In the Gloom on the Left
Joyce Mansour
translated from the French
by Molly Bendall
21 pages, paper
Toad Press/Veliz Books, 2022. $6.00
Cover image is modified from “#3, Menhai [Sekhmet],” 1841, found in The New York Public Library Digital Collections.
You can purchase a copy of In the Gloom on the Left on Etsy or from Submittable.
Joyce Mansour (1928-1986), of Egyptian origin, wrote primarily in French and was associated with the Surrealist movement. She published over a dozen collections of poetry, from 1953 through the 1980s. Her poems combine a feral eroticism along with a sly sense of humor, bringing a defiant new female voice to the latter stages of the Surrealist scene. Molly Bendall is the author of five collections of poetry, including Watchful from Omnidawn Press and Under the Quick from Parlor Press. Omnidawn will also be publishing her next collection, Turncoat. Recent poems and reviews have appeared in Lana Turner, New American Writing, Tupelo Quarterly, Volt, LA Review of Books, and other journals. She teaches English and Creative Writing at the University of Southern California.
read the poem "Breastplate," featured in Verse Daily, at http://www.versedaily.org/2023/breastplate.shtml
