Henri Cole

Time was plunging forward, like dolphins scissoring open water or like me, following Jenny's flippers down to see the coral reef, where the color of sand, sea and sky merged, and it was as if that was all God wanted: not a wife, a house or a position, but a self, like a needle, pushing in a vein. -from "Olympia" In his fifth collection of verse, Henri Cole's melodious lines are written in an open style that is both erotic and visionary. Few poets so thrillingly portray the physical world, or man's creaturely self, or the cycling strain of desire and self-reproach. Few poets so movingly evoke the human quest of "a man alone," trying --to say something true that has body, because it is proof of his existence.. . Middle Earth is a revelatory collection, the finest work yet from an author of poems that are . . .marvels-unbuttoned, riveting, dramatic-burned into being-- (Tina Barr, Boston Review).

Poems

Middle Earth

Henri Cole, one of our greatest poets, explores the discordant nature of our condition on earth in Blizzard, his tenth collection. “An artist of the greatest gifts.” —Louise Glück Daring, tender, truthful, the poems in Blizzard, Henri Cole’s tenth book, build on a reputation for quiet mastery. Whether he is wrestling with the mundane, history and its disasters, or sexual love, he can sound both classical and contemporary, with the modern austerity of Cavafy and Bishop. Often exploring the darker places of the heart, his sonnets do not lie down obediently, but spark with an honest self-awareness. Cole’s lucid, empathetic poems—with lyrical beauty and ethical depth—seem to transmute the anxious perplexities of our time.

Blizzard

A poetic portrait of Paris that combines prose poetry, diary, and memoir by award-winning writer and poet Henri Cole. Henri Cole’s Orphic Paris combines autobiography, diary, essay, and poetry with photographs to create a new form of elegiac memoir. With Paris as a backdrop, Cole, an award-winning American poet, explores with fresh and penetrating insight the nature of friendship and family, poetry and solitude, the self and freedom. Cole writes of Paris, “For a time, I lived here, where the call of life is so strong. My soul was colored by it. Instead of worshiping a creator or man, I cared fully for myself, and felt no guilt and confessed nothing, and in this place I wrote, I was nourished, and I grew.” Written under the tutelary spirit of Orpheus—mystic, oracular, entrancing—Orphic Paris is an intimate Paris journal and a literary commonplace book that is a touching, original, brilliant account of the city and of the artists, writers, and luminaries, including Cole himself, who have been moved by it to create.

Orphic Paris

Collects poems exploring human emotions and existence.

Selected Sonnets, 1994-2022

Gravity and Center

باريس الأورفيّة

I don't want words to sever me from reality. I don't want to need them. I want nothing to reveal feeling but feeling—as in freedom, or the knowledge of peace in a realm beyond, or the sound of water poured in a bowl. —from "Gravity and Center" In his sixth collection of poetry, Henri Cole deepens his excavations of autobiography and memory. "I don't want words to sever me from reality," he asserts, and these poems—often hovering within the realm of the sonnet—combine a delight in the senses with the rueful, the elegiac, the harrowing. Many confront the human need for love, the highest function of our species. But whether writing about solitude or the desire for unsanctioned love, animals or flowers, the dissolution of his mother's body or war, Cole maintains a style that is neither confessional nor abstract. And in Blackbird and Wolf, he is always opposing disappointment and difficult truths with innocence and wonder.

Blackbird and Wolf

Peter Glotz

Jenny Holzer

Eckhard Schneider

Truth Before Power

Nothing to Declare

In this sixth collection of poetry, the author deepens his excavations of autobiography and memory, combining a delight in the senses with the rueful, the elegiac, and the harrowing.

Kunsthaus Bregenz

Seit über 25 Jahren präsentiert die Künstlerin ihre scharf formulierten Ideen und Argumente. Ihre berühmten elektronischen Texte und Zeichenanordnungen zitieren in ihrer jüngsten Arbeit freigegebene Geheimdienstpapiere zur US-Außenpolitik. Holzer erforscht den "Krieg" gegen den Terrorismus, die Folgen des 11. Septembers und die daraus entstandene Debatte von Spionage und Spionageabwehr. Für den Titel von Buch und Ausstellung verwendet sie den Leitsatz der CIA von 1968. Neben den Essays von Maurice Berger, Peter Glotz und Eckhard Schneider sind ausgewählte Texte aus freigegebenen US-Regierungsdokumenten und Höhepunkte aus Holzers eigenen Texte abgedruckt, ebenso das Gedicht. >To the Forty-third President

Edited by Eckhard Schneider

Poems delve into family memory and aim to connect physicality and emotion with the larger world.

Henri Cole

Books

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