Eleni sikelianos biography of mahatma
Six Lost Books
October 3
My computer died yesterday, on my birthday. Actually, it died twenty-eight minutes after my birthday ended. The file I was reading froze up, and the screen went blank.
I pushed the reset button, but nothing happened. I tried again. Nothing. A third attempt was likewise futile. The screen showed only the eternal blackness of interstellar space. I went to bed.
This morning I awoke and immediately pressed the accursed button. The word DELL in large blue letters filled the screen. My heart vibrated with hope. Then the computer went dead again.
Was this the work of a “virus”? Did a Filipino anarchist deliberately destroy my computer in an attack on Western imperialism? If so, I support her (or him). I deserve to suffer for my share in human exploitation.
I wasn’t deeply wounded, though. I scrupulously save my files every day on not one, but two discs. This afternoon I inserted my discs into my Netbook — a small, cheap laptop — and discovered a melancholy truth: all my files from the last two years were missing. Though I save them daily, a glitch had occurred. Perhaps the message that I had received and ignored every day — “Files waiting to be copied onto disc” — was a clue.
I was in the midst of writing at least six books, all of them now utterly vanished. Two were nearly finished — a novel using characters from Archie comics, and a long, digressive attack on humor in the form of a self-help book: The Cure for Humor. Normally I superstitiously avoid speaking of my works in progress, but now I can discuss them, since they no longer exist.
October 4
A writer is in a perpetual struggle with emptiness. He or she awakens each day to the Blank Page and somehow finds words to fill it. But the next day the page returns, just as blank as before. Even a finished book carries traces of emptiness, behind the words and in the corners of the pages. Normally this emptiness is white, b Reissues is thrilled to partner with Open Door Archive (ed. Harris Feinsod et al.) to cohost the digital afterlife of the extraordinary journal, XCP: Cross Cultural Poetics (ed. Mark Nowak). If ever a journal might inspire elaborate forms of postdigital crossposting, it’s this one. XCP likely needs no introduction to readers of Jacket2. Over thirteen years and across twenty-three stacked issues, XCP forged a network of global poetics and protest rarely seen in an editorial project. As always, full issues are available for download or browsing below. The index to each issue attempts to retain the formatting of the contents as printed in the magazine, including original pagination. Each PDF is fully searchable for easy navigation to individual pieces within the magazine. A special thank you is owed to the brilliant Megan Anderson for her work on XCP — the Reissues side of this partnership would not be possible without her help. XCP: Cross Cultural Poetics began in the mid-1990s as a journal of social utterance and social inscription that sought to open and engage a dialogue between writers, researchers, and theorists in the Abbe, Catherine (also Catherine Amory Bennett, Catherine Palmer) (1843–1920). Eva’s mother and a social activist who supported women’s suffrage and was a founding member and president of the City History Club of New York. Abbe, Robert, Dr. (1851–1928). Eva’s stepfather, resident surgeon at St. Luke’s Hospital, New York. He was the first in America to use radium for treating cancer. Antoniades (Anthony), Anne Gault (d. 1982). US foreign service officer in the American embassy after 1949 who oversaw Eva’s return to Greece in 1952 and became the executor of her estate. Archbold, Anne Mills (1873–1968). Contemporary of Eva’s and heir to an oil fortune who lent the terrace of her Bar Harbor cottage for Eva to stage Swinburne’s Atalantain 1905. Barker, Elsa (1869–1954). American editor and author of spirit-communicated literature best known for three books of Letters from a Living Dead Man (1914, 1915, 1919). She was Eva’s friend from 1938 to the end of Eva’s life. Barney, Albert Clifford (1848–1902). Rich industrialist from Cincinnati who moved his family to Washington. The father of Natalie Clifford Barney, he left a large inheritance in 1902, which gave Barney the means to live freely. Barney, Alice (Laura). See Dreyfus-Barney, Laura. Barney, Alice Pike (1857–1931). Mother of Natalie Barney married to Albert Clifford Barney and a painter, director, and performer who worked to make Washington a center for the arts. She painted a portrait of Eva. Barney, Natalie Clifford (1876–1972). Multimillionaire writer famous for her weekly salons and openly lesbian life. She met Eva in the 1890s in Bar Harbor and was her lover and collaborator until Eva married Angelos in 1907 and was friend her for life. Benakis, Antonis (1873–1954). Collector and founder of the Benaki Museum who encouraged Eva to produce the second Delphic Festival, offering funding from Greek benefactors. His support of Eva contributed .XCP: Cross Cultural Poetics, 1997–2010 (ed. Mark Nowak)
Indeed, few journals have left such a lasting impact on the field of poetry and poetics, not just on the local conversations in the US and the Americas, but in their crosscultural connections to a planetary conception of resistance via poetic practice. In many ways, XCP also bridges the collection here at Reissues: between the ethnopoetics of magazines like Alcheringa and New Wilderness Letter and global poetics projects around the turn of the millennium like Aufgabe and Calque. In league with our colleagues at Open Door, we’ll introduce the journal in its own words, excerpted below and adapted from the XCP about page around the time of the closure of the journal.Eva Palmer Sikelianos: A Life in Ruins
Cast of Characters