A Palpable Elysium: Portraits of Genius and Solitude
Poet and premier small-press (the Jargon Society) publisher Williams collects artists. That is, he goes to meet poets, sculptors, painters, composers, photographers, and musicians--living and dead--in situ. A longtime contributing editor of the photography journalAperture,he takes a mean snap himself, and he says he likes to get a portrait in a single shot, strictly on the fly. Lots of his subjects are fellow upper-southerners, from poet-farmer Wendell Berry to folk-potter Georgia Blizzard of Glade Spring, Virginia. He spends part of each year in Dentdale, Surrey, and so here, too, are such English images as a vault in the Watts Mortuary Chapel, Compton, Surrey, as decorated almost beyond belief by Mary Frazer-Tytler Watts. Charlie Parker's, E. E. Cummings', and James Thurber's grave markers prove remarkably unprepossessing, while the monumental sculpture gardens of outsider artists like St. EOM are remarkably overwhelming. Each picture is a treat, and Williams' highly personal, peculiar, prickly, and patrician notes make this one of the funniest books of the age. Vintage Williams.Ray OlsonCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved