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Rating: 
Summary: I have come to offer judgment on your brain
Review: Artaud's genius was too much for his head, and it spilled out like corkscrews into a series of spiralling texts and flickered in a shower of sparks across the oceans, from France to the rest of the planet. Here Clayton Eshleman, the great translator of Artaud, assisted by another less successful translator, brings us a number of the more arcane texts. This book doesn't have everything in it, but what it does have is choice. You have to hand it to Exact Change. They may not do everything they do for the first time (although there are many texts in WATCHFIENDS previously available only in French, if at all) but when they do something, baby, it stays "done."
Ideally this book would come with a DVD in which we could watch the recorded performances of the living Artaud, for even though he was not, as an actor, the very best exemplum of his theories, some memorable glimpses of him linger on via film.
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Summary: Shock Therapy
Review: Extreme...shrill...Artaud, simultaneously insane and coherent; a unique writer, highly original...entertaining!!! we are all fortunate that he put his thoughts down on paper; don't miss this great book
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Summary: As Beautiful As The Burning Intestines Of A Diarrheatic Cow
Review: here it is. the greatest collection of artauds poetry ever translated. of course it isnt as complete as that susan sontag one, but it is the best translations of his best poems and you dont have to drag your eyes through all that theatre theory even though it is brilliant some of us are more intrested in the none dramatic aspects of artaud. One of the highlights of watchfiends is the inclusion of parts of Suppots et Supplications, artauds last book length work, dictated to his secratery at the height of his madness. it has yet to be translated in full so to be able to read parts of it is a real treat. when i go to the park...when i think of all the pulleys and levers that are a complicated system which helps me to pray, i... listen, do you like poetry that creates a life or death situation for the author as well as the reader? im going to tell you a secret...this is one of the 3ree or 4our books that i would like to tear up into tiny pieces and inject into my hippocampus. ARTAUDARTAUDARTAUD. have i made myself clear?
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Summary: They don't translate Artaud like they used to....
Review: I am a huge Artaud fan. He was a true visionary, a prophet of brutal truth in a lazy, complacent world. So I was really looking forward to reading this new anthology of works from his ultra-disturbing late period. But I have to say I found it disappointing. The translations, by noted language poet Clayton Eshleman, sound stilted and wooden to my ear, favoring cleverness over raw power. The exhaustively researched notes don't quite make up for this poetic deficiency. I turned to my beloved copy of City Light's "Artaud Anthology" (one of my all-time favorite books) and did line by line comparisons of Eshleman's work with the brilliant Ferlinghetti and David Rattray translations in the older book, and there was just no comparison. It really isn't surprising that the 60's beat-era poet-translators just had a much better grasp of Artaud's earth-shattering radicalism than poets of today. The City Lights one is the keeper for sure (it's still in print): take that one with you to a desert island and I guarantee you won't even want to be rescued and brought back to "civilization."
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Summary: Artaud the Momo
Review: This anthology documents work from Artaud's final period spent mainly in a mental institution. The poems are by far the strangest that I have encountered. Filled with odd incantatory stanzas fashioned in Artaud's own language, the poetry and prose in this collection requires some patience from the reader. Some of the poems/prose in this collection I found virtually impenetrable (e.g., "Artaud the Momo") but this only seems to heighten and augment my appreciative awe for Artaud as an artist/poet/prose magician. Even Artaud's letters venture into strange and unknown territory as they combine prose, poetry, and Artaud's own creative argot to produce an inexplicably chaotic amalgamation that can count as a literary genre unto itself. Although incredibly weird and convoluted, Artaud's work from this tumultuous period still manages to shine by dint of its strange qualities and inherent loopiness. If you happen to be interested in this type of enigmatic, dada-esque poetry/prose pick up this volume ASAP.
Rating:
Summary: Artaud the Momo
Review: This anthology documents work from Artaud's final period spent mainly in a mental institution. The poems are by far the strangest that I have encountered. Filled with odd incantatory stanzas fashioned in Artaud's own language, the poetry and prose in this collection requires some patience from the reader. Some of the poems/prose in this collection I found virtually impenetrable (e.g., "Artaud the Momo") but this only seems to heighten and augment my appreciative awe for Artaud as an artist/poet/prose magician. Even Artaud's letters venture into strange and unknown territory as they combine prose, poetry, and Artaud's own creative argot to produce an inexplicably chaotic amalgamation that can count as a literary genre unto itself. Although incredibly weird and convoluted, Artaud's work from this tumultuous period still manages to shine by dint of its strange qualities and inherent loopiness. If you happen to be interested in this type of enigmatic, dada-esque poetry/prose pick up this volume ASAP.
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