Monday, February 18, 2013

Exquisite corpse

Paul, Patrick, Merl, Sandra

Monday, February 04, 2013

An Anthology for Angye

Danger Poésie is inviting orders for a fundraising anthology entitled Angye Gaona ou la liberté à tire-d'ailes (Angye Gaona, or Liberty Takes Wing). Forty-three poets (including Angye herself), three artists and eight translators have contributed to the book.

All proceeds from the anthology will go directly to Angye, a Surrealist poet who has been fighting wholly fabricated charges in the Colombian courts for the past three years. As well as having to take care of her seven-year-old daughter, Angye needs money to pay her legal fees, and her circumstances mean that apart from the occasional odd job she is financially dependent on her friends. Book sales are therefore intended to provide Angye with some additional support.

To place your order, send your name, postal address, telephone number and email address, stating the number of copies you wish to buy, to:

Danger poésie
53 rue Yves Klein
(Placette Honoré Daver)
F-06480 La Colle s/Loup
France

The anthology is priced at €12.50 (€7.50 for contributors), and cheques should be made payable to "Danger poésie". Shipping within the EU is free, but if you are outside the EU, or if you would like to pay by bank transfer rather than cheque, email danger-poesie[AT}orange.fr to place your order.

You can keep up to date with news about Angye's case through the campaign's Facebook group.

Friday, February 01, 2013

Solidarity with Freedom Bookshop!

We were horrified to learn that Freedom Bookshop in Whitechapel was firebombed early this morning.


Details of the attack have been published on the IT and Freedom sites, with periodic updates on the situation on Freedom's Facebook group and Twitter feed.

The good news is that no one was hurt. The bad news is that parts of the building were badly damaged, including the wiring, and they have no insurance.

Some of the items that have been destroyed include copies of the Raven. This historic anarchist periodical also played an important role in the history of Surrealism: issues 2 and 3 published an important debate about the state of the movement in Britain, with contributions by Franklin Rosemont, Conroy Maddox, George Melly and others. The loss of the periodical is a bitter one.

Freedom are asking for volunteers to help with the cleanup from 1pm tomorrow (Saturday 2 February).

The bookshop has put out a call for book donations to replenish the stock – drop them off at the shop during normal opening hours (Monday to Saturday 12 noon to 6pm, Sunday 12 noon to 4pm).

Other initiatives to support the recovery include the Donate a Poem campaign, which will publish a book of donated poetry to help raise funds, and a compilation album by Iron Column Records, for which audio donations are being sought.

Financial donations can also be made: cheques or postal orders made payable to Freedom Press can be sent to Freedom Press, 84b Whitechapel High Street, London E1 7QX. Alternatively you can make a financial donation by making a dummy purchase through Freedom's online shop. After placing your order, email them at shop[AT]freedompress.org.uk to let them know that the "purchase" was really a donation: they will not send you the goods, but they will still receive the money.

None of the Surrealists we know is exactly rich, but we ask all our friends to do whatever they can to help with the rebuilding of this precious bookshop and meeting space, and to spread the word about the rebuilding campaign.