I had the honor of translating Corinne Taunay’s booklet Marcel Duchamp: Paris Air in New York, now available from Black Scat Books on Amazon.

Marcel Duchamp‘s exile in New York, in 1915-1917, brought him sudden fame and changed the course of his career. Corinne Taunay’s lively and witty study describes the scandals of Nude Descending a Staircase and Fountain, the creation of the first readymades, and the evolution of Duchamp’s artistic strategies. With 19 illustrations in black and white and in color.

Corinne Taunay is a visual artist and art historian who has contributed to many publications in Europe and the US.

Some music for psaltery and harpsichord: a diatonic melody with chromatic accompaniment.

The new expanded edition of Merde à la Belle Époque is now available from Black Scat Books! I’ve selected, translated, annotated, and introduced scatological songs, stories, poems, and playlets from some of the most inventive and eccentric writers of the golden age of Parisian Bohemia: Alphonse Allais, George Auriol, Georges Courteline, Charles Cros, J. Eschbach, André Gill, Edmond Haraucourt, Vincent Hyspa, Alfred Jarry, Jules Jouy, Maurice Mac-Nab, Armand Masson, Arthur Rimbaud, Rodolphe Salis, Erik Satie, and Henry Somm. Included is a complete translation of Jouy’s relentlessly pottymouth paper Le Journal des Merdeux, which was quickly seized by the police.

This collection was first published as a chapbook in 2014, and now has more stuff in it. It’s designed by Norman Conquest, and is available on Amazon.

A lively piece all in the treble register, for sopranino recorder, piano, and desk bell. “Yet” is a word with many meanings; among other things, it’s the antonym of “not yet.”

For the upcoming new edition of Merde à la Belle Époque, here’s some early Rimbaud. This poem has been translated before, but this may be the first attempt in rhyming verse. And I was careful to preserve Rimbaud’s alternation of masculine and feminine rhymes as well.

THE ACCURSED CHERUB
(Arthur Rimbaud, 1871)

The roofs are bluish, doors are whitish,
Like when a Sunday’s turning nightish,

Upon the outskirts, all is mum,
The Street is white, and night has come.

Strange houses rise above the gutters,
Embellished with Angelic shutters.

But, near a border stone, behold
Come running, poor and numb with cold,

A dusky Cherub, who then tarries
Because he ate too many berries.

He takes a dump: and runs away:
But his accursed dump will stay

Beneath the holy moon that watches,
A cesspit specked with bloody blotches!

A quiet piece for Bb whistle and percussion. The Bb whistle is lower than the standard instrument in D; it’s like the viola to the D’s violin. No percussion sound is repeated.

For a revised and expanded edition of the collection Merde à la Belle Époque, a sonnet by Armand Masson. A rhymed translation like this inevitably requires some paraphrase, but often comes closer to the original poem. Besides, it’s what the poets of 1887 would have expected.

THE EYE
(Armand Masson, 1887)

The eye was in the pot. The artist’s flair
Endowed it with a purple eyebrow too.
Its painted scarlet pupil gazed at you
Intently, with a melancholy air.

We won it at the county fair that day:
A lucky spin, and then it was our own.
Fifine declared the china finest bone,
And said she’d like to try it right away.

But back at home, it looked so new and clean,
She couldn’t soil a surface so pristine,
And pensively returned it to the rack.

It’s silly, but it took her several days:
That eye that stared so mercilessly back
Unnerved her with its penetrating gaze.

The 26th issue of Black Scat Review is now available! I contributed an alphabet, “Partners in Crime,” and my translation of “Upside-Down Stories: Mineral Waters,” by Charles Cros and Émile Goudeau (from my edition of those stories). The other contributors are a fine bunch: Tim Newton Anderson, Tom Barrett,  Margot Block, Robert James Cross, Farewell Debut,  Debra Di Blasi, Fernando Fidanza, Larry Fondation, Peter Gambaccini, Eckhard Gerdes, Rhys Hughes, Harold Jaffe, Amy Kurman, Michael Leigh, Martha McCollough, Jim McMenamin, Michael Pollentine, Frank Pulaski, Paul Rosheim, Saira Viola, and Tom Whalen.

And you can find it on Amazon.

Three songs with words by Edna St. Vincent Millay: “Song of Shattering,” “Spring,” and “The True Encounter.” Here’s the beginning of “Song of Shattering.”