Armenian Papers: Poems 1954-1984

by Harry Mathews

Armenian Papers is a selection of the poems of one of America's most important experimental writers, who has established a reputation not only as a poet but as the author of highly acclaimed novels such as The Conversions and Tlooth. The book reveals the organic nature of Mathew's thirty-year oeuvre by bringing together hard-to-find poems with other more familiar works, such as the two remarkable long sequences, 'Trial Impressions' and 'Armenian Papers, ' a poem of survival, love, and war in an imaginary landscape.

Genres: Poetry

130 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 1987

About the author

Harry Mathews was an American author of various novels, volumes of poetry and short fiction, and essays.

Together with John Ashbery, James Schuyler, and Kenneth Koch, Mathews founded and edited the short-lived but influential literary journal Locus Solus (named after a novel by Raymond Roussel, one of Mathews's chief early influences) from 1961 to 1962.

Harry Mathews was the first American chosen for membership in the French literary society known as the Oulipo, which is dedicated to exploring new possibilities in literature, in particular through the use of various constraints and algorithms. The late French writer Georges Perec, likewise a member, was a good friend, and the two translated some of each other's writings. Mathews considers many of his works to be Oulipian in nature, but even before he encountered the society he was working in a parallel direction.

Mathews was married to the writer Marie Chaix and divided his time between Paris, Key West, and New York.

Reviews

[MJ Nicholls · Rating 3 out of 5]

A selection of high-class poetry from Harry Mathews, who is both an arch stylist from Princeton (from American nobility, no less) and an OuLiPo prankster capable of some sublimely erudite versifying. Sometimes his unforgiving (and smug) elitism impedes one’s pleasure in his novels, with the tedious bourgeois minutiae of The Journalist being a good example. Or the inscrutable structures and games in his early books, such as Tlooth. This collection demonstrates both parts of his character, and naturally, the OuLiPo centrepiece (a love poem re-imagined in thirty different forms), was the scene-stealer for me. The title poem is a cycle written in homage to the missing work of an Armenian monk—intriguing for those who like that sort of intellectual backslapping. (What about the poor folk, Harry? What about the starving kids, Harry? Hmm?)

[Max Nemtsov · Rating 5 out of 5]

Нарративную поэзия все ж читать бывает рискованно, потому что велика вероятность не попасть в настроение или ситуацию автора, а проассоциироватьс себя с этим часто бывает невозможно, потому что автор у нас индивид, а не массовик-затейник. С лирикой тут проще, ибо эмоционально-сюжетный диапазон у нее узок и, в общем, всегда знаешь, чего ждать, тем паче если лирическое высказывание едино и цельно, а еще лучше - красиво и предсказуемо оформлено.
А тут нет, к тому же, если стихи эти собраны из разных книжек и циклов за 30 лет - и если не забывать, что до того, как взять на себя формальные обязательства организации текста по-УЛиПосски, он был близок к Нью-Йоркской школе, а та во многом сознательно и последовательно лишала сюрреализм человеческого лица. И да, читая этот сборник Мэтьюза, сознаешь в очередной раз, насколько обесценены слова. Кроме тех случаев, когда он начинает ими играть.
Но сборник, конечно, потребует более пристального чтения, а значит - перевода, я по-другому не умею: только залезть в текст обеими рукаии по локти, разобрать его и собрать заново.
...да, много поэтических книжек вы знаете, у которых обложка - практически натюрморт из знаменитой "Книги о вкусной и здоровой пище"? То-то же...

[Roxanne Moadel-Attie · Rating 3 out of 5]

The title of this book is misleading. I thought it was written for or about Armenians. This was not the case.

[J.M. Hushour · Rating 3 out of 5]

Definitely no "Tlooth", but not bad. A little pushy with the turn-of-the-word, maybe.