| Author: Horner,
Jan C. (Jan Cynthia), 1952-
Title: Mama dada: songs of the Baroness's dog / [poetry] by Jan Horner.
Published: Winnipeg : Turnstone Press, 2009.
Description: [x], 84 p. ; 21 cm.
Note: On back cover: "Praise for maMa Dada " by Maureen Scott Harris, Di
Brandt, George Amabile, & Meira Cook. -- Front inside flap: description of
Jan Horner's Freytag-Loringhoven poems. -- Back inside flap: a portrait of the
author, a listing of her award-winning previous books, & a note that she
is an academic librarian at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg
Contents: [tp, p.iii. -- [p.iv], imprint & cip information. -- [p.v], "For
David" [Darby]. -- p. [vii-viii], CONTENTS. -- [p.ix, Half-title, " maMa Dada "].
-- Poems: The Baroness meets her Mars [p.3]. -- Songs of the Baroness's dog [p.[5]-30,
twelve poems]. -- Mama Dada [p.[31]-73, twenty-six poems]. -- Notes on
the poems [p.75-77]. -- Baroness Else von Freytag-Loringhoven [p.79-82]. -- Acknowledgements
[p.83-84]. -- "Also by Jan Horner: Elizabeth Went West / Recent Mistakes" [p.85].
--
Annotation: On Thursday, April 23, 2009 at 8 pm, Jan Horner launched her
book at the Grant Park McNally-Robinson location, Winnipeg. She started out by
drawing attention to the Cover: it depicts FrL leaning on Jamaican poet, Claude
McKay, both being clad in exotic costume. The image from the Library of Congress'
Bain Collection was found by Jan's friend & colleague, Gaby Divay, in 2006.
The
author then described how her interest in the eccentric dada Baroness
had been sparked at the 1998 international "In Memoriam FPG" Symposium which
had included a Freytag-Loringhoven Session by Gisi von Freytag-Loringhoven Tubingen),
Irene Gammel (then P.E.I., now Ryerson, Toronto), & Julia van Haaften (NYPL).
Other
notables present at that event had been Carol Shields, Robert Kroetsch, & Ed
Schreyer [also, though not mentioned, the two foremost German Canadian Studies
scholars, Walter Pache & Konrad Gross]. She pointed out that the e-Video
Proceedings can be watched on the UM Archives' website.
Jan Horner continued by explaining the subtitle of her "Mama Dada" poems with
Else's love for dogs. She then addressed Else's importance in the New York dada
movement which was headed by Man Ray & Marcel Duchamp, and her relations
with many avant-garde writers, including William Carlos Williams, Hart Crane, "The
Little Review" editors, Jane Heap & Margaret Anderson, Djuna Barnes, & Bernice
Abbott. -- Of more local importance, she noted Freytag-Loringhoven's ties to
FPG (Greve/Grove) whose papers are in the University of Manitoba Archives. Else
had lived with Greve since 1902/3, followed him to America in 1910, & found
herself abandoned by him in Kentucky in 1911. He looms large in her autobiography & poetry
at the University of Maryland. She seems to have been unaware that he went to
Manitoba as Frederick Philip Grove in 1912, & became a Canadian author ten
years later. -- Jan Horner then gave a reading of the following poems: "Advice
to a corseted poet" ; "As if" ; "In which" ; "Extraordinary food for extraordinary
dogs" ; "P-daddy speaks poet-to-poet" ; "To the Prince of Dark Waters (for Felix)" ; "I
am in locomotion: a manifesto 1916" ; "At the business end of the leash". After
that, there was a never-ending stream of eager buyers who wanted their copy of
Jan's book autographed.
Local Note: RBR's copy enscribed by the author on title-page: "Jan Horner / 23
April, 2009."
Subjects:
Freytag-Loringhoven,
Elsa von, 1874-1927 Poetry.
Freytag-Loringhoven,
Elsa von, 1874-1927 Relations with contemporaries Poetry.
Greve,
Felix Paul, 1879-1948 Poetry.
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