Hell

ref. awd-749 — IX-99, carte postale manuscrite envoyée de New York : « I hope September works out. I’m working frantically, getting out the new C42 book and Sheelagh and I are going for a two weeks getaway road trip (to console us for losing France). I can’t wait to see the Mississipi from behind a steering wheel again. I wish you get emails. Where’s Theresa ? (Theresa Stern, pseudonyme utilisé par Richard Hell et Tom Verlaine en 1973 pour Wanna go out ?, un recueil de poésies). 9-VII-99, lettre tapuscrite signée (1 p.), abordant la traduction et la publication en France de ce livre en édition bilingue (titre français : On décolle ?, traduit par Michel Bulteau, Anna Polèrica Éditions, 1999) : « I hear you’ve agreed totranslate Theresa Stern’s ‘Wanna Go Out ?’ I’m happy to hear that. Incidentally, when Raymond Foye saw your POEMES among my books, he rhapsodized over your accomplishments, and an endorsement from Raymond is a meaningful thing… I also hear you asked about my novel so I’m sending it here. The French translation rights have been bought by Editions d’Olivier, though I don’t know yet who they have in mind to translate it. » (Voir L’Oeil du lézard, Éditions de l’Olivier, 1996.) 11-VIII-99 : « (…) Thanks for your note. It looks like ‘Wanna go out’ is definite. I do wish we could speech a few days (or even one !) talking about it, but I’ll try to organize the things I’d like to tell you about certain difficult lines. When are you planning to be working on the translation ? » 13-XI-99, après un passage à Paris : « (…) In fact Paris made me so happy it had an effect I’d never known before. The happiness was so strong and genuine that It even made me like New York more ! I’m not ridding or being ironic or sarcastic. I just felt so refreshed by my time in Paris that everything in life seems better for it. (…) I’m going to do a book by Ron Padgett in the CUZ series. It’s called ‘Poems I think I wrote.’ » I-00 : What the hell is with Anna Polèrica ? Do you think they have lost their minds ? I did get the ten more books but they will not communicate with me. I don’t understand it at all. I could help them get the book distributed in the U.S. but they refuse to reply to me. I miss Paris. It will be the big sadness of my life if I don’t live there. » 27-II-02, mail imprimé : « This file is the text of three poems I used in video ‘poemokes’ (poem karaokes). They’re compilations of images with a musical soundtrack (by me and my band The Dime Stars, which includes Thurston Moore and Steve Shelley of Sonic Youth) that have the words of these poems scrolling at the bottom of the screen as in a karaoke. If Michel has the time and the inclination to translate these, I’d like to screen these videos with Michel reading into a microphone his French translations. » 16-III-04, court mail imprimé : « My beautiful old friend Lizzie, who was more or less the model for Chrissa in ‘Go Now’- and a picture of whom lying in bed smoking a cigarette with her pants half off can be seen in ‘Hot and Cold’ - is dying of cancer. I’ll be staying at the Hotel I like, the Baudin, in Bastille. » 3-I-05, lettre tapuscrite (2 pp.) : « Here you have the galley proofs I just received from the publisher of my new novel, ‘Godlike’. I am fixing punctuation or changing a word or just making a pest of myself on about every other page of it still, but these proofs are a fair representation of the book. (…) I’m working pretty hard and that’s all I’m aware of. The political situation is horrendous of course and makes for a steady underlying anxiety, but it’s so bad that it’s at that point where resistance seems almost purposeless. We just wait it out. In the beginning I was marching and writing letters and contributing money to activist organizations, but not lately. » On joint un faire-part du mariage de Richard Hell avec Bevan, et une photo couleurs. Bon état.