SIX PLATES FROM *PEARLS BEFORE SWINE*, BY ROBERT FERNANDEZ

ALBUM ZUTIQUE[i]

BLOOD OF A YOUNG GIRL STREAKS THE ALTAR[ii]

DISORGANIZED RAINBOW[iii]

MERLE IN SWITZERLAND[iv]

SHELLEY[v]

TAKE ME AWAY[vi]


[i] “Album Zutique” Text: “The Album Zutique was a communal journal for the poets and artists with whom Rimbaud associated while living in Paris….They called themselves Zutistes, a word coined from the French exclamation “zut,” which, depending on context, can mean anything from “golly” to “damn….” Most of [Rimbaud's] poems here are parodies of the work of other poets, and many are ribald in nature.” (Wyatt Mason, from Rimbaud Complete); Image: Grace Jones, from Vamp (1986)

[ii] “Blood of a Young Girl Streaks the Altar” Text: Aeschylus, from Agamemnon; Image: Michael Spinks, from Spinks vs. Tyson, 27 June 1988

[iii] “Disorganized Rainbow” Text: Albert Ramsay, from “Bright Jewels of the Mine” (Saturday Evening Post, Vol. 207 Issue 13, September 1934); Image: Miners, from “Bright Jewels of the Mine”

[iv] “Merle in Switzerland” Text: R.F.; Image: Rivi’s eyes, from Cocaine Cowboys (2006)

[v] "Shelley" Text: R.F.; Image: Amelia Curran, from Portrait of Percy Bysshe Shelley (1819) 

[vi] "Take Me Away" Text: "Take Me Away" (1992), Mix Factory; Image: from Tyson