[Yale-readings] Bryher Celebration and Reading Beinecke May 4

[Nancy Kuhl]

>
>Beinecke Library, Yale University
>May 4, 2005
>
>A Celebration of Bryher and Visa for Avalon
>with readings from the novel and comments about Bryher's work and life
>
>
>For more information, please contact Patricia Willis, patricia.willis at yale.edu
>WHO?
>
 Susan Howe, author of several books of poems and criticism, most 
>recently, The Midnight (2003), and The Europe of Trusts (2002). She is 
>currently the Samuel P. Capen Chair of Poetry and the Humanities at 
>SUNY-Buffalo, and is a Chancellor of The Academy of American Poets.
>
 Patrick Gregory, author of The Daguerreotype (2004), and son of poet, 
>translator, and critic Horace Gregory and poet Marya Zaturenska. Patrick 
>Gregory and his parents knew Bryher intimately, and Gregory is one of the 
>few friends living who can offer insights and information about her life 
>and work.
>
 Cynthia Hogue, author of several collections of poetry and criticism, 
>most recently Flux (2004), and is The Jonathan and Maxine Marshall Chair 
>in Modern and Contemporary Poetry at Arizona State University. She is the 
>2005 H.D. Fellow at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
>
 Jan Freeman, author of three collections of poetry, most recently Simon 
>Says (2000), and director of Paris Press. She is currently at work on 
>several Bryher projects.
>
 Patricia C. Willis, curator of the Yale Collection of American 
>Literature at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
>
 Timothy Young, assistant curator of the Modern Books and Manuscripts at 
>the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
>
>WHAT?
>Paris Press director Jan Freeman will introduce Visa for Avalon to the 
>audience and offer background information about the long-neglected author, 
>Bryher. Event participants will then read passages from Visa for Avalon 
>and offer their comments about Bryher, Visa for Avalon, and the timely 
>political and social message of the novel. This event is funded in part by 
>the Massachusetts Cultural Council.
>
>WHEN?                                               WHERE?
>Wednesday, May 4, 2005                    Beinecke Rare Book and 
>Manuscript Library
>4:00 - 5:00 p.m.                                   The Mezzanine
>                                           121 Wall Street
>Reception at 5:00 p.m.                         Yale University
>Free Admission                                    New Haven, CT
>
>Bryher (Annie Winifred Ellerman, 1894-1983) was born in England and spent 
>most of her adult life in Territet, Switzerland and in London. Her novels 
>and memoirs received high critical praise during her lifetime. However, 
>nearly all of her work has been neglected during the past thirty years. 
>Bryher was the partner of H.D., and she was the benefactor of many writers 
>and thinkers, from Marianne Moore to Walter Benjamin. She was involved in 
>politics, film, and psychology, as well as literature. Bryher was the 
>publisher of Contact Publishing, Life and Letters To-day, and Close Up, 
>and she helped to support the intellectual sanctum, Shakespeare and 
>Company. Bryher's papers are housed at the Beinecke Rare Book and 
>Manuscript Library.
>
>Visa for Avalon remains a suggestive and beguiling fiction by one of the 
>twentieth century's most interesting artistic figures. The Paris Press 
>should be thanked for republishing it.
>    --Margaret Atwood, New York Review of Books
>
>Visa for Avalon is a testament to the power of fiction. It illuminates the 
>truth at the heart of what is commonly called reality. This account of 
>lives transformed and ruined by the triumph of a totalitarian rule is a 
>timely reminder of how moral and intellectual laziness and apathy can pave 
>the road to the reign of terror brought on by such a system."‹--AZAR 
>NAFISI, author of Reading Lolita in Tehran
>
>"Visa for Avalon is so tense,  its characters so tightly wound, if it were 
>any longer it would be in danger of implosion.... This book is the 
>literary equivalent to espresso...." -- Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
>
>"Visa for Avalon is a startling political allegory that readers, 
>especially the politically curious, will return to for deciphering our own 
>time." --San Francisco Chronicle
>
>In these jittery times when questions of national security dominate, Paris 
>Press has decided the moment is right for a rediscovery of a political 
>allegory called Visa for Avalon. . . . Bryher's corpus and life story are 
>worth bringing to light. Visa for Avalon is a short allegory about the 
>devastating cost of political apathy. . . . [M]any political allegories 
>feel static; Orwell's Animal Farm  and Huxley's Brave New World come to 
>mind. . . . But Visa for Avalon is a bit of a nail-biter. It's set in a 
>no-name country that looks a lot like England, where a totalitarian 
>movement claiming to be working for the betterment of the common citizenry 
>is about to sweep away individual rights. . . Overcoming roadblocks, mobs, 
>sadistic bureaucrats and forces of nature, her characters push forward to 
>Avalon, where society perhaps is more enlightened‹or not. The 
>indeterminacy of Bryher's ending is one of the subtler aspects of this 
>lively story.  As someone who helped refugees escape Hitler, Bryher 
>certainly knew that there's a time when it's wiser to flee into the 
>unfamiliar than to stand and fight a known evil.  But Visa for Avalon is 
>certain about one thing: There's never a time to stop thinking, stop 
>questioning."
>                                                            --Maureen 
> Corrigan, NPR's "Fresh Air"
>

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