PhillySound: new poetry

This photograph was taken by Elizabeth Kirwin the last time we visited Jonathan Williams together in North Carolina five years ago. I went again a couple years later without her, but I'm glad she took pictures. I'm one of those people who never takes pictures, but is always is glad later that someone else had the good sense to take pictures.

This photo is of the work of Georgia Blizzard, her ceramic work on the table. The photo of her on the wall with her face in her hands was taken by Jonathan. I'm a HUGE fan of Georgia Blizzard's work, and there are several other, much bigger pieces by her in Jonathan's house.

If you click HERE you can see Elizabeth's essay about Jonathan's OUTSIDER ART collection, as well as other photographs she took. It's the biggest OUTSIDER ART collection I've ever seen or heard of in a private home. But then again Jonathan's home is nothing like any other home I've ever seen.

The photo of the house itself is a terrific view of it sitting on top of Scaly Mountain. Jonathan's father built that house by hand in the 1920s with trees growing where you now see the yard. And that tree on the right of the photo in front of the house is a Franklinia tree, grown from a sapling Jonathan brought back from Philadelphia in the 1950s after he visited Bartram's Garden and wrote those marvelous Bartram poems for New Directions.

Besides being filled with OUTSIDER ART it's also filled with BLACK MOUNTAIN ART and books, by Kenneth Patchen, Robert Motherwell, you name it, it's there, thousands and thousands of books. This house is a museum, and I spent every moment I could reading the strange and BEAUTIFUL collection of poetry, poetry you just can't find anywhere else. It's where I first read the mysterious poems of Merle Hoyleman, a book called ASP OF THE AGE. What a weird and marvelous fucking read that one is! You can get it through interlibrary loan by the way, and trust me, you won't forget it, ever!

Many thanks to Elizabeth for all the work she did with this essay!

CAConrad