Armand Schwerner (1927 – February 4, 1999) was an avant-garde
Jewish-American
American Jews (; ) or Jewish Americans are Americans, American citizens who are Jews, Jewish, whether by Jewish culture, culture, ethnicity, or Judaism, religion. According to a 2020 poll conducted by Pew Research, approximately two thirds of Am ...
poet
A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator (thought, thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral t ...
. His most famous work, ''Tablets'',
is a series of poems which claim to be reconstructions of ancient
Sumer
Sumer () is the earliest known civilization, located in the historical region of southern Mesopotamia (now south-central Iraq), emerging during the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age, early Bronze Ages between the sixth and fifth millennium BC. ...
o-
Akkadian inscriptions, complete with
lacunae and "untranslatable" words.
Schwerner was born in
Antwerp
Antwerp (; ; ) is a City status in Belgium, city and a Municipalities of Belgium, municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of Antwerp Province, and the third-largest city in Belgium by area at , after ...
,
Belgium
Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...
, and his family moved to the
United States
The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
when he was nine years old. He attended
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...
(
B.A.
A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree ...
1950,
M.A. 1964) and taught at universities in the
New York City
New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
area until his retirement in 1998.
[
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Bibliography
* ''The Lightfall'' (Hawk's Well Press, 1963)
* ''(if personal)'' (Black Sparrow Press, 1968)
* ''Seaweed'' (Black Sparrow Press, 1969)
* ''The Bacchae Sonnets'' (Cummington Press, 1974)
* ''This Practice: Tablet XIX & Other Poems'' (Permanent Press, 1976)
* ''The Work, the Joy & the Triumph of the Will'' ith translation of Sophocles' ''Philoctetes''(New Rivers Press, 1977)
* ''Sounds of the River Naranjana & The Tablets I-XXIV'' (Station Hill, 1983)
* ''The Tablets I-XXVI'' (Atlas Press, 1989)
* ''The Tablets'' (National Poetry Foundation, 1999)
* ''Selected Shorter Poems'' (Junction Press, 1999)
* ''Cantos from Dante's Inferno'' ranslation(Talisman House, 2000)
References
External links
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Jewish American poets
20th-century American poets
Translators of Dante Alighieri
Writers from Staten Island
1927 births
1999 deaths
{{US-poet-1920s-stub