Books On Books

Prose-Verse-Poster-Algebraic-Symbolico-Riddle Musicopoematographoscope and Pocket Musicopoematographoscope (1897/1981)

Prose-Verse-Poster-Algebraic-Symbolico-Riddle Musicopoematographoscope and Pocket Musicopoematographoscope (Hale & Iremonger, 1897/1981)
Christopher Brennan
Hardback, facsimile edition of the handwritten manuscript. H390 x W270 x 16 mm, 40 pages. Acquired from Richard Axe Books, 12 November 2020.

Just as Stéphane Mallarmé’s Un coup de Dés jamais n’abolira le Hasard (1897) launched a new host of visual poems in the 20th and 21st centuries, it also launched a host of homage and parodies. Perhaps the quickest off the dock was the Australian Christopher Brennan. Already a fan of Mallarmé, Brennan, who worked at the New South Wales Public Library, seized on the May 1897 issue of Cosmopolis when it arrived and found in Mallarmé’s poem just the form with which to respond to the rough ride Australian critics had given to his own XXI Poems: MDCCCXCIII-MDCCCXCVII: Towards the Source (1897).

Not until 1981, though, was his tinker’s damn published. Given the debated choices of layout, typeface and illustrations that Un coup de Dés in book form had faced since 1897 and would continue to face after 1981, the choice to publish a facsimile of Brennan’s calligraphic effort was well made — perhaps even artistically original. Book artists have blotted out the poem, excised it, collaged, illustrated, performed, recorded (and cast the sonographs in three-dimensional PVC), programmed it into computer graphics, typed it out on a modified typewriter, and more. André Masson‘s may be the only calligraphic treatment so far…

Further Reading

“Jim Clinefelter“, Books On Books Collection, 17 July 2020. An American-English mis-translation.

“Chris Edwards“, Books On Books Collection, 7 December 2020. An Australian-English mis-translation.

“Rodney Graham“, Books On Books Collection, 3 July 2020. Un coup de Dés as instructions to a tattoo artist.

Barnes, Katherine E. “With a smile barely wrinkling the surface: Christopher Brennan’s large Musicopoematographoscope and Mallarmé’s Un Coup de dés“, Dix-Neuf, Vol. 9, No.1 (2007), pp. 44-56. Accessed 25 November 2020.

Fagan, Kate. “‘A Fluke? [N]ever!’: Reading Chris Edwards“, Journal for the Association for the Study of Australian Literature, Vol. 12, No. 1 (2012). Accessed 25 November 2020.

Fitch, Toby. 1 May 2019. “Aussi / Or: Un Coup de dés and Mistranslation in the Antipodes“. Cordite Poetry Review. Accessed 27 April 2022.