{"product_id":"schwerner-armand-the-tabletpb","title":"Schwerner, Armand: The Tablets","description":"\u003cp\u003eVerge Books, paperback\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePublication Date: May 19, 2026\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePublisher Marketing: \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWritten over the course of decades,\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Tablets\u003c\/em\u003e, are an imagined trove of Assyriological texts that Armand Schwerner used to explore the nature of translation, interpretation, and the way language generates meaning. Schwerner inhabits the persona of a scholar translator who offers tentative and often contradictory readings of the texts. The poem performs an ersatz archeology full of discoveries that are equal parts comic and spiritual. Assembled here in this volume along with\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Tablets\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eis a generous selection of Schwerner's translations and shorter poems.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"It was Schwerner's genius to transform his materials (\"availabilities,\" he called them) into deeply moving near-spiritual texts. These imaginative constructions, from the genre-breaking\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003eTablets\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eto the poems and translations, constitute a wealth of ever-inventive, playful material, subtle in their reflective and transformative powers. They manifest the marks of classical genius, combining a feeling of surprise at each turn of the writing with a sense of its inevitability.\" -Michael Heller, from the introduction\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Open Books: A Poem Emporium","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45195766398999,"sku":"9781737430797","price":29.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0004\/6497\/7956\/files\/1778518918-900.jpg?v=1780794285","url":"https:\/\/open-books-a-poem-emporium.myshopify.com\/products\/schwerner-armand-the-tabletpb","provider":"Open Books: A Poem Emporium","version":"1.0","type":"link"}