Surrealist Women : An International Anthology (The Surrealist Revolution Series)

Beginning in Paris in the 1920s, women poets, essayists, painters, and artists in other media have actively collaborated in defining and refining surrealism's basic project—achieving a higher, open, and dynamic consciousness, from which no aspect of the real or the imaginary is rejected. Indeed, few artistic or social movements can boast as many women forebears, founders, and participants—perhaps only feminism itself. Yet outside the movement, women's contributions to surrealism have been largely ignored or simply unknown.

This anthology, the first of its kind in any language, displays the range and significance of women's contributions to surrealism. Letting surrealist women speak for themselves, Penelope Rosemont has assembled nearly three hundred texts by ninety-six women from twenty-eight countries. She opens the book with a succinct summary of surrealism's basic aims and principles, followed by a discussion of the place of gender in the movement's origins. She then organizes the book into historical periods ranging from the 1920s to the present, with introductions that describe trends in the movement during each period. Rosemont also prefaces each surrealist's work with a brief biographical statement.

The new dimensions that surrealism brings to the plastic arts it also brings to the literary arts, to the written word. The poetry of the surrealists is collages created from words, works of poetry art. Poetry takes on a new depth, breaking free from constraints of structure, it also breaks into new presentations of language formation, presenting Zen like non-logical word images that touch the soul with deep meaning, "perfume similar to the sound of a violin dipped in holy oil." Created from the depth of the subconscious (or is it superconscious?) mind, this is poetry that transcends gravity, time and space limitations, giving us prophetic poetry. Poetry revealing not only what will be, but what was, is and could have been.

It's hard to have favorites in this compilation, and I know that the ones that stand out for me today could change tomorrow. I found Nancy Cunard's essays on racism remarkable, especially considering the time (the 1930's) and the person (a white woman from a privileged background). Suzanne Cesaire's work on Breton as poet is itself a marvel and her following piece on the collective mistake of the Martiniquan deserves special mention. Ithell Colquhoun in The Mantic Stain, Surrealism and Automatism describes for us these techniques: decalomania, fumage, parsemage and ecremage. Annie Le Brun reminds us that "in matters of revolt, we need no ancestors". Le Brun also is more interested in Oscar Wilde "than any bourgeoisie woman who agreed to marry and have children, and then, one fine day, suddenly feels that her oh so hypothetical creativity is being frustrated." Jayne Cortez has a wonderful hip-hop sounding piece "Make Ifa Make Ifa make Ifa Ifa Ifa, in eye popping punta of my heat sucking sap". Haifa Zangana smashes the work ethic in Can We Disturb These Living Coffins? Eva vankmajerova's artwork is thrilling. I would have preferred seeing her Over All on the book's cover, but such an act would take a brave publisher indeed. Penelope Rosemont explores the life-affirming erotic, generous moral of the tale of The Golden Goose, showing how it's really a surrealist morality tale. Rosemont also explores "the very chanceology of chance" in Revolution By Chance. I noted hundreds of other examples, but instead of going on and on here, I'll just at this point highly recommend the book.

Exploring the Marvelous is not something we're taught to do. These are the things that church, state and the typical family unit tries to rid within us. Some were incarcerated inside mental jails for exploring the domain of the Marvelous. The over-rationalized beings in our society hate and fear the Marvelous and its practitioners because, not belonging to the rational realm, the Marvelous can't be explained. Or conquered. Surrealism calls for play and for uniting with the Marvelous -not to negate the rational but to make us whole by expanding our awareness. Surrealism also calls for a rejection of social norms, normalcy, conformism and anything that means dormancy. (Lock such dangerous criminals up!) It seeks to help you find your way to be a playful member of society and to "find your own voice". It demands absolute freedom for all. But why do oppressors oppress? Seemingly for this purpose alone, to have instead of to be (gathering commodities as opposed to living life). By moving more into having instead of into being, oppressors lose contact with the Marvelous.

Surrealism makes a point of keeping its door wide open to everyone, but with a special welcome mat to the outsider. It's open not only to men and to women alike, but to children and those outsiders that society labels uneducated, mentally retarded, insane. Surrealism is a celebration of all that is true of the feminine side of humanity, independent of one's gender: surrender, abandon, night, dreams, imagination, poetry, acceptance of and appreciation for the unfathomable abysses of mystery.

If modern industrialized civilization could pass laws against the night, it would. Through groan-ups, work, schooling and church, it settles instead to crush the things of the night as best it can: imagination, poetry and dreams. What civilization considers the darkest corners, it seeks to abolish through vice laws and moral lecturing: prostitution and other forms of uninhibited sex, disreputable behavior, gambling, drinking, drugs. Control the dark corners of humankind, the next best thing to abolishing night itself. Like stranger danger, civilization teaches us to fear the night. It doesn't want us to revel in what the abyss of night can bring us - the Marvelous. Surrealism says that we have too much of reason and rationality and too little of imagination and non-rationality. I'm in agreement. The night dreams deliver more daylight than simple day itself. A good dose of reason (theory and polemics) coupled with a co-equally good dose of imagination (poetry and art) is the surrealist revolution. Surrealist Women is a grand accomplishment in this - giving us a healthy dose of both. Each featured author contributes to this revolution, and leaves a strong foundation of surrealist legacy for future generations to build upon.