With the recent changes in the Cuban government now seems like an appropriate time to visit the writings of Margarita Engle, Cuban American poet and writer and author of The Poet Slave of Cuba, (about the life of Juan Francisco Manzano) one of the more powerful biographies I've ever read. From my review:
One of the things that really impressed me about Poet Slave was how Engle managed to make a man born more than 200 years ago in a foreign country and unfamiliar circumstances become completely and utterly alive to me as the reader. I felt for Juan when I read this book; I felt horribly for him. I also liked how the author wrote several of the poems from different perspectives, so the reader is able to see things through his parents, friends and even his owners. It's a chance to climb inside so many different heads and view the same events or people from multiple sides. All in all, these poems in varied voices make for an amazing story and one that, because of Engle's reliance on Manzano's published autobiography, certainly carries the weight of truth. A gorgeous thing has been created with The Poet Slave of Cuba and anyone with any interest in poetry or slavery or the human capacity to endure and excel under the harshest of conditions would do well to read this book.
Engle has a new book due out in April: The Surrender Tree: Poems of Cuba's Struggle for Freedom. It follows the period in 1896 as Cuba's long fought battle for independence from Spain continued.
I fell hard for Maria Sibylla Merian last year and so find this exhibition at the Rembrandt House in Amsterdam quite appealing. (I highly recommend Kim Todd's biography of the 17th century naturalist, Chyrsalis.) From the exhibition:
More than a hundred rarely shown works by Maria Sibylla Merian and her daughters Johanna Helena and Dorothea Maria have been brought together for the exhibition. These original drawings, watercolours, gouaches, prints and books come from the leading museums, print rooms and libraries in the Netherlands and abroad. The exhibition also features work by artists who influenced Maria Sibylla Merian, among them Georg Flegel, Joris Hoefnagel and Jakob Marrel.
Among the exhibits are a number of magnificent watercolours from the British Royal Collection. These sheets have never been shown to the public before and they have been removed from their album for the first time especially for the exhibition. Because these drawings have been kept in ideal conditions for centuries, the colours are as fresh as when they were painted. These dazzling sheets of exotic butterflies, moths, caterpillars and plants can now be admired in Amsterdam.
The exhibit is moving to the Getty this summer; hopefully the two books (an adult biography and a children's book on the science) will be available then in English.
Poor Bennett Madison has had a very bad day. I hope the karmic boomerang whacks the guy who blew out his laptop.
Quincy Jones gets a lot of love from Smithsonian Magazine this month:
It was Sinatra who gave Jones his nickname—Q—while Jones was conducting the singer and a 55-piece orchestra at an event for Princess Grace at the Sporting Club in Monaco in 1958. Jones later arranged the music for Sinatra's 1964 album with Count Basie, It Might as Well Be Swing, which included "Fly Me to the Moon." Jones and Sinatra remained close until Sinatra's death in 1998. "He took me to another planet," Jones recalls, flashing the gold pinkie ring Sinatra left him. "He either loved you, or he'd roll over you in a Mack truck in reverse. There was nothing in between."
That has to be the coolest thing ever: getting a nickname from Frank Sinatra. Wow.
Subterranean Press has a bunch of teasers for projects down the line, including a new Ray Bradbury. If you don't know about this press you are really missing something.
And hey - the trailer for Coraline. Neil Gaiman just flat out rocks, doesn't he? (And what a perfect match-up of writer and director!)
[post pic by Maria Sibylla Merian from the Rembrandt House exhibition.]
