Jonathan Williams (March 8, 1929 – March 16, 2008) was an
American poet
The poets listed below were either born in the United States or else published much of their poetry while living in that country.
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I–J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
*George Quasha (born 1942 in poetry, 1942)
R
...
, 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
)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan ...
. He attended
St. Albans School in Washington, and then
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...
, 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
Black Mountain College was a private liberal arts college in Black Mountain, North Carolina. It was founded in 1933 by John Andrew Rice, Theodore Dreier, and several others. The college was ideologically organized around John Dewey's educational ...
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
Charles Olson (27 December 1910 – 10 January 1970) was a second generation modern American poet who was a link between earlier figures such as Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams and the New American poets, which includes the New York ...
.
Also in 1951, Williams founded Jargon Books (later
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 ...
) together with David Ruff, with the goal of publishing obscure writers. Based in
Scaly Mountain, North Carolina, as well as the Yorkshire Dales in England, Jargon was long associated with the
Black Mountain Poets
The Black Mountain poets, sometimes called projectivist poets, were a group of mid-20th-century American ''avant-garde'' or postmodern poets centered on Black Mountain College in North Carolina.
Background
Although it lasted only twenty-three ...
. The press has published work by
Charles Olson
Charles Olson (27 December 1910 – 10 January 1970) was a second generation modern American poet who was a link between earlier figures such as Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams and the New American poets, which includes the New York ...
,
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
Lorine Faith Niedecker (English: pronounced Needecker) (May 12, 1903 – December 31, 1970) was an American poet. Niedecker's poetry is known for its spareness, its focus on the natural landscapes of Wisconsin and the Upper Midwest (particularly wa ...
,
Lou Harrison
Lou Silver Harrison (May 14, 1917 – February 2, 2003) was an American composer, music critic, music theorist, painter, and creator of unique musical instruments. Harrison initially wrote in a dissonant, ultramodernist style similar to his form ...
,
Mina Loy
Mina Loy (born Mina Gertrude Löwy; 27 December 1882 – 25 September 1966) was a British-born artist, writer, poet, playwright, novelist, painter, designer of lamps, and bohemian. She was one of the last of the first-generation modernists to ...
,
Joel Oppenheimer
Joel Lester Oppenheimer (Jacob Hammer) (February 18, 1930 – October 11, 1988) was an American poet associated with both the Black Mountain poets and the New York School. He was the first director of the St. Marks Poetry Project (1966–68). T ...
,
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
The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...
. 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
Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...
'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
Guy Mattison Davenport (November 23, 1927 – January 4, 2005) was an American writer, translator, illustrator, painter, intellectual, and teacher.
Life
Guy Davenport was born in Anderson, South Carolina, in the foothills of Appalachia on Novem ...
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
Cultural anthropology is a branch of anthropology focused on the study of cultural variation among humans. It is in contrast to social anthropology, which perceives cultural variation as a subset of a posited anthropological constant. The portman ...
. 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
In optics, an aperture is a hole or an opening through which light travels. More specifically, the aperture and focal length of an optical system determine the cone angle of a bundle of rays that come to a focus in the image plane.
An opt ...
.''
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
Copper Canyon Press is an independent, non-profit small press, founded in 1972 specializing exclusively in the publication of poetry. It is located in Port Townsend, Washington.
Copper Canyon Press publishes new collections of poetry by both popu ...
, 2005)
References
External links
*
Jonathan Williams Tribute Page at the Electronic Poetry CenterTales of a Jargonautan interview with Jonathan Williams by Jeffery Beam
The Jargon Societylinks 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 WilliamsA 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