Customer Reviews

The Tablets

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In the Tablets, Schwerner is by turns experimental, ironic, satiric, comic, reflexive, and serious. The criptic nature of the Tablets may turn some readers off, but for anyone interested in getting to know American poetry after 1945, the book is a must. Its right up there with "A", "The Cantos", and "Maximus". A faux archeology of consciousness. An altogether beautiful reading experience.

When I first saw many of the works that make up Schwerner's TABLETS sequence in Conjunctions magazine back in the 80s, I was hooked: the compelling and playful invention of mythic stories, invented-archeological mock-transcriptions, and odd iconography seemed quite fascinating, and still does. I was saddened to hear the news last year that Schwerner had died, especially since I had been waiting years for someone to finally collect all of these odd and intriguing sections into a single volume.