Arthur Rimbaud :: News

Punk rocker Patti Smith celebrates Rimbaud

Catherine — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 10:01:00 +0100

US punk rock poet Patti Smith led a celebration Thursday in memory of Arthur Rimbaud, in the home town of the French poet who died 120 years ago.

Smith, a life-long devotee of the symbolist French genius, said Rimbaud remained the eternal poet of youth through the power and perfection of his art.

"His soul is infused in his poetry and so his poetry is with us," said Smith, speaking to AFP inside the museum in Charleville devoted to the symbolist who wrote his last work before his 21st birthday.

"It is the heart of youth, and it is the heart of curiosity, enthusiasm, and also an elevated mentality," sha said. "I mean it's everywhere, his spirit is everywhere, it's here right now, it's in our hands."

Speaking earlier to 150 people gathered in the church where Rimbaud worshipped as a child, she said of the poet who died in severe pain from cancer in Marseille in 1891 that Thursday represented a celebration of his liberation from suffering rather than his death.

She said that she would sponsor the complete refurbishing of the town's Rimbaud museum to be completed in 2013.

-AFP/vl

Source: Channel Asia

Revealed: Rimbaud, libertine linguist

Catherine — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 20:49:00 +0200

Rimbaud The Poems edited and translated by Oliver Bernard
Publisher: Anvil Press Poetry; Revised edition (13 Oct 2011)
Language English
Paperback, 416 pages
ISBN-10: 0856464406
ISBN-13: 978-0856464409

Translator revisits French poet's work 50 years on and brings to light five unknown compositions.

He was the archetypal Romantic figure, a drunken libertine who inspired artists from Picasso to Bob Dylan. But Arthur Rimbaud was more than a poetic pin-up. A new anthology of the French 19th-century poet's work will include five previously unseen verses written in Latin, which show him to have been a gifted classicist.

Since his death at 37, Rimbaud has joined Lord Byron and Thomas Chatterton in the league of poets whose image often eclipses their work. Victor Hugo called him "an infant Shakespeare", though he gave up creative writing at 21 to pursue a life of decadence, indulging his weakness for travelling, drink and drugs. His affair with the symbolist poet Paul Verlaine was made into the 1995 film Total Eclipse starring Leonardo DiCaprio.

Now, a new anthology of Rimbaud's work could reassert his reputation as a talented writer. Rimbaud: The Poems has been compiled by the poet and translator Oliver Bernard, whose 1962 translation of Rimbaud's work became in instant classic. Bernard is the elder brother of Jeffrey Bernard, the dissolute Spectator columnist, who inspired the Keith Waterhouse play Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell.

Bernard has returned to Rimbaud almost 50 years after his Penguin anthology was published. He has added translations of five poems, which were written in Latin when Rimbaud was 14. Three of these were composed in Latin, and two translated from French into Latin. The new book includes the original and translated versions side by side. Among the new poems are L'ange et l'enfant, (The Angel and the Infant), which has been hailed as an early version of Rimbaud's first poem written in French, Les Etrennes Des Orphelins.

The new book is published by Anvil Poetry Press. Penguin excluded the Latin verses from the 1962 anthology, considering them to be mere "juvenilia". But Bernard said they will be of interest to followers of Rimbaud, as they show the young man's earliest experiments with form and grammar. "It seems to me an interesting speculation about European poetry, how many poets learnt Latin at school, from Chaucer and Rabelais to Auden and Housman and Baudelaire, and what the answer provides on the quality of their syntax, their clarity and their terseness," he said.

Peter Jay, founder of Anvil, said there is still a market for poetry to be published in the original, with a translation alongside. "Penguin seem to be moving in favour of verse translations," he says, "As a poetry publisher and a verse translator myself, I feel that's fine. But that there's still a place for this kind of bilingual edition, the original text taking pride of place with prose translations at the foot of the page."

Anvil is also preparing an edition of Francis Scarfe's Baudelaire in the same format. "The idea is that if you have a smattering of French – or Latin – you can get something from the poems with the aid of the plain translation's safety net, without constantly having to burrow in a dictionary."

Arthur Rimbaud died in 1891, but he was to influence many 20th century artists. Dylan Thomas called himself the "Rimbaud of Cwmdonkin Drive", and fans included Alan Ginsberg, Vladimir Nabokov and Jim Morrison. Eric Cantona, the French footballer, once named Rimbaud as a hero, though this was misinterpreted as Rambo, the Eighties action movie hero, pronounced the same way.

Source: The Independent

Disaster Was My God: A Novel of the Outlaw Life of Arthur Rimbaud by Bruce Duffy

Catherine — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 21:13:00 +0200

Alan Cheuse reviews a novel based on the real life of the French poet Arthur Rimbaud, called Disaster Was My God.

ROBERT SIEGEL, host: Writing biographical novels about intellectuals would hardly seem the most likely path to success for a writer, but Bruce Duffy seems to be making a go of it.

A few years ago, he wrote a novel about 20th century philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, and now he has tapped into the life of 19th century French poet Arthur Rimbaud in his book "Disaster Was My God."

Reviewer Alan Cheuse is glad that he did.

ALAN CHEUSE: Good student at 12, provincial rascal at 15, major poet before 20, his life included a tumultuous homosexual love affair with married Parisian poet Paul Verlaine.

Arthur Rimbaud ended his writing career by age 20 and took off for Africa, where he became a savage businessman and gun runner. This flaunting, James Dean-like sexpot, petty thief, public nuisance, sometimes raging, sometimes sulking genius. There's quite enough in his short life for most novelists to work with, and Bruce Duffy does it up big.

His raucous, bawdy and ultimately worshipful take on the infamous poete maudit - as in cursed poet - offers histrionic scenes of pain, degradation, sheer madness and intermittent danger.

But Duffy also focuses on Rimbaud's poems, which overturn the ideals of classical French poetry; visionary work that opened the door to modern emotions and longings. So it's fitting that this meta-fictional biography seems always in a state of constant verbal agitation.

Duffy carries the reader beyond the usual ventriloquism of a realistic rendering of the material to a playful level above and beyond it. And his portrait of a mama's boy gone mad turns out to be quite entertaining. As in the Abyssinian desert town of Harrar, where Rimbaud makes his base until his late 30s, when he heads home to France to die, the heat in this novel remains constant.

SIEGEL: "Disaster Was My God" is by Bruce Duffy. Alan Cheuse teaches writing at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia.

Source : National Public Radio

Product Description

The author of the critically acclaimed novel The World as I Found It brilliantly reimagines the scandalous life of the pioneering, proto-punk poet Arthur Rimbaud.

Arthur Rimbaud, the enfant terrible of French letters, more than holds his own with Lord Byron and Oscar Wilde in terms of bold writing and salacious interest. In the space of one year—1871—with a handful of startling poems he transformed himself from a teenaged bumpkin into the literary sensation of Paris. He was taken up, then taken in, by the older and married poet Paul Verlaine in a passionate affair. When Rimbaud sought to end it, Verlaine, in a jealous rage, shot him. Shortly thereafter, Rimbaud—just shy of his twentieth birthday—declared himself finished with literature. His resignation notice was his immortal prose poem A Season in Hell. In time, Rimbaud wound up a prosperous trader and arms dealer in Ethiopia. But a cancerous leg forced him to return to France, to the family farm, with his sister and loving but overbearing mother. He died at thirty-seven.

Bruce Duffy takes the bare facts of Rimbaud’s fascinating existence and brings them vividly to life in a story rich with people, places, and paradox. In this unprecedented work of fictional biography, Duffy conveys, as few ever have, the inner turmoil of this calculating genius of outrage, whose work and untidy life essentially anticipated and created the twentieth century’s culture of rebellion. It helps us see why such protean rock figures as Bob Dylan, Jim Morrison, and Patti Smith adopted Rimbaud as their idol.

Hardcover: 384 pages
Publisher: Doubleday (July 19, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0385534361
ISBN-13: 978-0385534369

Source: Amazon.com

Rimbaud The Ethiopian

Catherine — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 22:36:00 +0200

International workshop on the life of Arthur Rimbaud when he was established in Harar - at Haramaya University – April 7 & 8 2011.

Programme

Thursday 7 April

Morning - Opening ceremony and session 1
Location : Haramaya University – Resource Center.
- 8:30 : Welcoming of the participants (from Dire Dawa) – Installation in the rooms of the ressource center.
- 9:00 : Musical opening by the Harar Police Orchestra
- 9:20 : Official speeches : President of Haramaya University, Dean of the College of Social Sciences and Humanities, Director of the French Center for Ethiopian Studies
- 10:00 : coffee, tea
SESSSION 1 : chair : Garbis Korajian, independant scholar
- 10:15 : W/o Sinidu Abebe : « The Life of Arthur Rimbaud » (in Amharic)
- 11:00 : Mr Jean-Michel Cornu, EHESS : « Arthur Rimbaud in Harar (1880-1891) : Marginality and Self Creation »
- 11:30 : Alain Tourneux, director of Arthur Rimbaud Museum in Charleville-Mézières : « The Ethiopian collections of the Arthur Rimbaud Museum in Charleville-Mézières »
- 12:00 : Ahmed Zakaria, Institute of Ethiopian Studies : « Rimbaud's coins : some reflections on his stay Harar »
- 12:15 : Discussion
- 12:30 : Lunch (buffet) at Haramaya University
Afternoon : photographic exhibition in Harar
- 5:30 pm : Inauguration of the photographic exhibition of historical photographs of Arthur Rimbaud and his time.
- Speeches by the President of the Harari National State, the Head of the Bureau of Culture and Tourism, the director of the Arthur Rimbaud Center, the Ambassador of France in Ethiopia, the Ambassador of Switzerland in Ethiopia.
- Presentation of the exhibition by Alain Tourneux, curator of the exhibition
- Visit of the exhibition.
- 6:30 : Reception and Harari dinner at the Arthur Rimbaud Center in Jugol, Harar
- 8:30 : return to Haramaya University Research Center

Friday 8 April All day – sessions 2 and 3

Location : Haramaya University – Resource Center.
SESSION 2 : Eloi Ficquet, Director of the French center for Ethiopian Studies.
- 8:30 am : Thomas Osmond, Haramaya University : « Social Orders and Historical Discourses in the Vicinity of Harar in the End of the 19th c. »
- 9:00 : Aramis Houmed Soulé, EHESS, CFEE : « Arthur Rimbaud, and the Afar : beyond silence »
- 9:30 : Ian Campbell, Institute of Ethiopian Studies : « The Brille Man of Harar » (in English)
- 10:00 : Discussion
- 10:30 : Coffee break
- 11:00 : Brook Beyene and Sinidu Abebe, On the translations of Arthur Rimbaud's poems in Amharic : Comments and Readings.
- 12:00 : Lunch at Haramaya University
SESSION 3 : chair : Mme Anne-Marie Bardey, granddaughter of Alfred Bardey
- 14:00 : Idriss Youssouf, writer, Djibouti : « Lettres à Rimbaud » (in French – Comments in English)
- 14:30 : Claude Jeancolas, writer on Rimbaud, Paris : « Amour d'Afrique » (in English)
- 15:00 : Chehem Watta, writer, Djibouti : « Rimbaud l'Africain, diseur de silences » (in French – Comments in English)
- 15:30 : Discussion
- 16:00 : Coffee Break
- 16:30 : Jean Voellmy, Switzerland (in absentia) : « Arthur Rimbaud and Alfred Ilg » (in French – Comments in English)
- 17:00 : Christoph Kühn, filmmaker, Switzerland (in abstentia) : « Alfred Ilg, the White Abyssinian », Documentary film (2004), 57'
- 18:00 : Concluding Remarks
- 18:30 : End of the workshop
- 19:00 : Dinner at Haramaya University
- 21:00 : Charles Nicholl, writer, Royal Society of Literature, UK, (in abstentia) : « No Direction Home », Documentary film (1994) 55'.

Source: Cfee.cnrs.fr

Talk on Arthur Rimbaud and the Paris Commune

Catherine — Sun, 24 Oct 2010 19:57:00 +0200

Talk this Monday on Arthur Rimbaud and the Paris Commune at the Marx Memorial Library.

Apart from being a literary prodigy, the poet Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891) is known above all else as a rebel, "the first and greatest poet of revolt", as Camus hailed him. But was he in any sense a socialist writer?

Sebastian Hayes argues that he definitely was and that through his involvement with the Paris Commune Rimbaud was thoroughly immersed in radical political thought and revolutionary action.

In France, as was once said, “We don’t do reforms - only revolutions” and Rimbaud's short but brilliant life appears to fully justify the claim.

An experienced actor and storyteller, Sebastian Hayes is the author of two collections of poems, and a book of short stories. In 2007, he published a new translation of Rimbaud’s Une Saison en Enfer/A Season in Hell, complete with Notes and a lengthy re-evaluation of Rimbaud Rimbaud Revisited 1968 – 2006.

Monday 25th October 6.30pm
Arthur Rimbaud and the Paris Commune - Sebastian Hayes
£2.50/ £1 Concessions
Marx Memorial Library
37A CLERKENWELL GREEN, LONDON

Rimbaumania in Paris

Catherine — Fri, 28 May 2010 21:29:00 +0200

He may have lived over a hundred years ago, but French poet Arthur Rimbaud stills speaks to young people in the Internet era. A new Paris show, Rimbaudmania, reveals his influence on poets and musicians, from Burroughs and Kerouac to Bob Dylan, Jim Morrison, Patti Smith and punk rock.

This is the biggest Rimbaud exhibition ever. It offers convincing proof of the bad-boy poet’s universal fandom: in theatre, painting, sculpture, opera, classical music, rock and roll, fashion and advertising.

“The myth of Rimbaud,” explains curator and biographer Claude Jeancolas, “is omnipresent in the arts.” It is also a catalogue of obsessions, the need for each generation to identify with the poet who dropped out of school to experiment with changing the world.

“Rimbaud, c’est moi,” said Henry Miller, who wrote a book about him (The Time of Assassins). Bruce Chatwin wanted to play Rimbaud in an opera.

Serge Gainsbourg said in an interview that he would “meet Rimbaud in Ethiopia” after his death – Rimbaud abandoned poetry at 19 to explore the Horn of Africa and trade in arms.

The visit begins in a dimly lit room with manuscripts and first editions. Rimbaud’s Letter of the seer is on display for the first time, a schoolboy script of swirls and flourishes that says the poet must brave the “systematic derangement of all the senses” to create a new “universal language”. Here too is Le Reliquaire, an edition of Rimbaud’s poems seized by the police within a day of his death.

The poems and letters are just a few of the 350 objects. There are also masterpieces by Picasso, Giacometti and Fernand Léger. The photography includes the series by Robert Mapplethorpe.

And yes, it is manic. The rare manuscripts and artistic masterpieces compete for attention with Patti Smith belting out Rimbaud-inspired lyrics and babyfaced Rimbaud T-shirts, comic strips and mugs.

Loudspeakers in a dozen languages recite Rimbaud’s visionary account of his own life, a Season in Hell, which eerily foretells his early death and posthumous stardom.

The medium is the message with separate rooms for books, music and film. Patti Smith figures prominently, as does the Clash. A novel by punkster Richard Hell, Godlike, sums up how punk musicians feel about him. Hollywood chose Leonardo DiCaprio to portray him as poet-brat in the film Total Eclipse.

By the exit you just might find yourself humming the punk anthem “go Rimbaud, go Rimbaud, go Rimbaud…”

Rimbaudmania , the eternity of an icon runs until 1 August at the Galerie des Bibliothèques, 22 rue Mahler, 75004. It will then move to the Rimbaud Museum in Charleville in the north of France.

Source: RFI

French booksellers discover first adult Rimbaud picture

Catherine — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 20:12:00 +0200

A previously unseen photo of French poet Arthur Rimbaud was unveiled in Paris on Thursday, bringing the total number of known images of the writer to eight.

Two French booksellers have discovered the only clear image of the 19th century French poet Arthur Rimbaud as an adult, after stumbling across it at a flea market.

Until now the author of Le Bateau Ivre and Illuminations has been best remembered as an angelic adolescent as all other portraits of him were blurred or silhouettes.

But Jacques Desse and Alban Causse made their extraordinary find when they came across a black and white photo taken circa 1880 among postcards and bric-a-brac in a market "somewhere in France".

The photo showed a group of mustachioed bourgeois Frenchmen and one woman in white and was signed Hotel de l'Univers on the back. Rimbaud enthusiasts would know this was the hotel in Aden, Abyssinia, where Rimbaud spent the last years of his life before dying of cancer aged 37.

The self-proclaimed literary "bounty hunters" were convinced the man staring defiantly at the camera was the flamboyant and libertine poet himself.

They showed the photo, for which they paid a "reasonable sum", to a leading Rimbaud expert who was putting together a book of previously unseen posthumous letters from the poet's family and entourage. Jean-Jacques Lefrère confirmed the photo was indeed of Rimbaud, along with his wife and friends.

It is exhibited at the Paris Old books fair in the Grand Palais, which opened yesterday.

Rimbaud, born in 1854, wrote all his most famous poems from his teens until the age of 21, and was described by Victor Hugo as "an infant Shakespeare".

As a youth, he had an affair with Paul Verlaine, another great French poet and a married man, who tried to shoot him during a dispute.

Rimbaud left Europe for Abyssinia where he became an arms and gold trader.

He died in Marseille in 1891.

Source: Telegraph.co.uk and Yahoo! News (AFP)

Win Tickets: Rimbaud and Verlaine at Kings Place

Catherine — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 18:31:00 +0000

The lives of French poets Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine sound like something from a Rick Mayall sitcom. Theirs is a tale of forbidden love, drunken rows and cross-channel debauchery, with knife fights, a shooting and even a fish-slapping incident thrown in for bad measure. During a particularly stormy period in 1873, the two Frenchmen lived together at 8 Royal College Street, Camden Town, and there wrote some of their most enduring poetry.

The house, complete with plaque, still exists, and was recently restored after falling into semi-dereliction. Plans are now afoot to turn the property into a lasting memorial and cultural centre, spearheaded by charity Poet in the City.

To find out more about the archetypal enfants terrible, head along to Kings Place on April 27th for a stimulating discussion about Rimbaud and Verlaine's time in Camden. The expert panel comprises historian and biographer Graham Robb, French Literature expert Dominique Comb, French professor and author Martin Sorrell, and author Yann Fremy. Alan Jenkins, Poetry and Deputy Editor of The Times Literary Supplement, will chair the event.

Thanks to Kings Place and Poet in the City, we have a pair of tickets to give away. To stand a chance of winning, simply fill in your details at the address below.

Winners will be selected at random at 5pm tomorrow (Thursday 23rd April) - so if you don't hear from us that evening, you'll need to buy tickets. Names and addresses are for competition purposes only and will not be passed on to third parties.

Rimbaud and Verlaine, curated by Poet in the City, at Kings Place on 27 April, 7pm. Tickets £9.50 (online, book here). This event is also part of the Slow Down London festival.

Source: Londonist

Poet in the city invites you to Rimbaud & Verlaine

Catherine — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 21:16:00 +0000

An event celebrating the life and works of two of France's greatest poets, chaired by Alan Jenkins, featuring Graham Robb, Dominique Combe, Martin Sorrell, Yann Frémy and the distinguished actors Bill Homewood and Estelle Kohler.

Arthur Rimbaud by Hervé Constant
Collection of The Arthur Rimbaud Museum France

In 1872 literary France was scandalized when Arthur Rimbaud, the enfant terrible of French poetry, seduced Paul Verlaine, then a much more famous poet, away from his wife and child and ran away with him to London. Two of the greatest French poets of the Nineteenth century, they have been hailed as harbingers of the modern age, the inspiration for Rock Stars, and as pioneers for gay rights. This spectacular Poet in the City event will celebrate the poetry of Rimbaud and Verlaine and the stormy but creative period they spent together at No 8 Royal College Street in King's Cross in 1873.

Chaired by Alan Jenkins, Poetry and Deputy editor of the TLS. His most recent collections of poetry are A Shorter Life (2005) and a highly acclaimed translation of Rimbaud's "Le Bateau Ivre": Drunken Boats, 2007.

Graham Robb, literary and cultural historian, formerly Fellow and Lecturer at Exeter College Oxford. Prize-winning biographer of Rimbaud, Balzac and Victor Hugo, his latest book is The Discovery of France.

Dominique Combe, Professor of French Literature at the Paris Sorbonne, also Visiting Professor and Fellow of Wadham College Oxford. A specialist in 19th-21st century poetry, his notable study of Rimbaud was published in 2004.

Martin Sorrell, Professor of French at Exeter University. His books include: Verlaine: Selected Poems and Rimbaud: Collected Poems. His last play, The Glass Man, won the Mental Health Media Award for Best Radio Drama, 2006.

Yann Frémy, currently author and co-editor of recognised Rimbaud and Verlaine studies, he organises the Annual "Verlaine/Rimbaud" Seminars at Paris Sorbonne, and is a member of Strasbourg University CERIEL group.

With readings by the distinguished actors: Bill Homewood and Estelle Kohler, leading players with the Royal Shakespeare Company Shakespeare's Lovers is their recent best-selling recording.

Poet in the City is delighted to be working with Kings Place in King's Cross, the new home of Guardian News and Media. This spectacular new building includes performance spaces, galleries, restaurants and a book shop. The charity will be holding a whole series of exciting events in Hall One at Kings Place during 2009.

From 6.30pm on Monday 27th April 2009 in Hall One at Kings place, the new home of Guardian News and Media, 90 York Way, London N1 9AG.

The event itself will start promptly at 7.00pm

How to buy tickets
Booking now open online, by phone or in person from the Kings Place box office:

Tickets cost £9.50 if booked online via www.kingsplace.co.uk

Otherwise tickets cost £11.50. Box Office 0844 264 0321 (local rate)

For enquiries relating to your booking please contact tickets@kingsplace.co.uk. To check ticket availability please use the online booking service.

For general enquiries or comments, please use our online feedback form or email info@kingsplace.co.uk

Poet in the City is a registered charity committed to attracting new audiences to poetry, making new connections for poetry, and raising money to support poetry education, in particular the placing of poets in schools.

The Star Cried Rose

Catherine — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 20:48:00 +0000

The star cried rose into the core of your ears.
Infinity rolled white from your neck to your thighs.
The sea pearled red onto your crimson breast
and Man has bled black at your sovereign sides.

Arthur Rimbaud

(Translation by Niall McDevitt)