Bacchae Sonnets

Omaha, Abattoir Editions & The Cummington Press/The Univ. of Nebraska at Omaha, 1974. First Edition and Limited Edition, one of 430 copies. Illustrated by James W. Mall. Cream/beige cloth with decorated rice paper label on cover. Unpaginated. Faint soil, no salient flaws. Fine. A sharp copy; please see scan. Schwermer (d. 1999), a Belgian immigrant in 1935, became a post-war experimenter in poetry - at the "maximalist" end, say some, because of the diverse and thorough self-education present in his work - and showed native humor and philosophical depth in this and his other best-known works, "The Tablets", "Cantos From Dante's Inferno", and "Selected Shorter Poems". Perhaps over-interpreted - the mark of a poet of texture and substance - Schwerner gets into sensory and cerebral appeal both dark and light in this short series of short segments, nicely matched by sketch illustrations in the same tone by Mall. l-fltschc1