Jonathan Williams (March 8, 1929 – March 16, 2008) was an American poet, publisher, essayist, and photographer. He is known as the founder of

The Jargon Society The Jargon Society is an independent press founded by the American poet Jonathan Williams. Jargon is one of the oldest and most prestigious small presses in the United States and has published seminal works of the American literary avant-garde, i ...

, which has published poetry, experimental fiction, photography, and folk art since 1951.

Overview

Williams was born in

Asheville, North Carolina Asheville ( ) is a city in, and the county seat of, Buncombe County, North Carolina. Located at the confluence of the French Broad and Swannanoa rivers, it is the largest city in Western North Carolina, and the state's 11th-most populous cit ...

to Thomas Benjamin and Georgette Williams, and raised in Washington, DC. He attended St. Albans School in Washington, and then Princeton University, before dropping out to pursue the arts. Williams studied painting with

Karl Knaths Karl Knaths (October 21, 1891 – March 9, 1971) was an American artist whose personal approach to the Cubist aesthetic led him to create paintings which, while abstract, contained readily identifiable subjects. In addition to the Cubist painte ...

at the Phillips Gallery in Washington DC, and engraving and graphic arts with

Stanley William Hayter Stanley William Hayter (27 December 1901 – 4 May 1988) was an English painter and printmaker associated in the 1930s with surrealism and from 1940 onward with abstract expressionism. Regarded as one of the most significant printmakers of ...

at Atelier 17 in New York, followed by a semester at the

Chicago Institute of Design Institute of Design (ID) at the Illinois Institute of Technology (Illinois Tech), founded as the New Bauhaus, is a graduate school teaching systemic, human-centered design. History The Institute of Design at Illinois Tech is a school of design ...

. In 1951, he arrived at Black Mountain College to study photography with Harry Callahan and

Aaron Siskind Aaron Siskind (December 4, 1903 – February 8, 1991) was an American photographer whose work focuses on the details of things, presented as flat surfaces to create a new image independent of the original subject. He was closely involved with, if ...

. At Black Mountain College, Williams met and was influenced by the College's rector, Charles Olson. Also in 1951, Williams founded Jargon Books (later

) together with David Ruff, with the goal of publishing obscure writers. Based in

Scaly Mountain, North Carolina Scaly Mountain (separate of near-easterly big / little Scaly Mountains, per se - see External link below) is a small unincorporated community along North Carolina Highway 106, southwest of Highlands, North Carolina, Highlands and northeast of Dil ...

, as well as the Yorkshire Dales in England, Jargon was long associated with the Black Mountain Poets. The press has published work by Charles Olson,

Paul Metcalf Paul C. Metcalf (7 November 1917 – 21 January 1999) was an American writer. He wrote in verse and prose. Devoted admirers included Robert Creeley, William Gass, Wendell Berry, Guy Davenport, Howard Zinn, and Bruce Olds. His books include ' ...

, Lorine Niedecker, Lou Harrison, Mina Loy, Joel Oppenheimer, Ronald Johnson,

James Broughton James Broughton (November 10, 1913 – May 17, 1999) was an American poet and poetic filmmaker. He was part of the San Francisco Renaissance, a precursor to the Beat poets. He was an early bard of the Radical Faeries, as well as a member of ...

Alfred Starr Hamilton Alfred Starr Hamilton (June 14, 1914 – 2005) was an American poet. A lifelong resident of Montclair, New Jersey, Hamilton contributed to many small presses, including Epoch, New Directions, Foxfire, New Letters, Archive, Poetry Now, American P ...

and many other works by the American and British avant-garde. Since Williams' death, The Jargon Society has continued publication through the

Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center The Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center (BMCM+AC) is an exhibition and performance space and resource center located at 120 College Street on Pack Square Park in downtown Asheville, North Carolina dedicated to preserving and continuing the ...

. Once described as "a busy gadfly who happened somehow to pitch on a slope in western North Carolina," Williams was a living link between the experimental poets of Modernism's "second wave" and the unknown vernacular artists of

Appalachia Appalachia () is a cultural region in the Eastern United States that stretches from the Southern Tier of New York State to northern Alabama and Georgia. While the Appalachian Mountains stretch from Belle Isle in Newfoundland and Labrador, Ca ...

. Guy Davenport likened Williams' use of "found language" to the use of "found footage" by avant-garde filmmakers, as well as describing Williams as a species of cultural anthropologist. Williams for his part explained the fascination of such material in plainer terms: The literary critic

Hugh Kenner William Hugh Kenner (January 7, 1923 – November 24, 2003) was a Canadian literary scholar, critic and professor. He published widely on Modernist literature with particular emphasis on James Joyce, Ezra Pound, and Samuel Beckett. His major ...

described Williams as the "

truffle hound A truffle hog is any domestic pig used for locating and extracting the fruit bodies of the fungi known as truffles from temperate forests in Europe and North America. Pigs have an exceptional sense of smell, and are able to identify truffles from ...

of American poetry." Williams was also a longtime contributing editor of the photography journal '' Aperture.'' Williams divided his time between England and Scaly Mountain, North Carolina. He died March 16, 2008 in Highlands, North Carolina from pneumonia. He was survived by his longtime partner, Thomas Meyer.

Selected bibliography

*''An Ear in Bartram's Tree: Selected Poems 1957-1967'' ( Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 1969; New Directions, 1972). *''Mahler'' (Grossman/Cape Goliard Press, 1969). *''The Loco Logodaedalist in Situ: Selected Poems 1968-70'' (Cape Goliard Press, 1971). *''Elite/Elate Poems: Selected Poems 1971-75 (Jargon Society, 1979). *''The Magpie's Bagpipe: Selected Essays'' (North Point Press, 1982). *''Blues & Roots/Rue & Bluets: A Garland for the Southern Appalachians'', revised edition (Duke University Press, 1985). *''Jubilant Thicket: New and Selected Poems'' ( Copper Canyon Press, 2005)

References

External links

*
Jonathan Williams Tribute Page at the Electronic Poetry CenterTales of a Jargonaut
an interview with Jonathan Williams by Jeffery Beam
The Jargon Society
links include current updates and musings from Williams

@ncwriters.org w/bibliography

the only slightly edited full Rain Taxi interview with Jonathan Williams by Jeffery Beam

a personal history of Jargon by poet Jeffery Beam which appeared originally in the North Carolina Literary Review w/bibliography

* ttp://jacketmagazine.com/38/index.shtml#jw The Lord of Orchards: Jonathan Williams at 80 edited by Jeffery Beam and Richard Owens. An appreciative survey of Williams' life and work including some never before published photos by Williams, and many new and recovered essays about his life and work as a poet, photographer, critic, art collector, and publisher.
A life in pictures: Jonathan Williams
A series of photographs documenting Jonathan Williams' life * Jonathan Williams Photographs. Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. {{DEFAULTSORT:Williams, Jonathan 1929 births 2008 deaths American male poets American LGBT poets Black Mountain College alumni Black Mountain poets American book publishers (people) 20th-century American poets 20th-century American male writers St. Albans School (Washington, D.C.) alumni Princeton University alumni Writers from North Carolina Writers from Asheville, North Carolina 20th-century LGBT people