Helen Adam

Helen Douglas Adam (born December 2, 1909 in Glasgow , Scotland , † September 19, 1993 in New York City ) was a Scottish and American poet and artist.

Life

Helen Adam grew up in Nairnshire and attended the University of Edinburgh for two years . She, her younger sister Isabella Theodosia Patrick, called Pam (* 1912) and her mother Isabella Douglas Dunn left Scotland after the death of their father, the Reverend William Adam († 1934), and settled in London , where the sisters worked as journalists for the Weekly Scotsman worked.

The family attended a relative wedding in Hartford (Connecticut) in the USA in 1939 and could not return to England because the outbreak of war began . The Adams sisters and their mother lived in New York for ten years and then in Reno and Oakland . In 1953 the family settled in San Francisco and in the same year Helen took part in a poetry workshop by Robert Duncan and got to know the poets of the San Francisco Renaissance . Duncan and his partner Jess, Madeline Gleason , Eve Triem, Robin Blaser as an onlooker, and James Broughton and Helen Adam formed the Maidens ' group of poets .

Duncan extolled Adam's ballads as the gateway into the nineteenth century to the frowned upon work of the great romantics. The sisters had a huge hit with the musical San Francisco Burning in 1962 and they returned it to New York. It was eventually performed at Judson Memorial Church , but never on Broadway. She was the inspiration for Samuel Delany's short story Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones . In Germany, the narrative volume Grinsende Schatten was published with a foreword by Rosa von Praunheim , in whose film Das Todesmagazin (1979) she can be seen reciting ballads. Helen Adam also took on a small supporting role in Marianne Enzensberger's film Der Biss (1984) .

Works (selection)

• The Elfin Pedlar and Tales Told by Pixie Pool . Hodder & Stoughton, London 1921.
• Charms and Dreams from the Elfin Pedlar's Pack . Hodder & Stoughton, London 1924
• Shadow of the Moon . Hodder & Stoughton, London 1929
• The Queen O'Crow Castle , 1958
• Ballads. Illustrated by Jess [Collins]. Acadia Press, New York 1964
• Counting Out Rhyme , 1972
• Selected Poems and Ballads . Helikon Press, New York 1974
• Ghosts and Grinning Shadows: Two Witch Stories . Brooklyn, Hanging Loose Press 1977
  • German: grinning shadows. 2 witch stories. With collages by the author. Introduction: Rosa von Praunheim . Schwiftinger Galerie-Verlag, 1983, ISBN 3-922087-16-7
• Turn Again to Me. And Other Poems . Kulchur Foundation, New York 1977
• Gone sailing . Toothpaste Press, West Branch, IA, 1980
• Songs with Music . Aleph Press, San Francisco 1982
• Stone Cold Gothic . Kulchur Foundation, New York 1984
• The Bells of Dis . Coffee House Press, West Branch, IA, 1985
• Kristin Prevallet (Ed.): A Helen Adam Reader . Poetry, fiction, drama. Kristin Prevallet: Introduction and Notes . The National Poetry Foundation, Orono, ME, 2007, ISBN 978-0-943373-73-7

drama

• Helen and Pat Adam: San Francisco's Burning . San Francisco 1963.
  • First performed in March 1962 as a musical at James Broughton's The Playhouse , San Francisco.

Movie

• William MacNeill, Helen Adam: Daydream of Darkness . First performed at the Peacock Gallery, San Francisco, November 22nd, 1962 (the day John F. Kennedy was assassinated).

Web links

• Literature by and about Helen Adam in the catalog of the German National Library