Surrealist Women: An International Anthology by Penelope Rosemont

Surrealist Women: An International Anthology by Penelope Rosemont

Beginning in Paris in the 1920s, women poets, essayists, painters, and artists in other media have actively collaborated in defining and refining surrealism's basic project—achieving a higher, open, and dynamic consciousness, from which no aspect of the real or the imaginary is rejected. Indeed, few artistic or social movements can boast as many women forebears, founders, and participants—perhaps only feminism itself. Yet outside the movement, women's contributions to surrealism have been largely ignored or simply unknown.

This anthology, the first of its kind in any language, displays the range and significance of women's contributions to surrealism. Letting surrealist women speak for themselves, Penelope Rosemont has assembled nearly three hundred texts by ninety-six women from twenty-eight countries. She opens the book with a succinct summary of surrealism's basic aims and principles, followed by a discussion of the place of gender in the movement's origins. She then organizes the book into historical periods ranging from the 1920s to the present, with introductions that describe trends in the movement during each period. Rosemont also prefaces each surrealist's work with a brief biographical statement.

Contents:
    Introduction: All My Names Know Your Leap: Surrealist Women and Their Challenge by Penelope Rosemont
    Notes on Individuals Frequently Cited in This Anthology

PART 1. THE FIRST WOMEN SURREALISTS, 1924-1929
    Introduction: The Women of La Révolution Surréaliste by Penelope Rosemont
    Renée Gauthier
        Dream: I Am in a Field...
    Simone Kahn
        Surrealist Text: This Took Place in the Springtime...
        The Exquisit Corpses
    Denise Levy
        Surrealist Text: I Went into a Green Song...
        Surrealist Text: Ivory Blue and Shady Satin...
    Nancy Cunard
        Surrealist Manifestation at the Diachilev Ballet
        The Beginnings of the Surrealist Revolution
        Surrealism, Ethnography and Revolution
    Nadja
        The Blue Wind
    Fanny Beznos
        I Go, the Wind Pushing Me Along
        Purity! Purity! Purity!
    Suzanne Muzard
        On Love: Reply to an Inquiry
        My Passage in Surrealism
    Valentine Penrose
        When It Comes to Love: Response to an Inquiry
    Suzanne Muzard, Elsie Houston, and Jeannette Ducrocq Tanguy
        Surrealist Games

PART 2. IN THE SERVICE OF REVOLUTION, 1930-1939
    Introduction: Women and Surrealism in the Thirties by Penelope Rosemont
    Claude Cahun
        Captive Balloon
        The Invisible Adventure
        Poetry Keeps Its Secret
        Surrealism and Working-Class Emancipation
        From Life I Still Expect that Overwhelming Experience: Response to an Inquiry on Encounters
        Beware Domestic Objects!
    Nancy Gunard
        How Come, White Man?
        The Scottsboro Case
        A Trip to Harlem
    Simone Yoyotte
        Pale Blue Line in a Forced Episode, I Cut a Hole in the Flag of the Republic
        Half-Season
    Greta Knutson
        Foreign Land
    Lise Deharme
        The Empty Cage
        The Little Girl of the Black Forest
    Denise Bellon, Gala Dali, Nusch Eluard, Yolande Oliviero
        Experimental Research: On the Irrational Knowledge of the Object: The Crystal Ball of the Seers
    Maruja Mallo
        Surrealism as Manifest in My Work
    Meret Oppenheim
        Where Is the Wagon Going?
        If You Say the Right Word, I Can Sing...
        Anyone That Sees Her Fingers...
    Jacqueline Lamba
        A Revolutionary Approach to Life and the World
    Gisele Prassinos
        Arrogant Hair
        The Ghost of Chateaubriand
    Toyen
        A Community of Ethical Views
    Alice Rahon
        Four Poems from on the Bare Ground
        Despair
        Hourglass Lying Down
    Valentine Penrose
        There Is the Fire
        The Datura the Street
        To a Woman to a Path
    Sheila Legge
        I Have Done My Best for You
    Eileen Agar
        Am I Surrealist?
    Mary Low
        Women and the Spanish Revolution
    Marcelle Ferry
        You Came Down from the Mountains...
        When He Went Away...
        The One Seated on the Stones of Cheops...
        Frenzy, Sweet Little Child, You Sleep...
    Leonora Carrington
        The Sand Camel
    Grace W. Pailthorpe
        What We Put in Prison
        The Scientific Aspect of Surrealism
        Surrealist Art
        On the Importance of Fantasy Life
    Hélène Vanel
        Poetry and Dance
    Ithell Colquhoun
        What Do I Need to Paint a Picture?
    Jeanne Megnen
        The Nose Will Start Tomorrow

PART 3. NEITHER YOUR WAR NOR YOUR PEACE: THE SURREALIST INTERNATIONAL, 1940-1945
    Introduction: Women in the Surrealist Diaspora: First Principles and New Beginnings by Penelope Rosemont
    Suzanne Césaire
        André Breton, Poet
        Discontent of a Civilization
        1943: Surrealism and Us
        The Domain of the Marvelous
    Mary Low
        Perchance to Dream
        Women and Love through Private Property
    Frida Kahlo
        I Paint My Own Reality
        From Her Journal
    Lucie Thésée
        Beautiful as...
        The Buckets in My Head...
        Where Will the Earth Fall?
    Leonora Carrington
        Down Below
    Régine Raufast
        Photography and Image
    Laurence lché
        Scissors Strokes by the Clock...
        I Prefer Your Uneasiness Like a Dark Lantern...
        Unpublished Correspondence
        The Philosophers' Stone
    Gertrude Pape
        The Lake
        Eardrops from Babylon
    Susy Hare
        Complaint for a Sorcerer
    Sonia Sekula
        Womb
    Meret Oppenheim
        Round the World with the Rumpus God...
    Ithell Colquhoun
        "Everything Found on Land Is Found in the Sea"
        Water-Stone of the Wise
    Emmy Bridgwater
        On the Line
        Back to the First Bar
        The Journey
        The Birds
    Edith Rimmington
        The Growth at the Break
        The Sea-Gull
    Alice Rahon
        Pointed Out Like the Stars...
        Little Epidermis
        Sublimated Mercury
        The Appellants
        Ferns in a Hallow of Absence...
        The Sleeping Woman
    Eva Sulzer
        Butterfly Dreams
        Amerindian Art
    Jacqueline Johnson
        The Paintings of Alice Rahon Paalen
        The Earth
    Ida Kar
        I Chose Photography
    Ikhal El Alailly
        Introduction to Vertu de l'Allemagne [The Virtue of Germany]

PART 4. SURREALISM VERSUS THE COLD WAR, 1946-1959
    Introduction: Regroupment and Occultation: Women in the Surrealist Underground in the 1950s by Penelope Rosemont
    Thérèse Renaud
        I Lay My Head
    Françoise Sullivan
        Dance and Automatism
    Irène Hamoir
        Pearl
        Aria
        The Procession
    Emmy Bridgwater, Ithell Colquhoun, Irene Hamoir, and Edith Rimmington
        Surrealist Inquiry: What Do You Hate Most?
    Lise Deharme
        I Didn't Know Gertrude Stein
    Maria Martins
        I Am the Tropical Night's High Noon
        Art, Liberation, and Peace
    Helen Phillips
        The Image: Rocognition of a Moment
    Vera Hérold
        The Big L
    Gisèle Prassinos
        Peppermint Tower in Praise of Greedy Little Girls
    Ithell Colquhoun
        The Mantic Stain: Surrealism and Autonomism
    Dorothea Fanning
        Legend
    Nora Mitrani
        Scandal with a Secret Face
        "Blacker than Black..."
        About Cats and Magnolias
        Poetry, Freedom of Being
        On Slaves, Suffragettes, and the Whip
        Concupiscence and Scandal: Definitions from the Succinct Lexicon of Eroticism
    Valentine Penrose
        I Dream
    Jacqueline Johnson
        Taking a Sight 1951
    Alice Rahon
        Painter and Magician
    Jacqueline Senard
        Reasons and Safety Factors
        Cat = Clover
    Elisa Breton
        One in the Other
    Elisa Breton, Anne Seghers, and Toyen
        Surrealist Inquiry: Would You Open the Door?
    Joyce Mansour
        Into the Red Velvet
        Lovely Monster
        Practical Advice for Waiting
        To Come, Possession, Prick Tease: Definitions from the Succinct Lexicon of Eroticism
    Meret Oppenheim
        Autonomism at a Crossroads
        I Have to Write Down the Black Words
    Judit Reigl
        Points of Departure for a New Revolt
    Isabel Meyrelles
        Night Words
    Anneliese Hager
        Of the Poison of Dreams
        The Blue Spell
        Automatic Dream
    Drahomira Vandas
        Light Throws Shadows
        An Egg Hatches Out a Flame
        Rain Man
    Olga Orozco
        Twilight (Between Dog and Wolf)
    Blanca Varela
        Dance Card
    Marianne van Hirtum
        In Those Rooms...
        Abandon, Meeting, Orgasm, Seduce, Vice: Definitions from the Succinct Lexicon of Eroticism
    Leonora Carrington
        Comments on the Temptation of St. Anthony
        On Magic Art: A Conversation, 1996
    Kay Sage
        Painter and Writer
        An Observation
        The Window
        Chinoiserie
        Fragrance
    Mimi Parent
        Depraved Person, License, Masturbation, Voyeur: Definitions from the Succinct Lexicon of Eroticism
    Sonia Sekula
        Notes from a Journal: The Occurrence of Meeting a Face Contra a Face
    Remedios Varo
        A Recipe: How to Produce Erotic Dreams

PART 5. THE MAKING OF "MAY '68" AND ITS SEQUELS
    Introduction: Women in the Surrealist Resurgence of the 1960s and 1970s by Penelope Rosemont
    Nora Mitrani
        In Defense of Surrealism
    Nelly Kaplan
        Memoirs of a Lady Sheet Diviner
        At the Women Warriors' Table
        Enough or Still More
        All Creation Is Androgynous: An Interview
    Nicole Espagnol
        Female Socket
        Heartstopping
        The Conclusion Is Not Drawn
        The Wind Turns
    Annie Le Brun
        Introduction to Drop Everything
    Giovanna
        Where Are We in Relation to Surrealism
        Baking Chocolate and Dialectics
        What Do I Know...
        Therapy
    Monique Charbonel
        It's a Wonder
    Unica Zürn
        Lying in Ambush
    Elisabeth Lenk
        Surrealism: A Liberating and Catalyzing Element in Germany Today
        Automatic Text for Anne Ethuin
    Penelope Rosemont
        Passage
        Candle
        Rising Asleep
    Joyce Manour
        A Mango
        Night in the Shape of a Bison
        Ten to One to No
        Wild Glee from Elsewhere
        Absolute Divergence: The International Surrealist Exhibition, 1965-1966
    Mini Parent
        Are You a Surrealist?
    Marianne van Kirtum
        The Future of Surrealism: Response to an Inquiry
        While We Spend Our Lives Boning...
        And I Shall Be the Mouth of Copper...
        The Naked Truth
        Vampiro Nox
        Surrealism: Rising Sign
    Anne Ethuin
        Legend
    Isabel Meyrelles
        I Will Tell You during the Walk...
        Tyger, Tyger
    Luiza Neto Jorge
        Another Genealogy
        "Monument to Birds" (Max Ernst)
        Fable
        The Force of Gravity
        Sphericity: Ferocity
    Alejandra Pizarnik
        Caroline von Günderrode
        In a Copy of Les Chants de Maldoror
    Leila Ferraz
        Secrets of Surrealist Magic Art
        My Love, I Speak to You of a Love
    Rikki Ducornet
        My Special Madness
        Necromancy
        Dark Star, Black Star
        Machete
        Clean
    Nancy Joyce Peters
        To the Death of Mirrors
        General Strike
        Nelly Kaplans Néa: Woman & Eroticism in Film
    Alice Farley
        Notes Toward a Surrealist Dance
    Jayne Cortez
        Consultation
        Feathers
        In the Line of Duty
        Make Ifa
        Say It
    Haifa Zangana
        Can We Disturb These Living Coffins
        A Symbol of Sin and Evil Thoughts: Introduction to Bin Hazm Al-Andalusi
    Hilary Booth
        Their Games and Ours: A Note on Time-Travelers' Potlatch
    Hilary Booth, Nancy Joyce Peters, Penelope Rosemont, Debra Taub
        Surrealist Games: Time-Travelers' Potlatch
    Valentine Penrose
        From These Husks Are Worlds Made
    Leonora Carrington
        What Is a Woman?
        The Cabbage Is a Rose
    Meret Oppenheim
        Nobody Will Give You Freedom, You Have to Take It

PART 6. SURREALISM: A CHALLENGE TO THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
    Introduction: Women and Surrealism: Today and Tomorrow by Penelope Rosemont
    Silvia Grénier
        Signs
    Carmen Bruna
        Poetry: An Incitement to Revolt
        "Lady from Shanghai"
        Moi-Même
    Eva Švankmajerová
        Emancipation Cycle
        Tactile Lids
        Stunned by Freedom
        I Don't Know Exactly
    Alena Nádorníková
        Emila Medková's Photographs and the Anthropomorphization of Detail
        Determination of Time
        Art History (Sandro Botticelli)
    Ivana Giglinová
        The Old Crow's Story
    Mary Low
        The Companion
        Q.E.D.
        Where the Wolf Sings
        Encounter
    Hilary Booth
        Long Hot Summer: Great Black Music Today
        Preface to I Am Rain
        Our Skin Is Paper
        Poem for Central America
    Marie-Dominique Massoni
        Two Seconds
        How Old Is the Old Mole?
    Haifa Zangana
        What Choice?
    Jayne Cortez
        When I Look at Wifredo Lam's Paintings
        Bumblebee, You Saw Big Mama
        Sacred Trees
    Penelope Rosemont
        The Life and Times of the Golden Goose
        The Bad Days Will End
        Revolution by Chance
    Rikki Ducornet
        The Volatilized Ceiling of Baron Munodi
        Manifesto in Voices
    Alice Farley
        Costumes: Vehicles of Transformation
        Gesture
    Irene Plazewska
        Newton's Descent
    Debra Taub
        A Dance in the Forest
        Exquisit Alchemy
        Secret Melodies
    Gina Litherland
        Imagination and Wilderness
    Ivanir de Oliveira
        Collage: Image or Revelation
    Nicole E. Reiss
        Divagations
        A Delerious Voyage Inside a Circle
    Elain Parra
        To Radicalize with Beauty and Love
    Sarah Metcalf
        A Game of Slight Disturbances
    Katerina Piňosová
        The Piece of Bone
    Lenka Valachová
        The Sterile Dish
    Kajsa Bergh
        Desire
    Petra Mandal
        First-Hand Knowledge
    Nancy Joyce Peters
        Women and Surrealism