This spring, MicroLit Almanac collaborated with Cheryl Pappas on a video project to celebrate the new edition of Charles Baudelaire’s Flowers of Evil, translated by Aaron Poochigian and published by Liveright Publishing, a division of W.W. Norton. Here you will find poets and writers each reading a poem from the book.

As A.E. Stallings wrote about Poochigian’s translation, “Baudelaire’s almost claustrophobic melancholy and ‘spleen’ seem freshly relevant for a world still emerging from the throes of pandemic, quarantine, and lockdown.” Our goal is to unlock Baudelaire and use his melancholy to shed a little light on where we are in these difficult days.

Our project has now come to an end, but we encourage you to enjoy and share the readings!

We have reproduced the text for each poem with permission from Liveright Publishing. The full credit appears underneath each text.

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“The Damned Women” read by Andria Williams

Like pensive cattle lying on a beach,

they turn and gaze into the ocean swell.

Feet probe for loving female feet; hands reach

for hands with languor or a desperate chill.

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“Reversibility” read by Catherine Parnell

Glad angel, do you not know disquietude,
sighs, degradation, penitence, vexations,
and frightening nights’ obscure abominations
which crumple up the heart into a wad?
Glad angel, do you not know disquietude?

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“A Carcass/Une Charogne” read by Peter Brown

Do you recall, my love, the thing we saw
that fine morning in luscious June?
Right where the pathway turned, a carcass lay
on a bed made of cobblestone.

Her legs akimbo like a harlot’s

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“The Litanies of Satan” read by Andrea Caswell

O you, most wise, most gorgeous of the seraphim,
O god betrayed by fate and stripped of all your fame,

Satan, have mercy on my endless grief!

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“The Cat” read by M.C. Armstrong

Come to my lovesick lap, my cat, my dear.
Retract the talons of your paws
And please, please drown me in that gorgeous stare . . .

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“The Cat” read by MaxieJane Frazier

51 The Cat

I.
A strong, sweet, handsome and glamorous
cat is strolling inside of me
as if I were his property.
You scarcely hear when he meows;

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“Spleen (II)” read by Haolun Xu

Spleen (II)

More memories than if I'd lived a thousand years!

A massive chest of drawers crammed with lines of verse,
court summonses, love letter, novels, balance sheets
and locks of ample hair rolled up in old receipts . . .

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“Exotic Perfume/Parfum Exotique” read by Jennifer Barber

Exotic Perfume

When, on a warm fall evening, I breathe in,
eyes shut, the perfume of your balmy breast,
I see a happy stretch of coast
lit by the fires of an unsubtle sun:

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“A Carcass” read by Judith Baumel

Do you recall, my love, the thing we saw
that fine morning in luscious June?
Right where the pathway turned, a carcass lay
on a bed made of cobblestone.

Birch Bark Editing 3/15/22 Birch Bark Editing 3/15/22

“I still recall the little whitewashed lodging where . . .” read by Cheryl Pappas

I still recall the little whitewashed lodging where
we lived in peace,