DAVID RATTRAY: A RECOGNITION

Please join us for one of two events marking the life, work and ongoing influence of poet and translator David Rattray (1936-1993) on the twentieth anniversary of his death. Fluent in most Western languages, as well as Sanskrit, Latin and Greek, David Rattray was one of the first translators of Antonin Artaud. Published by City Lights Books in 1963, Rattray’s Artaud translations burned through the aura of transgressive chic that surrounded the poet to reveal the core of his incisive scholarship, technological prophecies, and visionary rage.

Rattray’s published works include a collection of poems, Opening the Eyelid (1990) and How I Became One of the Invisible (1992), a guide to the mystical-poetic-outlaw tradition that he found running throughout Western civilization Pythagoras, to the prophetic polyphony of 16th century In Nomine music, to the gang of marijuana harvesters and car thieves of East St. Louis, 1961, who become Rattray’s friends. Writing in Chemical Imbalance, Jim Fletcher noted the “dangerously close friendships and information flows” found in his work; Thurston Moore has described Rattray’s “fantastic and calm stowaway information,” and, writing inBOMB, Betsey Sussler described him as “the most generous of writers.”

       David Rattray: A Recognition

A second event will take place Saturday, April 6 at 2PM at The Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church, located at 131 East 10th Street (at 2nd Avenue). Please call 212.674.0910 for more information.