Emmett Williams (4 April 1925 – 14 February 2007) was an American

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or w ...

and visual artist. He was married to British visual artist Ann Noël. Williams was born in

Greenville, South Carolina Greenville (; locally ) is a city in and the county seat, seat of Greenville County, South Carolina, United States. With a population of 70,720 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the sixth-largest city in the state. Greenvil ...

, grew up in

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth are ...

, and lived in

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

from 1949 to 1966. Williams studied poetry with

John Crowe Ransom John Crowe Ransom (April 30, 1888 – July 3, 1974) was an American educator, scholar, literary critic, poet, essayist and editor. He is considered to be a founder of the New Criticism school of literary criticism. As a faculty member at Kenyon ...

Kenyon College Kenyon College is a private liberal arts college in Gambier, Ohio. It was founded in 1824 by Philander Chase. Kenyon College is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission. Kenyon has 1,708 undergraduates enrolled. Its 1,000-acre campus is s ...

, anthropology at the

University of Paris , image_name = Coat of arms of the University of Paris.svg , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of Arms , latin_name = Universitas magistrorum et scholarium Parisiensis , motto = ''Hic et ubique terrarum'' (Latin) , mottoeng = Here and a ...

, and worked as an assistant to the ethnologist Paul Radin in

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

. As an artist and poet, Emmett Williams collaborated with

Daniel Spoerri Daniel Spoerri (born 27 March 1930) is a Swiss artist and writer born in Romania. Spoerri is best known for his "snare-pictures," a type of assemblage or object art, in which he captures a group of objects, such as the remains of meals eaten by in ...

and German poet Claus Bremer in the

Darmstadt Darmstadt () is a city in the state of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Rhine-Main-Area (Frankfurt Metropolitan Region). Darmstadt has around 160,000 inhabitants, making it the fourth largest city in the state of Hesse ...

circle of

concrete poetry Concrete poetry is an arrangement of linguistic elements in which the typographical effect is more important in conveying meaning than verbal significance. It is sometimes referred to as visual poetry, a term that has now developed a distinct me ...

from 1957 to 1959. One of his notable pieces from this period is "Four-Directional Song of Doubt for Five Voices" (1957), in which five performers are each assigned one word of the phrase "You just never quite know", and say their word according to a grid on a card, keeping together with the beat of a metronome: when a black circle appears on the grid, the performer speaks the word, and when no circle appears they say nothing. In the resulting performance, the core phrase "you never quite know" is overshadowed by other combinations of words, such as "you know" and "quite just".Higgins, Hannah B. ''The Grid Book'' Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2009. p.197 In the 1960s, Williams was the European coordinator of

Fluxus Fluxus was an international, interdisciplinary community of artists, composers, designers and poets during the 1960s and 1970s who engaged in experimental art performances which emphasized the artistic process over the finished product. Fluxus ...

and worked closely with French artist Robert Filliou, and a founding member of the Domaine Poetique in

Paris, France Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...

. Williams was friends with

Václav Havel Václav Havel (; 5 October 193618 December 2011) was a Czech statesman, author, poet, playwright, and former dissident. Havel served as the last president of Czechoslovakia from 1989 until the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1992 and then ...

during his dissident years' he translated some of Havel's work into English. Williams was a guest artist in residence teaching at

Mount Holyoke College Mount Holyoke College is a private liberal arts women's college in South Hadley, Massachusetts. It is the oldest member of the historic Seven Sisters colleges, a group of elite historically women's colleges in the Northeastern United States. ...

from September 1975 to June 1976. Williams' theater essays appeared in ''Das Neue Forum'', ''Berner Blatter'', ''Ulmer Theater'', and other European magazines. He translated Daniel Spoerri's ''Topographie Anecdotee du Hasard ( An Anecdoted Topography of Chance)'', collaborated with

Claes Oldenburg Claes Oldenburg (January 28, 1929 – July 18, 2022) was a Swedish-born American sculptor, best known for his public art installations typically featuring large replicas of everyday objects. Another theme in his work is soft sculpture versions ...

on ''Store Days'', and edited ''An Anthology of Concrete Poetry'', all published by the

Something Else Press Something Else Press was founded by Dick Higgins in 1963. It published many important Intermedia texts and artworks by such Fluxus artists as Higgins, Ray Johnson, Alison Knowles, Allan Kaprow, George Brecht, Daniel Spoerri, Robert Fillio ...

, which was owned and managed by fellow Fluxus artist Dick Higgins. From the mid-1960s through the early 1970s Williams was Editor in Chief of the Something Else Press. In 1991, Williams published an autobiography, ''My Life in Fluxus - And Vice Versa'', published by Edition Hansjörg Mayer, Stuttgart, and reprinted the next year by

Thames and Hudson Thames & Hudson (sometimes T&H for brevity) is a publisher of illustrated books in all visually creative categories: art, architecture, design, photography, fashion, film, and the performing arts. It also publishes books on archaeology, history, ...

. In 1996, he was honored for his life work with the Hannah-Höch-Preis. He died in Berlin in 2007. In 2014, Edition Zédélé published a reprint of ''SOLDIER'' (Reprint Collection, curated by Anne Moeglin-Delcroix and Clive Phillpot), first published in ''A Valentine for Noel'' (1973) by Something Else Press and Hansjörg Mayer.

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Archivio Conz
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1925 births 2007 deaths Writers from Greenville, South Carolina Fluxus Kenyon College alumni University of Paris alumni American contemporary artists American conceptual artists 20th-century American poets {{US-artist-stub