Jean-Luc Pouliquen and Beth Gersh-Nesic's Transatlantic Conversation on Art and Poetry

       

Press Release

Transatlantic Conversation: About Poetry and Art

Conversation Transatlantique: autour de l’art et de la poésie

1 March/Mars 2018

American art historian/critic, Beth Gersh-Nešić and French poet/literary critic  Jean-LucPouliquen share a deep appreciation for the poet/critic André Salmon, who was the close friend of poet/critic Guillaume Apollinaire and artist Pablo Picasso.  From both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, they reminisce about the beginning of the twentieth century when Salmon participated in the great adventure Cubism.  Transported by their conversation, the two travel down the road of time to the most recent contemporary expressions.  Within this exchange, they ask each other about the current state of affairs for poetry and art in Europe and in the United States, how the new forms of communication spread the word about the arts, and how these art forms are shared from one culture to another.  As they acknowledge the globalization of art, they conclude with the statement that once again the arts try to “do good,” as was their purpose in the past.

About the Authors

Beth Gersh-Nešić, Ph.D. is an art historian and the director of the New York Arts Exchange, an arts educational service which offers art tours and lectures in the New York area.  She specializes in Cubism and the art criticism of the period. She has published on the poet/art critic André Salmon, a close friend of Pablo Picasso, Guillaume Apollinaire and Max Jacob, and numerous modernist and post-modern artists. She teaches art history at Purchase College in New York.

Jean-Luc Pouliquen is a poet and literary critic. Collections of his poetry have been published in Mémoire sans tain (One-Way Memoir) and Célébrations (Celebrations). He is the author of several interviews dedicated to poetry, such as Fortune du poète (The Poet’s Fortune) with Jean Bouhier and Sur la page chaque jour (On the Page Every Day) with Daniel Biga, as well as essays.  He wrote the books Gaston Bachelard ou le rêve des origins (Gaston Bachelard or Dreaming of Origins), and Georges Pompidou, un président passionné de poésie (Georges Pompidou, a President Passionate about Poetry).  He regularly leads poetry writing workshops.

In English: A New York Arts Exchange Publication

Cover Design: Paul Vilalta's painting Interior

www.paulvilalta.com

Transatlantic Conversation About Art and Poetry and Conversation Transatlantique autour de l'art and de la poésie are available on Amazon.com.

Ann Cefola Shares Her Book with Friends at the Hudson River Museum on April 26th

Please join me on Sunday, April 26th to celebrate Ann Cefola's new book of poetry Face Painting in the Dark (Dos Madres, 2014)  at the Hudson River Museum.
Event begins at 3:30 pm.

I look forward to seeing you there!

Beth New York
aka Beth S. Gersh-Nesic, Ph.D.
Director
New York Arts Exchange
www.nyarts-exchange.com

Face Painting in the Dark: Poems by Ann Cefola

Ann Cefola paints with poems: still lifes, landscapes, self-portraits and other works of art.  She is a visual artist, as surely as those who delineate with brush or pencil.  She shapes, carves, digs in and reveals.  Peeling away layers of optical appearance, she mines for meaning, creating a personal iconography of circumstance.

In “Teint Pur Mat,” Cefola begins our reading of the poem with a French proverb: “Il fait dur d' être jolie (It's hard to be pretty).”

In white slip like lace, close to mirror, my mother fills 
eyebrows with Charles of the Ritz gold pen.

Chanel No. 5's scent glossy and brown as her mink stole, dabs
from a square bottle.  Touch & Glow, shaken hard in one hand.

And so the poet continues to describe the intimacy of a woman's toilette observed by her daughter, the room suffused with “pharmaceutical scents” sprinkled, sprayed and poured into use that become the heirlooms of experience: habits, products, gestures and olfactory associations.  These moments of watching and waiting transition into joining the female tribe by enacting rituals of beautification.

pale frosts of junior high.  How makeup marks my life;
Elbowing at the girls' room mirror, I draw

And contemplate: ruminating over this fashioning of the mask, this living inside and outside of the body:

help me get closer to my true snakeskin.
To swim toward grace, she knew what must be applied.

Along with these evocative images – the optical, the physical, the invisible and the remembered – which interact and overlap, simultaneously, like a Cubist's collage, there is sound: a voice that too sketches out the scenery, as in "Sugaring"

            At the pancake house, I say Blueberry, you say Cinnamon Sugar.                                                      

This poem makes my mouth crave maple syrup.

Thankfully, Cefola includes her masterpiece “Demoiselles 7,” which I have enjoyed for lo these seven years since we worked on our respective “Demoiselles” for the 100th anniversary of the painting's birth (mine was the catalog essay for an exhibition; Ann's her magnificent dialogue between the five prostitutes and art history):

To give and daily be discarded.
To live a heaviness in limb,
to feel  one's blood finely carbonated,

to sink back into empty pupils.

You blame Braque, Léger, Gris

They saw the world vibrate, could see the other side.

They heard the discordant violin, broken guitar.

They knew the danger of still life.

Picasso's ladies talk back, released from their stationary poses, to rant about the issues that still plague humankind:

We Demoiselles that changed the world,     and didn't.

As we travel from page to page, following the poet alight on urban and rural terrain, capturing the very essence of existence in all its vibrant or drab quotidian colors, we eventually face death itself in her poem “Road to Windsor,” dedicated to Susan Hall Anthony (1930-2009), co-founder of the New England Writers Association.

There she is, shimmer and light,

about to loose the body like an old nightgown.

I offer useless prayers.  Embrace her a second, last, time.

She holds on as if spirits speak in dialogue no one can hear.

This mural-like existence no less than two women, a portrait,

a Vermeer.  Love doesn't go away, I say.  She knows.

I put my hands at my heart in Namaste,

a gesture she returns.

And so the poet heads for home through the Vermont farms and Main Streets as we too take our leave from this journey through a virtual exhibition of Celofa's perceptive imagery:

Green hills home to sheep and dog, black-eyed Susans bright.
The envelope that folds in on itself,
daylilies that close at night.

Chuffed, we look forward to another Cefola collection.

Ann Cefola's Face Painting in the Dark was published by Dos Madres Press in 2014.   Her other collections of poems are St. Agnes, Pink-Slipped published by Kattywompus Press in 2011 and Sugaring published by Dancing Girl Press in 2007.  She also translated Hélène Sanguinetti's poem Hence this Cradle published by Seismicity Editions in 2007 (enjoying the Witter Bynner Poetry Translation Residency at Santa Fe Art Institute to prepare).  Cefola received the Robert Penn Warren Award, judged by John Ashbery.  She earned her MFA in Poetry Writing from Sarah Lawrence and still lives in New York.

Namaste,

Beth New York
aka Beth S. Gersh-Nesic
Director
New York Arts Exchange

Le Quatorze Juillet: Bastille Day 2013 - and an Anniversary Poem for Andre and Jeanne Salmon

Moise Kisling, Portrait of André Salmon, 1912 and Portrait of Jeanne Blazy-Escarpette Salmon, 1919

Poem Read at André Salmon’s Wedding

July 13 1909

Seeing the flags this morning I didn’t tell myself
Behold the rich garments of the poor
Or democratic modesty wants to veil its sorrow
Or honoring liberty now makes us imitate
Leaves o vegetable liberty o sole earthly liberty
Or the houses are ablaze because we’ll leave never to return
Or these restless hands will labor tomorrow for us all
Or even they’ve hanged those who couldn’t make the most of life
Or even they’ve renewed the world by recapturing the Bastille
I know it’s only renewed by those grounded in poetry
Paris is decked out because my friend André Salmon’s getting
        married there

We used to meet up in a damned dive
When we were young
Both of us smoking and shabbily dressed waiting for sunrise
Smitten smitten with the same words whose meanings will have
        to be changed
Deceived deceived poor kids and we still didn’t know how to laugh
The table and two glasses became a dying man who cast us
        Orpheus’ last glance
The glasses fell shattered
And we learned how to laugh
We parted then pilgrims of perdition
Across streets across countries across reason
I saw him again on the bank of the river where Ophelia was floating
Who still floats white amongst the water lilies
He went off amongst wan Hamlets
Playing the airs of madness on his flute
I saw him near a dying muzhik counting his blessings
While admiring the snow that looked like naked women
I saw him doing this or that in honor of the same words
That change children’s expressions and I’m saying these things
Recollection and Expectation because my friend André Salmon is
        getting married

Let’s rejoice not because our friendship has been the river that
        made us fertile
River lands whose abundance is the nourishment all hope for
Or because our glasses cast once more Orpheus’ dying glance
Or because we’ve grown so large that many people confuse our
        eyes with stars
Or because flags flap at the windows of citizens who’ve been
        content these hundred years to have life and trifles to defend

Or because grounded in poetry we have the right to words that
        form and unmake the
Universe
Or because we can weep without being absurd and because we
        know how to laugh
Or because we’re smoking and drinking as in the old days
Let’s rejoice because the director of fire and poets
Love filling like light
All the solid space between stars and planets
Love wishes that my friend André Salmon get married today

Apollinaire
translation © Jack Hayes 2010

From Robert Frost's Banjo

POÈME LU AU MARIAGE D'ANDRÉ SALMON

Le 13 juillet 1909
En voyant des drapeaux ce matin je ne me suis pas dit
Voilà les riches vêtements des pauvres
Ni la pudeur démocratique veut me voiler sa douleur
Ni la liberté en honneur fait qu'on imite maintenant
Les feuilles ô liberté végétale ô seule liberté terrestre
Ni les maisons flambent parce qu'on partira pour ne plus revenir
Ni ces mains agitées travailleront demain pour nous tous
Ni même on a pendu ceux qui ne savaient pas profiter de la vie
Ni même on renouvelle le monde en reprenant la Bastille
Je sais que seuls le renouvellent ceux qui sont fondés en poésie
On a pavoisé Paris parce que mon ami André Salmon s'y marie
Nous nous sommes rencontrés dans un caveau maudit
Au temps de notre jeunesse
Fumant tous deux et mal vêtus attendant l'aube
Epris épris des mêmes paroles dont il faudra changer le sens
Trompés trompés pauvres petits et ne sachant pas encore rire
La table et les deux verres devinrent un mourant qui nous jeta le dernier regard d'Orphée
Les verres tombèrent se brisèrent Et nous apprîmes à rire
Nous partîmes alors pèlerins de la perdition
A travers les rues à travers les contrées à travers la raison
Je le revis au bord du fleuve sur lequel flottait Ophélie
Qui blanche flotte encore entre les nénuphars
Il s'en allait au milieu des Hamlets blafards
Sur la flûte jouant les airs de la folie
Je le revis près d'un moujik mourant compter les béatitudes
En admirant la neige semblable aux femmes nues
Je le revis faisant ceci ou cela en l'honneur des mêmes paroles
Qui changent la face des enfants et je dis toutes ces choses
Souvenir et Avenir parce que mon ami André Salmon se marie
Réjouissons-nous non pas parce que notre amitié a été le fleuve qui nous a fertilisés
Terrains riverains dont l'abondance est la nourriture que tous espèrent
Ni parce que nos verres nous jettent encore une fois le regard d'Orphée mourant
Ni parce que nous avons tant grandi que beaucoup pourraient confondre nos yeux et les étoiles
Ni parce que les drapeaux claquent aux fenêtres des citoyens qui sont contents depuis cent ans d'avoir la vie et de menues choses à défendre Ni parce que fondés en poésie nous avons des droits sur les paroles qui forment et défont l'Univers
Ni parce que nous pouvons pleurer sans ridicule et que nous savons rire
Ni parce que nous fumons et buvons comme autrefois
Réjouissons-nous parce que directeur du feu et des poètes
L'amour qui emplit ainsi que la lumière
Tout le solide espace entre les étoiles et les planètes
L'amour veut qu'aujourd'hui mon ami André Salmon se marie


Vive la Liberté,
Beth New York

aka Beth S. Gersh-Nesic
Director
New York Arts Exchange
www.nyarts-exchange.com
www.andresalmon.org