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Jonathan Williams: Lord of Orchards
Jonathan Williams’ work of more than half a century is such that no one activity or identity takes primacy over any other—he was the seminal small press publisher of The Jargon Society; a poet of considerable stature; book designer; editor; photographer; legendary correspondent; literary, art, and photography critic and collector; early collector and proselytizer of visionary folk art; cultural anthropologist and Juvenalian critic; curmudgeon; happy gardener; resolute walker; and keen and adroit raconteur and gourmand.
Williams’ refined decorum and speech, and his sartorial style, contrasted sharply, yet pleasingly, with his delight in the bawdy, with his incisive humor and social criticism, and his confidently experimental, masterful poems and prose.
His interests raised “the common to grace,” while paying “close attention to the earthy.” At the forefront of the Modernist avant-garde—yet possessing a deep appreciation of the traditional—Williams celebrated, rescued, and preserved those things he described as, “more and more away from the High Art of the city,” settling “for what I could unearth and respect in the tall grass.” Subject to much indifference—despite being celebrated as publisher and poet—he nurtured the nascent careers of hundreds of emerging or neglected poets, writers, artists, and photographers.
Recognizing this, Buckminster Fuller once called him “our Johnny Appleseed”, Guy Davenport described him as a “kind of polytechnic institute,” while Hugh Kenner hailed Jargon as “the Custodian of Snowflakes” and Williams as “the truffle-hound of American poetry.” Lesser known for his extraordinary letters and essays, and his photography and art collecting, he is never only a poet or photographer, an essayist or publisher.
This book of essays, images, and shouts aims to bring new eyes and contexts to his influence and talent as poet and publisher, but also heighten appreciation for the other facets of his life and art. One might call Williams’ life a poetics of gathering, and this book a first harvest.
Williams’ refined decorum and speech, and his sartorial style, contrasted sharply, yet pleasingly, with his delight in the bawdy, with his incisive humor and social criticism, and his confidently experimental, masterful poems and prose.
His interests raised “the common to grace,” while paying “close attention to the earthy.” At the forefront of the Modernist avant-garde—yet possessing a deep appreciation of the traditional—Williams celebrated, rescued, and preserved those things he described as, “more and more away from the High Art of the city,” settling “for what I could unearth and respect in the tall grass.” Subject to much indifference—despite being celebrated as publisher and poet—he nurtured the nascent careers of hundreds of emerging or neglected poets, writers, artists, and photographers.
Recognizing this, Buckminster Fuller once called him “our Johnny Appleseed”, Guy Davenport described him as a “kind of polytechnic institute,” while Hugh Kenner hailed Jargon as “the Custodian of Snowflakes” and Williams as “the truffle-hound of American poetry.” Lesser known for his extraordinary letters and essays, and his photography and art collecting, he is never only a poet or photographer, an essayist or publisher.
This book of essays, images, and shouts aims to bring new eyes and contexts to his influence and talent as poet and publisher, but also heighten appreciation for the other facets of his life and art. One might call Williams’ life a poetics of gathering, and this book a first harvest.
496 pages, Paperback
Published September 26, 2017
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August 5, 2021
Jonathan Williams wore many hats: poet, photographer, publisher, essayist, lifelong collector (of art, words and phrases, and of friends). Above all, he was an enthusiast. His enthusiasms extended to whatever interested him. I say all of this, admittedly, without ever having met him. My only connections are receiving one postcard sent by him, reading a number of his books, and having a photograph of the poet Robert Creeley, taken and signed by Mr. Williams, hanging on one of our bedroom walls.
When I found that this book had been published as a tribute following Jonathan Williams' passing in 2008, I looked looked forward to reading it and expected to enjoy it. When I finally did read it, I was somewhat disappointed.
The Lord of Orchards is a handsome book, printed on high quality paper with many wonderful photographs and illustrations. It's also a long book - over 400 pages. This last fact is part of the problem. This book contains over over 50 essays and tributes to Jonathan Williams. Many of these are heartfelt and to the point, as Mr. Williams' writing was. There are other essays that are less successful. There are essays that say more about the writer than they do about Jonathan Williams; there is at least one essay which attempts to explicate Jonathan Williams' poetry, which, judging from his comments in an interview contained in this book, Williams would have had no use for; other tributes/essays are too long and overstay their welcome.
In general, the book could have used a good deal of editing. Two editors are credited, but my sense is that they served as compilers and may have been afraid of stepping on any toes by cutting sentences, paragraphs, or pages which were redundant or nonessential.
Even though I found a fair amount of the book to be a slight ordeal, I persisted and my persistence (*) paid off. Near the end of The Lord of Orchards is a transcription of a video conversation with Jonathan Williams from 2007, which is fascinating. The conversation is everything that many of the previous essays are not.
I'm not certain if I'll keep this book. There are many fine things to be found in it, but also much that I'll never want to reread. In any case, here are a few highlights that I enjoyed. (To be fair to the book, I could have included many others.):
From Richard Deming's essay on Williams' photography - "There is a famous story about Picasso's portrait of Gertrude Stein and his response to someone who thought that Stein did not look like what Picasso had painted. 'She will,' he replied. What has always intrigued me about this exchange is whether Picasso meant that the portrait was ahead of Stein in the way that Stein believed the contemporary should be. Or did he mean that the image would become so famous that people would be unable to see Stein except through the image of his painting? Artists, in a sense, create history before it happens."
From Jonathan Williams' video conversation - "Basil Bunting always said the interesting thing about poetry is that it has absolutely no value ... except in the sense that a glass of water is valuable. It's free, but it's very important when you want one, when you need one."
"... the classical reasons for writing poetry as Pound defined it, are to move, to teach, and to delight. So when you think about the poetry that you read and appreciate most, some of it doesn't teach you much, but to delight is probably the first, and to be moved is quite wonderful."
On his poetry - "They're not things to study, they're things, basically, to enjoy. So the academics properly leave them alone."
There are at least two other celebration tributes to Jonathan Williams that I'm aware of - his friends were obviously big on birthday celebrations - JW/50 - which I recommend if you can find a copy - and Orpington via Pratt's Bottom: JW at 75 - which I haven't read. Very probably, part of the problem with The Lord of Orchards is that many of Mr. Williams' contemporaries had passed away by the time it was compiled.
If you think that you might be interested in Jonathan Williams, I would recommend seeking out one of his poetry collections - Jubilant Thicket is a good choice - his essay collections - The Magpie's Bagpipe and Blackbird Dust - or some of his photographs - A Palpable Elysium is the most recently published and most readily available.
(*) - An extraneous addendum: My favorite anecdote about the word "persistence" comes from an interview given by the singer and songwriter Jesse Winchester on the occasion of the release of a new recording some years ago. Mr. Winchester recounted that he hated going into a studio and recording because he regarded it as a waste of time. He said that he made most of his living through royalties from other artists recording his songs and through live performances. His own albums never sold that well and he'd gotten fed up with recording. He went on to explain that the new recording only came about because his wife, who sometimes traveled with him on tour, kept telling him that his fans wanted to know when he'd be releasing a new album, and he finally relented.
The interviewer responded - So we owe the existence of this record to your wife's persistence. Jesse Winchester replied - I like that word, persistence. It sounds so much better than nagging.
When I found that this book had been published as a tribute following Jonathan Williams' passing in 2008, I looked looked forward to reading it and expected to enjoy it. When I finally did read it, I was somewhat disappointed.
The Lord of Orchards is a handsome book, printed on high quality paper with many wonderful photographs and illustrations. It's also a long book - over 400 pages. This last fact is part of the problem. This book contains over over 50 essays and tributes to Jonathan Williams. Many of these are heartfelt and to the point, as Mr. Williams' writing was. There are other essays that are less successful. There are essays that say more about the writer than they do about Jonathan Williams; there is at least one essay which attempts to explicate Jonathan Williams' poetry, which, judging from his comments in an interview contained in this book, Williams would have had no use for; other tributes/essays are too long and overstay their welcome.
In general, the book could have used a good deal of editing. Two editors are credited, but my sense is that they served as compilers and may have been afraid of stepping on any toes by cutting sentences, paragraphs, or pages which were redundant or nonessential.
Even though I found a fair amount of the book to be a slight ordeal, I persisted and my persistence (*) paid off. Near the end of The Lord of Orchards is a transcription of a video conversation with Jonathan Williams from 2007, which is fascinating. The conversation is everything that many of the previous essays are not.
I'm not certain if I'll keep this book. There are many fine things to be found in it, but also much that I'll never want to reread. In any case, here are a few highlights that I enjoyed. (To be fair to the book, I could have included many others.):
From Richard Deming's essay on Williams' photography - "There is a famous story about Picasso's portrait of Gertrude Stein and his response to someone who thought that Stein did not look like what Picasso had painted. 'She will,' he replied. What has always intrigued me about this exchange is whether Picasso meant that the portrait was ahead of Stein in the way that Stein believed the contemporary should be. Or did he mean that the image would become so famous that people would be unable to see Stein except through the image of his painting? Artists, in a sense, create history before it happens."
From Jonathan Williams' video conversation - "Basil Bunting always said the interesting thing about poetry is that it has absolutely no value ... except in the sense that a glass of water is valuable. It's free, but it's very important when you want one, when you need one."
"... the classical reasons for writing poetry as Pound defined it, are to move, to teach, and to delight. So when you think about the poetry that you read and appreciate most, some of it doesn't teach you much, but to delight is probably the first, and to be moved is quite wonderful."
On his poetry - "They're not things to study, they're things, basically, to enjoy. So the academics properly leave them alone."
There are at least two other celebration tributes to Jonathan Williams that I'm aware of - his friends were obviously big on birthday celebrations - JW/50 - which I recommend if you can find a copy - and Orpington via Pratt's Bottom: JW at 75 - which I haven't read. Very probably, part of the problem with The Lord of Orchards is that many of Mr. Williams' contemporaries had passed away by the time it was compiled.
If you think that you might be interested in Jonathan Williams, I would recommend seeking out one of his poetry collections - Jubilant Thicket is a good choice - his essay collections - The Magpie's Bagpipe and Blackbird Dust - or some of his photographs - A Palpable Elysium is the most recently published and most readily available.
(*) - An extraneous addendum: My favorite anecdote about the word "persistence" comes from an interview given by the singer and songwriter Jesse Winchester on the occasion of the release of a new recording some years ago. Mr. Winchester recounted that he hated going into a studio and recording because he regarded it as a waste of time. He said that he made most of his living through royalties from other artists recording his songs and through live performances. His own albums never sold that well and he'd gotten fed up with recording. He went on to explain that the new recording only came about because his wife, who sometimes traveled with him on tour, kept telling him that his fans wanted to know when he'd be releasing a new album, and he finally relented.
The interviewer responded - So we owe the existence of this record to your wife's persistence. Jesse Winchester replied - I like that word, persistence. It sounds so much better than nagging.
Displaying 1 of 1 review