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, which has published poetry, experimental fiction, photography, and folk art since 1951.
Video Jonathan Williams (poet)
Overview
Williams attended St. Albans School in Washington, D.C., and then Princeton University, before dropping out to attend the Chicago Institute of Design and Black Mountain College, where he studied painting and graphic arts with Stanley William Hayter.
Along with David Ruff, Williams founded The Jargon Society in 1951, 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 press has published work by Charles Olson, Paul Metcalf, Lorine Niedecker, Lou Harrison, Mina Loy, Joel Oppenheimer, Ronald Johnson, James Broughton, Alfred Starr Hamilton and many other works by the American and British avant-garde.
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. 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 described Williams as the "truffle hound of American poetry."
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.
Maps Jonathan Williams (poet)
Selected bibliography
Poetry
- Jubilant Thicket: New and Selected Poems (Copper Canyon Press, 2005)
- An Ear in Bartram's Tree: Selected Poems 1957-1967 (Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 1969)
References
External links
- Works by or about Jonathan Williams in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
- Jonathan Williams Tribute Page at the Electronic Poetry Center
- Tales of a Jargonaut an interview with Jonathan Williams by Jeffery Beam
- The Jargon Society links include current updates and musings from Williams
- Biography Page @ncwriters.org w/bibliography
- Tales of a Jargonaut the only slightly edited full Rain Taxi interview with Jonathan Williams by Jeffery Beam
- A Snowflake Orchard a personal history of Jargon by poet Jeffery Beam which appeared originally in the North Carolina Literary Review w/bibliography
- The Passing of a Poet: Jonathan Williams, 79, Avant-garde Poet, Publisher, and Photographer
- 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
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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