And images of a fantastic idyll complete with falling stars, the sound of the sea, and beautiful countryside. In the hands of Surrealists, though, love poetry also includes gravediggers and murderers, dice and garbage, snakeskin purses and "the drunken kisses of cyclones." Surrealism, the movement founded in the 1920s on the ashes of Dada's nihilism, embraced absurdity, contradiction, and, to a supreme extent, passion and desire. From André Breton's battle cry of "Mad Love" to the quiet lyricism of Robert Desnos, Surrealist writers and artists obsessively expressed the permutations of that fundamental human state, love, and they did so with the vocabulary of natural and unnatural worlds, the explicit language of sex, and a great deal of humor.Surrealist Love Poems brings together sixty poems by Surrealists who charged their work with all forms of eroticism. Expertly and energetically edited by Mary Ann Caws, this collection seeks to demonstrate the truth of Breton's words, that "the embrace of poetry like that of bodies / As long as it lasts / Shuts out all the woes of the world.""Erotic, impassioned and necrophilic, the sixty works gathered in Surrealist Love Poems celebrate the idea of obsessive and transformative love. 'I want to sleep with you side by side. . . . Stretched out on your shadow / Hammered by your tongue / To die in a rabbit's rotting teeth / Happy' writes Joyce Mansour. . . . Caws places poems by major surrealist writers like André Breton and Paul Eluard, along with the poetry of Picasso, Dalí, and Frida Kahlo, side by side with fourteen lushly printed and alluring black-and-white photos by the likes of Man Ray, Lee Miller, and Claude Cahun."—Publishers Weekly

    One of surrealism's defining themes, desire was expressed variously in Dali's charged landscapes, Mir�'s lyric abstractions, and Bellmer's unsettling nudes. Influenced by Freud, the surrealists saw sexual desire as a path to self-knowledge--a theatre of provocations and prohibitions in which life's most profound urges confront one another. Published to accompany a major transatlantic exhibition of international surrealism, this lavishly illustrated catalogue explores desire in surrealist art in both words and images. Key works by such artists as Duchamp, Magritte, Ernst, Dali, de Chirico, Giacometti, Bellmer, Oppenheim, and Cahun are illustrated and discussed, as are surrealist films and photographs by Man Ray, Brassa�, and others. The volume also features some of the rare and beautiful books produced by the surrealists in their celebration of love, as well as a selection of fascinating manuscripts, letters, and documentary photographs that reveal the personal contexts of the group's exploration of desire. Essays by leading scholars show how the theme of desire was implicated in almost all aspects of surrealist activity--not only its art and writings, but also its political struggles and its ethical stances on issues involving individual liberty and the social control of sexuality. This attractive and provocative volume illustrates a vision of desire that embraces both sublime exaltation and dark carnality. It shows the unprecedented intensity with which the surrealists extolled love and the extent to which they depicted desire as implicated in every thought, action, event, and encounter. A major contribution to surrealist studies, this volume is edited by Jennifer Mundy, and has contributions from Dawn Ades, Katharine Conley, Neil Cox, Carolyn J. Dean, Hal Foster, Vincent Gille, Jean-Michel Goutier, David Hopkins, Radovan Ivsic, Julia Kelly, Annie Le Brun, David Lomas, and Alyce Mahon. EXHIBITION SCHEDULE:Tate Modern, LondonSeptember 20, 2001-January 1, 2002The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New YorkFebruary 6, 2002-May 12, 2002

    For Dr. Ashtar Ahmad, it has been more than a dream; it's been a lifelong obsession. And while he has not conquered death's rule over the body, he has found a way to keep the soul alive - a complex suit that houses the inner being of the deceased and allows them to go on living. When a group of unknown assailants come of Ahmad's research, the doctor is caught in the crossfire, and his only chance at survival is an untested prototype of his most prized invention. But when the megalomaniacal tycoon responsible for the break-in kidnaps Ashar's daughter to use as a bargaining chip in acquiring the groundbreaking discovery, the good doctor must discover how to stop his enemy and keep his soul intact. Can he make up in death for his misdeeds from life? A mix of classic science fiction and superhero comic books, The Coffin points in the direction of the bold new future of the genre-driven graphic novel.

    With more than 400 color reproductions and a compact handheld size, this book manages to be affordable and comprehensive. It's like a catalogue raisonne that fits in a backpack. This accessible format is a perfect match for the paintings of Rene Magritte-one of the few twentieth-century painters whose works are immediately approachable and who has an enduring cultlike following. His surrealistic and mysterious visions always provoke introspective thought and imagination. All of Magritte's most characteristic and beloved motifs-the green apple, the bowler hat, and the dreamlike twilight hour-make their appearance, along with some surprising lesser-known paintings. The artist's method and meaning is explored in an intriguing essay by Robert Hughes, the art critic for "Time" magazine and acclaimed commentator on art and culture. A hip and current update on this timeless artist, "The Portable Magritte" makes an ideal gift for students as well as art lovers of any age.

    But what if, instead of those rather innocuous queries, the child asks things like: What's inside this bunny that makes him move? What if I put a raisin in a dead man's nose? If I leave the paw of a deceased mole in the sun, will it grow sprouts and fungus like potatoes? This is the world of Renee French, who's independent comic book stories have been disturbing readers and provoking reactions since the early '90s. Oni's hefty collection, Marbles In My Underpants, is the first major volume of her work to be published anywhere. It's a comprehensive retrospective, examining French's versatility and the spectrum of her career, from the harsh early work in Grit Bath up to Corny's Fetish, a touching tale of a lonely man and his desire for love. Through horror, psychedelia, and, ultimately, a skewed approach to conventional storytelling, French gets to the dark middle of the human psyche, crafting a truly unique comic-book experience.

    Then they were in his mind, and he could hear them."Green Music blends the gritty reality of Toronto's studio district with a medieval tropical paradise shaped by the union of sea turtles and humans. A struggling artist, overwhelmed by grief and the strange tales of a Great Lakes mariner, embarks on an epic journey into an unknown world. In her debut novel, Ursula Pflug delivers a shimmering narrative, gliding effortlessly between humour and psychological insight, delving deep into the unexplored depths of magic realism and fantasy.