin's first retrospective in 25 years and her first ever in Europe. Each commissioned text dives into a different facet of her work: her life in New York and San Diego; her Jewish identity; her feminist activism; her unfailing humor; her performances and films; and the impact of her art on younger generations of artists. It also features a complete exhibition history, a comprehensive list of works and a timeline of her life.

Eleanor Antin is a key figure emerging from the Conceptual art movements of the 1970s. Today as an octogenarian artist, she remains one of the world's leading Feminist artists. Her ground-breaking practice spans five decades and has covered themes surrounding identity, gender, autobiography, class and social structures. Antin's multi-disciplinary approach includes installation, painting, drawing, writing and most notably photography and performance. Over the last 50 years Antin has performed and exhibited her work internationally.

File under: Eleanor Antin Eleanor Antin Vanessa Joan Müller Bettina Steinbrügge Lisa E. Bloom Andrea Bowers Haden Guest Ingrid Luquet-Gad Jason McBride Christiane Meyer-Stoll Olaf Nicolai Letizia Ragaglia Alexandro Segade Hatje Cantz / Berlin Feminism Conceptual Art Art Poetry Photography Performance / Dance / Theater Drawing

The Testament (& Other Texts)
by Rainer Maria Rilke

2025, English
Softcover, 202 pages,‎ 20.4 x 12.7 cm
Published by Contra Mundum Press / New York

$48.00 - In stock -

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WORLD PREMIERE ENGLISH TRANSLATION

Rilke’s Testament opens with the outbreak of WWI, a devastating world event that prevents the poet from returning to the “incomparable city of Paris,” and which is entwined with his own debilitating crises.

In this decisive period, before which recovery or death waits, Rilke undergoes a kind of auto-da-fé and gives us a record of his failure and achievement. With insights into what he called his peculiar fate, the poet forges a will and testament, which he says “will remain his last, even if his heart still faced many years of challenges ahead.” Is this the final word on his struggle between love in life and love transformed into the mosaic of art?

Written while suffering an impasse with the Duino Elegies and just before he and Merline Klossowska discover the Chateau de Muzot, which would become a fertile sanctuary for the nomadic poet, Rilke turns to translation as a pontifex to carry him through the muteness of his crises. Having at last opened some free associative realm, he begins sketching terse reflections, lyrical draft letters, and dense, wistful prose, fragmentary writings that speak to the powers of destruction and creation.

Long secret, this enigmatic and charged series of experimental texts is the record of the close of a remarkable winter, wherein the work of poetry, the artist’s struggle with life, is tested in the crucible of solitude and the sinister expanse of blank pages. An illuminating ars poetica, Rilke’s Testament constitutes the mortal risk of not going beyond love, and the risk of the potential death of the artist, where the silencing of the logos puts creative potency under threat.

This world premiere English translation also includes essays on politics, poetry, sound, the sacred and sexuality, and the complete poem sequence “From the Literary Estate of Count C.W.," all works dating from the 'testament years.' The Testament (& Other Texts) documents a creative interregnum and is the dark passageway between the Duino Elegies and The Sonnets to Orpheus.

Edited by Rainer J. Hanshe
Translated with an introduction by Mark Kanak

File under: Rainer Maria Rilke Mark Kanak Rainer J. Hanshe Contra Mundum Press / New York Fiction / Poetry Poetry Theory / Essay Literary Theory / Semiotics / Language Sociology / Politics

Les Chimères
by Gérard de Nerval

1999, English
Softcover, 62 pages, 21 x 14 cm
Published by Shearsman Books / Bristol

$26.00 - Out of stock

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Translated from French by Will Stone.
Introduced by Michael Hamburger, with a Preface by Anne Beresford & Notes and Afterword by Norma Rinsler.

Nerval (1808-1855) is one of the most important writers of nineteenth-century France, both in prose and in verse. A precursor of the symbolists and the surrealists, Nerval has fascinated many major literary figures, including Proust and Breton, Eliot and Apollinaire, Michaux and Leiris.

The great sonnet cycle, Les Chimères, in its marvellous combination of spell, quest and dream, continues to fascinate writers, readers, and that special category of writerly readers, translators. The translator of this volume is the gifted poet Will Stone, who explains his work in a strongly-worded essay: "like a partly submerged crocodile, with one amber eye half open the foreign line sits, waiting for the anxious translator to make a move." The book contains three other texts: a foreword by the poet, Anne Beresford, a general introduction to Nerval by Michael Hamburger (published for the first time in the previous edition of this book, some fifty years after it was written), and an afterword and notes on Les Chimères by Professor Norma Rinsler, the doyenne of English Nervaliens.

Published with the Menard Press.

File under: Gérard de Nerval Will Stone Michael Hamburger Anne Beresford Norma Rinsler Shearsman Books / Bristol Surrealism Poetry Fiction / Poetry

69 Ways to Play the Blues
by Jürg Laederach

1990, English
Softcover, 160 pages, 18 x 11.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by Semiotext(e) / Los Angeles

$35.00 - Out of stock

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First 1990 Semiotext(e) Foreign Agents English edition of "69 Ways to Play the Blues" by Jürg Laederach. Translated by Peter Wortsman, with a preface by Walter Abish.

"The phone refuses to ring. I sit here on 82nd Street: no, on 83rd: no, on 81st: I forget where I am. The phone refuses to ring, to tear me out of this enforced solitude, which I know only too well. This solitude that makes me sick and stirs me to tears, but surely not tears of compassion. A call is bound to come any minute now up from the Village and afford me the company I desperately desire. The phone isn't ringing. The bell doesn't work."

Written after the Swiss writer Jürg Laederach's third trip to New York in the late 1980s, 69 Ways was hailed by award-winning author Walter Abish as a text predictive of 'a Europe to come, when borders dissolve.' Like Alain-Robbe Grillet, Georges Perec, and the great Oulipo writers, Laederach constructs seamless narratives based on sly compositional strategies. The reader is only somewhat aware of the rules of the game. Transposed to America, Laederach's texts, Abish argues, 'function as a scanning device. Characters vanish, reappear. There is something relentless... Everything is transitory. No sentimentality. No clinging to the past. Everything is on the verge of being discarded. Everything is on the verge of dissolution. Everything resonates with imminent change.'

Good copy with age/light wear to block edge/cover edges.

File under: Walter Abish Jürg Laederach Semiotext(e) / Los Angeles Fiction / Poetry Poetry Out-of-print / Rare

A Wave of Dreams (book + CD)
by Louis Aragon

2010, English
Softcover (+ audio CD), 62 pages, 19 x 13 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / as new
Published by Thin Man Press / London

$65.00 - Out of stock

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This is the first time Aragon's seminal 1924 French surrealist text has been published in English as a single volume. Aragon's extraordinary prose-poem-essay A Wave of Dreams (Une vague de reves), is a compelling, lyrical, first-hand account of the early days of surrealist experimentation in Paris. Writing in 1924, Aragon vividly describes, and philosophically evaluates, the inner adventures, the hallucinations and encounters with the 'Marvellous' which took the young surrealists to the brink of insanity as a revolutionary new era in Art History was born. Among Aragon’s companions in derangement are André Breton (whose own Surrealist Manifesto was preceded by this book), Max Ernst, Man Ray, Antonin Artaud, Robert Desnos, Georgio de Chirico, Philippe Soupault and Benjamin Peret.

This beautifully presented art book contains Susan de Muth’s translation of the text in English with an introduction by Dawn Ades.

The physical copy of A Wave of Dreams is accompanied by a complimentary CD of eight extracts from the test, spoken by actor Alex Walker, evocatively set in musical soundscapes by Tymon Dogg and Alex Thomas.

"A leftfield treat…mysteriously opaque and strangely lovely."—Thomas H Green, Daily Telegraph.

Fine—As New.

File under: Louis Aragon Dawn Ades Susan De Muth Thin Man Press / London Sound / Music Out-of-print / Rare Surrealism Art Poetry

Antonin Artaud: Blows & Bombs
by Stephen Barber

1994, English
Softcover, 182 pages, 20 x 12.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Faber & Faber / London

$18.00 - Out of stock

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The first 1994 softcover edition of the first comprehensive and authoritative account of the life and work of the man who changed the course of modern theatre. Antonin Artaud is one of the great cultural legends of the twentieth century. His Theatre of Cruelty altered the course of modern theatre, and his experiments with the Surrealist movement have proved inspirational throughout Europe and America.

But Artaud's life was one of terrible failure and confrontation, an exploration of the extremes of agony and joy. At the end of a long series of journeys - both physical and spiritual - aimed at creating a magical culture of the human body, he was arrested and interned for nine years in a succession of French lunatic asylums, where he suffered starvation and was subjected to fifty electroshock treatments.

Stephen Barber's book is a faithful and moving portrait of a unique figure.

VG copy with some page tanning light wear.

File under: Antonin Artaud Stephen Barber Antonin Artuad Faber & Faber / London Surrealism Out-of-print / Rare Literary Theory / Semiotics / Language Theory / Essay Performance / Dance / Theater Art Poetry

Karel Teige
Captain of the Avant-Garde

2018, English
Hardcover, 788 pages, 28.7 x 25.4 cm
Published by Kant / Prague

$220.00 - In stock -

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Art theorist and critic, graphic designer, artist, author and translator Karel Teige (1900–51) is today recognized not just as the creator of internationally acclaimed surrealist collages, but also as a leading figure of the European avant-garde. Teige spent his entire life commenting on and interpreting developments in the visual arts. His multifaceted theoretical writings helped shape the conceptual foundations of modern art, and his activities and intensive contacts with other members of the European avant-garde helped secure Czech art's place on the international art scene. His work anticipated, initiated and helped to develop the progressive artistic movements that fundamentally influenced art in the 20th century.

Karel Teige was one of the great European intellectuals of his time; his efforts were aimed at creating not just a system of aesthetics but also an all-encompassing life philosophy. He was intensively interested in architecture and found inspiration in Germany's Bauhaus (where he spent a year lecturing); architectural functionalism would have looked completely different without his input. Teige's preference for rational, minimalist designs with an emphasis on the social uses of modern architecture was the "most functionalist functionalism" of his time.

Teige's own work consisted primarily of a series of phenomenal collages that reveal the hidden and passionate aspects of his personality. His book designs set the tone for an entire generation, and his design principles remain valid today. Teige's complicated personality, full of contradictions, utopian dreams and a yearning for order and logic make him an indecipherable and deeply human individual, a perfect symbol for the 20th century.

This comprehensive, nearly 800-page monograph, by the art historian Rea Michalová, takes a wide-ranging look at the evolution of Teige's ideological, theoretical and political views, and recalls important moments in his life and their significance within the international context. The book includes a rich set of illustrations, photographs from his life, and examples of his unique collages and graphic designs.

"Just a few of the reasons why we can't get over this new Karel Teige monograph. Measuring more than 2.5 inches thick and just under 800 pages long—with 318 color reproductions and a whopping 635 pages of scholarly texts—Karel Teige: Captain of the Avant-Garde, the new Teige monograph from noted Czech art book publisher Kant, is truly extraordinary. "There is no need to explain who Karel Teige was," a Czech writer for Typografia magazine proclaimed in 1927. "I don't think that there was a single modern impulse in our country that he did not either directly inspire or at least support. Architecture, poetry, film, photography, painting, theater, typography—all these bear traces of his insightfulness and modernity."

File under: Karel Teige Rea Michalová Milan Knizak Kant / Prague Art Photography Collage / Mail Art / Xerox Art Surrealism Bauhaus Dada Painting Theory / Essay Poetry Eros

Padam Padam: Collected Poems
by Kevin Killian

2025, English
Softcover, 384 pages, 23 x 15.3 cm
Published by Nightboat Books / New York

$48.00 - Out of stock

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A posthumous celebration of the poet and provocateur Kevin Killian, Padam Padam pulses with camp, pop culture, and pleasure.

Introduction by Kay Gabriel
Edited by Evan Kennedy and Jason Morris

Kevin Killian—the puckish poet, playwright, novelist, scholar, and impresario of the Bay Area arts community—channeled the charisma of the pop stars. Pulled from his legendary corpus, and long out of print, the work collected here is the record of Killian’s life as a radical littérateur. In Argento Series, Killian conjures the horror, suspense, and cinematic imagery of director Dario Argento as he documents the AIDS epidemic in San Francisco. In Action Kylie, he revels in queer identity and the universal love of fandom. In Tweaky Village and Tony Greene Era, Killian elevates artists and friends to legendary status within his personal pantheon. And Elements, Killian’s wink at the periodic table, makes its U.S. debut.

The collection features an introduction by Kay Gabriel, who writes of Killian’s “fabulous, permissive body of work, charming, filthy and smarmy at turns, with its retchable milk enemas and its devilish twists.”

"Kevin loved culture and was its constant undoing."—Eileen Myles

"I used to say Kevin was the only person I ever knew who possibly could have come from a different planet—an enigma who possessed superhuman knowledge, baffling productivity, and later, super-human kindness."—Robert Glück

"Oh, he is a dark master of the word, Kevin Killian, an inviting bridegroom and a voyeur who’ll let us play in his fictions until we’re spent."—D.A. Powell

"Like his beloved Kylie Minogue sings, Kevin created a body of work that is “more than [we] dare to think about”––a “dark secret” that filled and felt “the need,” a deep need, in all of us."—Dorothea Lasky

Kevin Killian (1952–2019) was a San Francisco-based poet, novelist, playwright, and art writer. Recent books include Padam Padam: Collected Poems (Nightboat Books, 2025) and Selected Amazon Reviews (2024). He is the coauthor of Poet Be Like God: Jack Spicer and the San Francisco Renaissance (1998). With Dodie Bellamy, he co-edited Writers Who Love Too Much: New Narrative Writing, 1977–1997 (2017).

Kay Gabriel is a writer and organizer. She’s the author of Perverts (2025), Kissing Other People or the House of Fame (2023), and A Queen in Bucks County (2022). She’s the Editorial Director at the Poetry Project in New York City.

File under: Kevin Killian Kay Gabriel Evan Kennedy Jason Morris Nightboat Books / New York Poetry Fiction / Poetry LGBTQ+

Light Film
by Sholto Buck

2025, English
Softcover, 80 pages, 21 x 14.8 cm
Published by Pilot Press / London

$28.00 - In stock -

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Light Film explores the cinema of heartache. Thorough in its quest for drama, this collection of poems threads a personal narrative through kaleidoscoping imagery, in turns erotic, violent, and contemplative. Performing a shifting subject position, the speaker of this book finds humour, shelter, and emotional truth in fantasy, even as reality collapses into his desires.

Sholto Buck is a poet and artist living in Melbourne, Australia. He has been commissioned to write poems for the National Gallery of Victoria, and for 'Derek Jarman: Delphinium Days', at Gus Fisher Gallery, Auckland, and UNSW Gallery, Sydney. His first book, In the printed version of heaven, was published by Rabbit in 2023.

“This is a collection of curves and boots, horny and isolated, in rain and bittersweet love with loneliness and lust, articulated through a series of ekphrastic-ish lyrics enamored with the parts of bodies on film. Jarman, O'Hara, and Wieners exert a strong influence, filtered through smartphone snapshots of queer life and longing: witty, tender, and engaging.” — Joshua Jones

“"The landscape / walked / a red / spiral of green / through me" as the poems in this book have passed through me, leaving me dizzy. Light Film is a great collection of poems: moving, curious, thoughtful – it's a film festival of poems.” — Ben Estes

“You will see Sholto Buck's Light Film being held by a romantic taking the subway. . . What is this book but a screen for holding images of tenderness, signifying a safe harbor for the kiss you imagine?”— Eric Sneathen

File under: Sholto Buck Pilot Press / London Fiction / Poetry Poetry LGBTQ+ Australian Poetry