The Proposals, by Nathalia Crane

Ruth Jonas - "The Proposals"
Ruth Jonas – illustration for “The Proposals” in Venus Invisible (1928)

In 1928 appeared Nathalia Crane’s fourth collection of poetry, Venus Invisible and Other Poems. Again, the title comes from one of the poems, but in this case not a noteworthy one. In my opinion, the most important work in the book is the long poem “Tadmor,” a strange oriental love tale with dreams and premonitions, ending in mutual worship; it is organised like an opera, alternating story, dialogues and chorus songs. In this book, the 15-year-old author shows her fully adult sophistication, which she had displayed growingly in her previous collections of verses. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…

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Red Poppy, by Aleister Crowley

Cicely Mary Barker - Fairy-Rings: The Poppy Fairy
Cicely Mary Barker – Fairy-Rings: The Poppy Fairy

From the collection Alice: An Adultery, a beautiful love poem for Mary Alice Rogers, a married woman with whom Crowley had a passionate affair in Hawaii. In the privately published 1903 edition, there was an 11th stanza , I reproduce it below. In the 1905 edition published by the Society for the Propagation of Religious Truth, it was titled “The Poem”, so in the 1906 edition of Crowley’s Collected Works, there was a footnote to the title, indicating “The poem in question.” CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…

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Concerning Hilda Conkling

Hilda Conkling (1920)
Artist unknown – Hilda Conkling (1920) – from Poems By a Little Girl (via Cadbury Research Library)

As a little girl, Hilda Conkling recited poems to her mother, Grace Hazard Conkling, who wrote them down. She would then, apparently without telling Hilda, publish some of them in journals and periodials, in particular in Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. In the issue of September the 1st, 1919, there is an interesting correspondence about Hilda, then approaching her 9th birthday, her writing and her talent. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…

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Peter Freuchen marries Navarana

Navarana and Peter Freuchen in Thule
Navarana and Peter Freuchen in Thule (1916-1917) – Photo: Arktisk Institut

The Danish explorer and ethnologist Peter Freuchen (1886–1957) is famous for exploring the Arctic, in particular with his colleague and friend Knud Rasmussen (1879–1933). He lived many years in North-West Greenland, trading with Inuits, befriending them and adopting their way of life. In 1911 he married an Inuit girl, Navarana. Being born around 1898, she was thus aged approximately 13 at their marriage, while he was 25-year-old. Most biographies avoid mentioning this detail, referring to her as an “Inuit woman”. But in his 1935 book Arctic Adventure: My Life in the Frozen North he first mentions her as a “little girl,” and just after their marriage as “my little wife,” and in the 1961 book Peter Freuchen’s Book of the Eskimos edited by his widow Dagmar, he refers to her as a “little girl, just reaching the marriageable age,” but he also mentions that “Eskimo girls marry so very young that a girl will often continue to play with the other children right up to the time of her first pregnancy.” CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…

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Minou Drouet et René Julliard

Minou Drouet et René Julliard
Minou Drouet et René Julliard (février 1956) – Le Figaro

Minou Drouet et René Julliard entretenaient une relation complexe mais asymétrique. Pour l’éditeur, Minou fut tout d’abord un écrivain à succès, même si tous deux se lièrent d’amitié et correspondirent. Mais pour la petite fille, Julliard fut d’abord un ami, qu’elle surnommait « ma Sonate », et comme avec ses autres amis, elle lui exprima tout son amour ; mais bientôt elle souhaita qu’il fût son père (elle vivait uniquement avec sa mère et sa grand-mère adoptives) : CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…

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Sweet Little Rock And Roller, by Chuck Berry

Woodstock Festival
Woodstock Festival (1969)

Charles Edward Anderson Berry, better known as Chuck Berry, was a pioneer of American rock and roll. Born on October 18, 1926, he knew fame between 1955 and 1965, thanks to a musical style appealing to youth, with a dancing rhythm, easily sung melodies, guitar solos, showmanship and lyrics centred about the teenage world. He continued to play music until his death on March 18, 2017. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…

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