Bryher Celebration and Reading, Beinecke May 4

[Nancy Kuhl <nancy.kuhl@YALE.EDU>]

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@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"


Nancy Kuhl
Assistant Curator, The Yale Collection of American Literature
The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library
Yale University
121 Wall Street
P.O. Box 208240
New Haven, CT 06520-8240
Phone: 203.432.2966
Fax: 203.432.4047