The Book of Repulsive Women

Originally published in the chap book series by Bruno of Greenwich Village in 1915, this renowned volume of poetry presented portraits of women of the period -a mother, prostitute, cabaret dancer, and others-which were wildly radical in their day dominated as it was by Victorian mores. But there is still in these "rhythms" a seething beat of sexuality and vice, whipped up into a delicious sense of perversity by Barnes's art. On the evidence of Barnes's numerous other works, most of which included art that was interleaved with her writing, Messerli has restored the drawings-which in the Bruno edition appeared in the back, after the poem's-to the front of the book so that they can create an interplay with the texts.