Former leading New Zealand publisher and bookseller, and widely experienced judge of both the Commonwealth Writers Prize and the Montana New Zealand Book Awards, talks about what he is currently reading, what impresses him and what doesn't, along with chat about the international English language book scene, and links to sites of interest to booklovers.
Thursday, December 11, 2014
Poets' holiday greetings cards: an intimate glimpse into genius
How did Charles Bukowski wish friends and family a merry Christmas? A new exhibition reveals not just legendary poets’ softer side but the stages of their lives
Card by Langston Hughes with Africanesque by Aaron Douglas. Photograph: Courtesy of Raymond Danowski Poetry Library, MARBL, Emory University
One year, Langston Hughes’s Christmas cards were elegant and unique, printed with a line illustration, Africanesque, by fellow Harlem Renaissance artist Aaron Douglas. Another year, he scrawled a quick greeting on the back of a mass-produced card with a generic holiday verse printed on the back. Sometimes, even poets get too busy to put their personal stamp on the holidays.
Holiday greetings from Langston Hughes, 1953.Photograph: Courtesy of Raymond Danowski Poetry Library, MARBL, Emory University Hughes’s cards, along with some 40 other celebratory greetings, announcements, and private correspondence are currently on display in the exhibition Winter Wedding: Holiday Cards by Poets at Poets House in New York. There are seasonal poems privately printed by poets including Seamus Heaney, WH Auden and Allen Ginsberg; a copy of Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath’s marriage address; a Christmas card from Charles Bukowski; Flannery O’Connor’s tiny calling card; and handmade valentines exchanged by married poets Alice Notley and Ted Berrigan in the 1970s. It’s a small, charming show that offers a glimpse into the private worlds of these writers and artists, their relationships and creative collaborations. More
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