WHO IS A SURREALIST AND WHO IS NOT? AND WHO CARES? Penelope Rosemont

"Knock hard. Life is deaf." —Mimi Parent

For a long time I've been drawn to the surrealists and this month I decided to get to grips with what it really means to be a 'Surrealist'. I am interested in this subject because the word 'surreal' is often attributed to the work I write. But am I a surrealist? And who cares?

This week, I ordered David Gascoyne's book of 1935 and now published by Enitharnon, A Short Survey of Surrealism. David Gascoyne was a translator of the 'leading' French Surrealists: Dali, Ernst, Breton, Eluard and others. I was struck by the lack of women. Surely there were women.

"Certain critics and curators have attempted to isolate women surrealists from the Surrealist Movement as a whole, not only by reducing their work to the traditional aesthetic frameworks that surrealists have always resisted but worse yet by relegating them to a subbasement of the art world known as “Women’s Art.” Ironically, the old (mostly male) critics who ignored or minimized women in their studies of surrealism are not that different from these newer (often female) critics who ignore or minimize surrealism itself in their studies of women who took part in it. Each of these one-sided and erroneous views reinforces the other, and both prop up the insidious fiction that surrealism is yet another “Men Only” movement." Penelope Rosemont, Surrealist Women (Surrealist Revolution) University of Texas Press.

Some of them have been reduced to shadows of the more famous men. Take Lise Deharme: "In recent years, historians such as Marie-Claire Barnet, Mary Ann Caws, Renée Riese Hubert, Andréa Oberhuber, and Penelope Rosemont, have begun to un-do the "reducing" of Deharme to "a failed love story." These scholars have set out to establish a more dynamic conception of Deharme's reputation."

I searched 'women surrealists' and found a list on Wiki. This is where you fall down a fantastic rabbit hole. Don't follow me, you might never get out! I'll make a list of women whose poetry I can make a link to and then a further list of Surrealist writers.

SURREALIST POETS:

Aase Berg (born 1967) is a Swedish poet and critic, among the founding members of the Stockholm Surrealist Group in 1986. EIGHT POEMS

Joyce Mansour (1928-1986) was an Egyptian-French poet. She first encountered Surrealism in Cairo, but moved to Paris in 1953. FIVE POEMS

Olga Orozco (1920-1999) was an Argentine poet of the Surrealistic 'Tercera Vanguardia' generation. THREE POEMS

Alejandra Pizarnik (1936-1972) was an Argentine poet heavily influenced by Surrealism. SIX POEMS 

Gisèle Prassinos (1920-2015) was a French writer of Greek heritage, associated with Surrealism since her first publication at the age of 14. ONE POEM

Penelope Rosemont (born 1942) is an American writer, painter, photographer, collagist and cofounder of the Chicago Surrealist Group. Her edited anthology Surrealist Women demonstrated the breadth of women's contribution to surrealism. MY TRIP TO RUSSIA  also editor of Surrealist Women: An International Anthology (Surrealist Revolution Series)

Blanca Varela (1926-2009) was a Peruvian poet. Octavio Paz characterized her poetry as in the "spiritual lineage" of surrealism. THREE POEMS

Unica Zürn (1916-1970) was a German writer and artist. She wrote anagram poetry, exhibited automatic drawing and collaborated with Hans Bellmer as his photographic model. Nine Anagrammatic Poems

Dorothea Tanning (1910–2012) was an American painter, sculptor, printmaker, writer, and poet, whose early work was influenced by Surrealism. She became part of the circle of Surrealists in New York in the 1940s, and was married to fellow Surrealist Max Ernst for 30 years. FIVE POEMS

Leonora Carrington (1917–2011) was a British-born Mexican Surrealist painter. She met the Surrealist Max Ernst in 1937, and had a painful and complicated relationship with him. Much of her work is autobiographical. ONE POEM

OTHER WRITERS AND POETS WHERE NO WORK CAN BE FOUND ONLINE:

Lise Deharme (1898-1980) was a French writer associated with the Surrealist movement. WIKI PAGE

Valentine Penrose (1898-1978) was a French surrealist poet, author and collagist.

Guia Risari (born 1971) is an Italian writer, novelist, essayist, translator.

Ginka Steinwachs (born 1942) is a German scholar and writer. Her doctoral thesis on André Breton was published as Mythologie des Surrealismus.

Haifa Zangana (born 1950) is an Iraqi writer active in surrealist activity in London.

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Penelope Rosemont asks in Surrealist Women (Surrealist Revolution)  University of Texas Press,

"WHO IS A SURREALIST AND WHO IS NOT? AND WHO CARES?"

"Neither silly nor simple, these questions are vital for anyone who wants to know the truth about surrealism. Critics who attempt to define the movement in aesthetic or literary terms, as a “style” or a “school,” overlook the crucial fact that surrealism is above all “a community of ethical views,” as Toyen put it in a statement included in this collection."

"Many are the writers who at some point in the course of their careers have expressed themselves in a surrealist voice—"

All the women included here have been co-thinkers and co-dreamers in surrealisms revolutionary project. More precisely, for the purposes of this collection, I define a surrealist as one who

(1) considers herself/himself a surrealist and/or

(2) is recognized as surrealist by surrealists and accepts being so designated, and

(3) takes part in surrealist activity by:

(a) producing work recognized by surrealists as a contribution to surrealism;
(b) collaborating on surrealist penodicals;
(c) participating in surrealist exhibitions;
(d) publishing under the movement’s “Surrealist Editions” imprint;
(e) cosiging surrealist tracts;
(f) taking part in Surrealist Group meetings, games, demonstrations, or other activities; and/or
(g) otherwise publicly identifying herself/himself with the aims, principles, and activity of the Surrealist Movement.

FINAL WORDS

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Let us know, in as much detail as possible:


1) your views regarding contemporary revolutionary thought and action;
2) your orientation toward surrealism and its project here and now; and
3) what contribution(s) you believe you can make to surrealist revolution today.