[LAF] Poetic Crisis in London

[steve ash]

I just received this, please spread the word 

>From Niall McDevitt

Calling all Verlaineans and Rimbaldiens!

To protest against the illegal work going on at the
Rimbaud/Verlaine house at 8 Royal College Street,
poets are invited to particpate in open readings at
the site this Friday 20 July and this Saturday 21
July.

Please bring disposable barbeques, herrings, absinthe,
and copies of Veraline/Rimbaud - as well as original
work that feels appropriate.

We are running the even on both nights so that no one
has any excuse to miss it.

Niall McDevitt will host the friday event and Aidan
Andrew Dun will host the saturday event.

We hope the miscellaneous poetry ghettos will drop
their cynicisms/prides/cyclopean bollocks - if only
for the weekend - and unite against the philistines.

As usual MONEY is talking and POETRY is falling on
deaf ears.

We envisage 8 Royal College Street as an Orphic Temple
for real poets with a recording studio/printing press
in the basement, an Arthurian Library on the first
floor, an Absinthe Bar on the second floor and a
writing room in the attic where the poets lived -
available on a rota basis to writers who take
sense-derangment/re-invention/ego-otherhood/absolute
modernity/Gallic-Cocks seriously...

Come and scrape the merde off your shoes on the very
shoe-scraper used by the poets, if it hasn't been
illegally removed.

7pm at 8 Royal College Street (Mornington Cresecnt
tube)

"SALUT A LUI CHAQUE FOIS
QUE CHANT LE COQ GAULOIS"


Poets Intervene to Save RIMBAUD-VERLAINE House in
Camden
8 ROYAL COLLEGE STREET / THE RIMBAUD-VERLAINE HOUSE /
A MECCA FOR POETS
Poets have intervened to save a listed building in
Camden from being illegally damaged by developers.

Niall McDevitt and Aidan Dun were visiting the
heritage site at 8 Royal College Street in Mornington
Crescent - home to the famous 19th Century 
French poets Paul Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud in 1873
- when they saw workmen ripping up railings.

They immediately contacted Camden Council who
confirmed that the site was a Grade 2 Listed building
and that the workmen were acting unlawfully. They sent
a Planning Enforcement Team, led by David Bloom, 
who surveyed the damage. The Council have now put up
Preservation Orders all about the house and work has
halted.

The poets are staging an ongoing vigil at the house
and are launching a campaign to prevent any further
desecration of this important site. 
They have also demanded the immediate return and
repair of the railings.

The History
"Verlaine was always chasing Rimbaud's" - Dorothy
Parker. 8 Royal College Street is one of London's
legendary addresses, a cultural icon, and an
international magnet for poets who regard it as 
nothing short of a Mecca.

In 1873 it was home both to Paul Verlaine, now
recognised as one of the great French poets of the
19th Century, but also to Arthur Rimbaud, who 
is recognised as one of the all-time geniuses of world
literature. Not only were they literary friends and
allies, "a Wordsworth and Coleridge 
of French poetry," they were also lovers. Their
incredibly creative, incredibly destructive
relationship has become a modern myth. As Bob 
Dylan once sang:

"Situations have ended sad Relationships have all been
bad Mine have been like Verlaine's and Rimbaud's
But there is no way I can compare All them scenes to
this affair You're going to make me lonesome when you
go."

Their friendship began in 1871 when Verlaine (then in
his late twenties) received poems from the brilliantly
precocious 16-year-old Rimbaud and 
invited him to Paris. To the horror of Mrs. Verlaine,
his young high-society wife. and the Parisian literary
establishment, the two poets fell in love. "Love must
be re-invented" was one of Rimbaud's war-cries of the
time. The liaison was fuelled with hefty consumption
of absinthe and cannabis (or to paraphrase the Pogues:
Absinthe, Sodomy and the Hash).

To get away from the scandal they 'eloped' to London,
living on Howland St. very near where the Post Office
Tower now stands. In May 1873,  after a brief
separation, they returned to London and rented the
attic room at 8 Royal College Street. Both poets were
at the peak of their creativity and Rimbaud is known
to have composed some of his inspirational prose-poems
Les Illuminations at this time.

But the relationship was on a knife-edge. One
afternoon, Verlaine was returning to the house with
fish for their supper when Rimbaud leaned 
out of the window and jibed: "If only you knew how
ridiculous you look with that herring in your hand."

It was the final straw. Ignoring Rimbaud's pleas to
stay, Verlaine packed and left for Belgium where he
wrote his mother that he was planning to kill himself.
When she and Rimbaud joined him in Brussels, 
Verlaine was hysterical, drunk, and in possession of a
firearm. He locked Rimbaud in a hotel room and fired
three shots, one of which hit Rimbaud in the wrist.
Verlaine was sentenced to two years hard labour.
Rimbaud returned to his mother's home at Roche, and
finished both Les Illuminations and his more famous Un
Saison En Enfer (A Season in Hell). He then, "at the
astonishing age of only 19," abandoned his literary
career.

Rimbaud's influence on 20th Century culture is
profound. The youthful genius of both Dylan Thomas and
Bob Dylan would not have manifested in 
the way it did without the Frenchmans inspiration and
example. Thomas, "whose behaviour was notorious,"
claimed to be "the Rimbaud of Cwmdonkin Drive".

Rimbaud and Verlaine are one of the great double-acts
of modern literature. Their poems have been set to
music by great composers such as Benjamin Britten and
Claude Debussy. Total Eclipse, Christopher 
Hampton's play about their relationship, was turned
into a film starring Leonardo de Caprio as Rimbaud and
David Thewlis as Verlaine.

8 Royal College Street is the only Rimbaud/Verlaine
address which survives. An exceptional Georgian
property, it is a Grade 2 listed building in its own
right. There is no blue plaque for the poets, but a 
private white marble plaque was erected by anonymous
and mysterious twin brothers in the early 20th
Century. The Royal Veterinarian College, 
based next door, recently sold the property (along
with nos. 10 and 6) to a private individual, Michael
Ogun, who plans to refurbish it, rent 
it, and sell it on in about five years time.
[Niall McDevitt]

Since this, workmen have been spotted around the
place. PLEEEEASE send an email to DEMAND that Camden
Council do its utmost to protect the house -
david.bloom@ camden.gov. uk 



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