Scope and Contents The rhyming of this poem is highly complex as explained by Mark Ford, the translator. Amazon.com: Poet, novelist, playwright, and chess enthusiast, Raymond Roussel (1877-1933) was one of the French belle epoque's most compelling literary figures. During his lifetime, Roussel's work was vociferously championed by the surrealists, but never achieved the widespread acclaim for which he yearned. New Impressions of Africa is undoubtedly Roussel's most extraordinary work. Since its publication in 1932, this weird and wonderful poem has slowly gained cult status, and its admirers have included Salvador Dalì--who dubbed it the most "ungraspably poetic" work of the era--Andre Breton, Jean Cocteau, Marcel Duchamp, Michel Foucault, Kenneth Koch, and John Ashbery. Roussel began writing New Impressions of Africa in 1915 while serving in the French Army during the First World War and it took him seventeen years to complete. "It is hard to believe the immense amount of time composition of this...

Scope and Contents

The uncut 232 sleeve pages depict a black and white reproduction of a print on the inside of the right sided page. The pages are printed on gray colored stock and the text consists of white, black, green, blue, and red colored sentences. The remaining 135 pages are printed conventionally and consist of conventional printing of the poem (1897), annotations of the text and images by Jacques Sivan, an a section with brief comments by various critics including Jean Cocteau, Andre Gide, Marcel Proust, Andre Breton, Louis Aragon, Paul Eluard, Robert Desnos, Michel Leiris, and Tristan Tzara. The Sackner Archive holds an English translation of this work. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

Scope and Contents

Vida-Spence is a California psychoanalyst/art collector who contributes a long essay to this catalogue mentioning Jody Zellen and Brian Moss, two artists whose works are held by the Sackner Archive. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.