Darkness Moves: An Henri Michaux Anthology, 1927-1984Henri Michaux is one of the great visionary European artists of the twentieth century. Before he died in 1984, his writings had been translated from the French into more than half a dozen languages and his paintings displayed at the major art museums of Europe and the United States. He has been compared to Kafka, Swift, Beckett, Klee, and Goya, yet his work defies easy categorization. Darkness Moves is the first English-language anthology to present the full range of Michaux's talent, including many works that were previously unavailable in English. Here are selections from nearly all of the artist's major writings: his hallucinatory visions, fantastic journeys, fables, portraits of strange people's, the weirdly comic "Plume" narratives, his "exorcism-poems", and the meditative ecstatic poetry nourished by the religions of Asia. Also represented are his extremely original essays on art, literature, and life. Thirty reproductions of Michaux's paintings give a sample of his visual work, which is as singular and adventurous as his poetry. David Ball, himself a poet, brings a great sensitivity to his renderings of Michaux's remarkable French, and his introductions offer a valuable guide to the work presented. Now, for the first time, the English reader can fully explore the haunting verbal and pictorial landscapes of this twentieth-century visionary. |
Contents
Who I | 1 |
My Properties | 5 |
The Night Moves | 21 |
Plume preceded by FarOff Inside | 43 |
Ordeals Exorcisms | 81 |
Trying to Wake | 97 |
Elsewhere | 101 |
Life in the Folds | 141 |
Facing the Locks | 161 |
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Common terms and phrases
absolutely abyss ADAGP Allen Ginsberg already animal anthology auscultate become blood body calm ceaselessly clairvoyance coming counterlife Courtesy dangerous dark David Ball dead disappeared dreams earth Ernest Hello everything exorcism eyes face feel Franz Hellens Gallimard Gaurs give Guggenheim Museum hand happens hard head Henri Michaux infinite infinity inside John Ashbery keep Krakatoa Land of Magic leave legs live longer look lost Magus Meidosem mescaline Miserable Miracle moving Musée National d'Art National d'Art Moderne nature never night Night Moves Nonese Olibarians once pain painting Paris Paul Klee perhaps Plume poems poet Poomappi ripped secret seems shadows silence someone soon space stop strange suddenly suffering surprise texts there's things thought thousand translation turn unbearable Untitled waiting walk watch waves whole woman words write Zao Wou-ki