Grover C. Amen Papers, 1949-2010, n.d.
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Administrative/Biographical History
Grover Cleveland Amen was born in New York City on June 23, 1932 to John Harlan Amen, who made his name as a racket-buster during the 1920s and 1930s, and Marion Cleveland, daughter of President Grover Cleveland. He attended St. Bernard’s and Philips Exeter Academy in New York, where his grandfather Harlan Page Amen had previously been headmaster. He left the Academy before completing his degree and traveled to New Orleans, where he hoped to focus his energy on writing.
His early departure from the Academy did not prevent his admission to Oberlin College in 1950, and Amen moved to Ohio and studied English, graduating in 1954. While attending Oberlin, he served as both writer and editor for the “Yeoman,” a literary publication. He also participated in the 1951 Mock United Nations convention. Upon graduating, he moved back to the east coast to pursue journalism, starting his journalistic career as a reporter for the Waterbury Republican of Waterbury, Connecticut. He left this position in 1956 for an editorial post at Dun’s Review in New York City, and in 1957 became a writer and reporter for The New Yorker magazine, working primarily on the “Talk of the Town” section. He remained in New York, making his home in Brooklyn, for the rest of his life. Amen continued to pursue his personal writing ambitions and several of his poems and stories were published in The New Yorker.
Grover Amen married Barbara Sassoon Lyons in 1963. Three years later, in 1966, they had a son, John, who would be Amen’s only child. Grover Amen continued in his post at The New Yorker until 1962. Oberlin College awarded him the Haskell Fellowship for 1963–64, enabling him to move to France in order to write poetry and fiction. After the fellowship position, Amen worked as a free-lance writer and published a book entitled Daytop: Three Addicts & Their Cure (co-author, Daniel Casriel, M.D.; Hill & Wang, 1971) as well as writing and editing for publications such as Arts Magazine and The New Yorker, and publishing houses such as Macmillan and McGraw-Hill. Amen’s poems and short stories continued to be published in a variety of publications, including Parnassus: Poetry in Review, Grand Street, the New England Review, and Poetry: London.
Grover Amen’s writing began to grow in magnitude as his free-lance career allowed him to devote his energy to these projects. A short story entitled “The Scholar of Bourbon Street,” originally published in a 1965 edition of The New Yorker, expanded into a full-length novel that he worked on until the time of his death. Likewise, Amen began to write longer works of poetry; he completed a full-length book of poems, F-Train Ramble, and established the Reluctant Buddha Press in 1982 in order to print it. A second book of poetry, The Spouse Whose Address was the Sea, was completed in the mid-1980s, and excerpts from it appeared in Parnassus: Poetry in Review and Grand Street, though it was never published in its entirety.
Amen also widened the scope of his writing to embrace translations: his work on Baudelaire’s poem, “Une Charogne,” appeared in the publication Translation, and his translation of “The Seafarer” along with scholarly notes earned him a Master’s degree in Liberal Arts from the Graduate Center at the City University of New York in 1990. He held other positions of employment after leaving The New Yorker, in addition to his free-lance writing and editing. In particular, he worked as Managing Editor of a newsletter for the CETA Artists Project at the Cultural Council Foundation in New York. Here, he coordinated other artists and writers to report on their work with inner-city neighborhoods.
His creative work took another new shape when he began painting in the 1970s. Grover Amen’s paintings appeared in both solo and group shows dating from 1975 until 1990 at a wide variety of galleries, including the Atlantic Gallery in New York, Jorgenson Gallery in Connecticut, Pleiades Gallery in New York, Arthur Houghton Gallery at the Cooper Union School of Art, Newhouse Gallery in Staten Island, Brooklyn Arts & Culture Association Downtown Cultural Center, One World Trade Center, and neighborhood schools and cultural centers in Brooklyn. The neighborhood and home of Brooklyn influenced Grover Amen’s life, as is illustrated by his poetry.
Barbara Sassoon died in 1971, leaving Amen to remarry Maye Critzas on July 12, 1975. The couple separated in 1983. Amen met the playwright Elizabeth Albrecht in 1986, and their relationship spanned eleven years until Amen’s death on June 13, 1997.
Sources Consulted
Student file of Grover C. Amen, OCA.
Biography written by Elizabeth Albrecht, included in the Grover C. Amen Papers, Series I. Biographical File, OCA.
Forms of Material (links to similar genres) Administrative Information
The papers of Grover C. Amen, poet and writer, primarily consist of biographical material and his own poems and fiction. The biographical materials include his résumés and listings gathered and contributed by Elizabeth Albrecht and other writers. Amen’s writings are represented among the papers by copies of his published book of poetry, F Train Ramble, and a fairly comprehensive volume of his collected poems, short fiction, and translations, compiled by Albrecht and John Amen (the son of Grover Amen). In combination with his unpublished manuscript, The Prophet of Bourbon Street, and copies of two poems published posthumously, the papers provide a sampling of the works of Amen’s lifelong career.
The biographical information contains an outline of the chronology of this career, and the writings series provides some insight into Amen’s place among his peers and members of literary society through their articles and reviews of his work.
Despite his strong interest in art and the significant number of gallery showings in which he was a participating artist, Grover Amen’s paintings are only referenced in the papers of this collection; no examples are present. One photograph is included in the collection: a portrait of Amen that appears to have been taken in his late middle age.
The papers are divided into the following series and subseries.
SERIES DESCRIPTIONS
Series 1. Biographical File, 2004, n.d. (1 folder)
The biographical materials consist of a biography compiled by Elizabeth Albrecht following his death, as well as listings of his publications dating from 1957 to 2004 and his gallery showings, dating from 1975 to 1990. In addition, the series includes copies of Amen’s résumé.
Series 2. Writings, 1949, 1981-82, 1997, 2000, 2004, n.d. (4 folders, 3 bound volumes)
This series includes the writings of Grover Amen, which span the formats of poetry, prose, and poetic translation, as well as published articles about Amen that were written by others. Two subseries exist within the series.
Subseries 1. Writings of Grover Amen, 1981, 2000, 2004, n.d. (3 folders, 3 bound volumes)
Among Grover Amen’s writings can be found his self-published book of poetry, F Train Ramble, as well as a manuscript of his novel, The Prophet of Bourbon Street, on which he labored for a number of years, ultimately never publishing the work. In addition, the subseries contains a volume of his collected works, encompassing poems, short fiction, and translations, both published and unpublished, which provides a fairly comprehensive chronological representation of Amen’s primary life work. Also included are copies of two poems published in the magazine Grand Street after Amen’s death. Copies of translations of “Giantess” and “Exotic Perfume” by Baudelaire are also filed in this subseries.
Subseries 2. Writings about Grover Amen, 1949, 1982, 1997 (1 folder)
Writings about Grover Amen by other writers include a review of his published F Train Ramble, a 1949 published criticism of his high school writing, a posthumous reference to his writing by an editor who published several of Amen’s poems in his poetry magazine, and a tribute to Amen by friend and fellow Oberlin graduate Jon Swan, written for the Oberlin Alumni Magazine after his death in 1997.
Series 3. Photograph, n.d. (1 photo)
One undated photographic portrait of Grover Amen is contained in the photographic series.
INVENTORY
Series 1. Biographical File, 2004, n.d.
Box 1
Biographical File (1f)
Art shows 1975-90, listing, n.d.
Biography of Grover Amen, compiled by
Elizabeth Albrecht, n.d.
Publications 1957-2004, listing, 2004 (2 copies)
Résumé/Curriculum Vitae, n.d. (2 copies)
Series 2. Writings, 1949, 1956-58, 1962-65, 1981-82, 1985, 1991, 1993, 1997, 1999-2000, 2004, n.d. (arranged alphabetically within the subseries)
Subseries 1. Writings by Grover Amen
Box 1 (cont.)
Short Stories and Poems
Collection, Vol. I: Poems, Short Fiction and
Translations of Grover Amen c. 1949-90s,
copyright by Elizabeth Albrecht, John
Amen, n.d.
F Train Ramble. Reluctant Buddha Press,
Brooklyn, NY, 1981 (2 copies)
“Out,” Grand Street, NY, Spring 2000
The Prophet of Bourbon Street, unpublished,
n.d. (2f)
“The Seafarer,” published in The Yale Review,
April 2008, Vol. 96, Np. 2
“Tamara,” Grand Street, NY, Summer 2004
Short Stories and Poems [2007/05]
“The Book,” Grand Street #68 (Spring 1999)
“A Carcass,” by Charles Baudelaire, translated
from French by Grover Amen, in Translation
Magazine, vol. IX (Fall 1982): 222-224
“The Cot,” The New Yorker (1962)
“Doors,” The New Yorker (1962)
“Escape,” The New Yorker (April 20, 1963): 138-39,
143-44, 146, 148, 150, 152, 154, 156,
158, 160-62
“The Grant,” Parnassus, vol. 18, no. 2, and
vol. 19, no.1 (1993): 397
“Hotel Paintings,” Grand Street (Spring 1985)
“In the House of the White Mambo,” Parnassus,
vol. 18, no.2 and vol. 19, no. 1 (1993): 395-96
“Miss Berry and the Mushroom,” The New Yorker
(June 14, 1958): 103-106
“Night Fishing,” Grand Street, no. 68 (Spring1999)
“ON the Runway,” Grand Street, no. 38 (Summer
1991): 204-205
“The Scholar of Bourbon Street,” The New Yorker
(February 13, 1965): 7 pages
“Skulls,” Grand Street, no. 68 (Spring 1999)
“Straw Boss,” The New Yorker (November 18, 1961):
209-10, 213-18, 221
“A Winter Morning,” The New Yorker (1956)
Translations
“Exotic Perfume” and “Giantess,” translations of
Baudelaire’s “Parfum exotique” and “La Geante,”
published in Columbia University’s Romanic
Review, November 2010, Vol. 101, No. 4
Subseries 2. Writings about Grover Amen
Box 1 (cont.)
Writings about Grover Amen (1f)
“Dreamtale voyage through New York,” Don Faulkner,
New Haven Register p. D4, 5 Sept. 1982
“Grover Amen ’54, 1933-1997, Poet,” Jon Swan (’50),
Oberlin Alumni Magazine, Fall 1997
“The Literary Atmosphere of Two Eras,” Malcolm Cowley,
New York Herald Tribune Weekly Book Review,
section 7 p. 6, 25 Sept. 1949
"Tambimuttu in New York,” Ben Sonnenburg, Bookend,
The New York Times Book Review p. 43,
21 Sept. 1997
Series 3. Photograph, n.d.
Box 1 (cont.)
Grover Amen, n.d.