William Carlos Williams, Frank O'Hara, and the New York art scene 9780838642184, 0838642187, 9781611474220, 1611474221

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William Carlos Williams, Frank O’Hara, and the New York Art Scene

William Carlos Williams, Frank O’Hara, and the New York Art Scene

Paul R. Cappucci

Madison • Teaneck Fairleigh Dickinson University Press

 2010 by Rosemont Publishing & Printing Corp. All rights reserved. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use, or the internal or personal use of specific clients, is granted by the copyright owner, provided that a base fee of $10.00, plus eight cents per page, per copy is paid directly to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, Massachusetts 01923. [978-0-8386-4218-4/10 $10.00  8¢ pp, pc.]

Associated University Presses 2010 Eastpark Boulevard Cranbury, NJ 08512

The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.48-1984.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Cappucci, Paul R. William Carlos Williams, Frank O’Hara, and the New York art scene / Paul R. Cappucci. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8386-4218-4 (alk. paper) 1. Williams, William Carlos, 1883–1963—Knowledge—Art. 2. Williams, William Carlos, 1883–1963—Knowledge—Abstract expressionism. 3. O’Hara, Frank, 1926-1966—Knowledge—Art. 4. O’Hara, Frank, 1926–1966— Knowledge—Abstract expressionism. 5. Art and literature—United States— History—20th century. 6. Art in literature. I. Title. PS3545.I544Z5826 2010 811⬘.52—dc22 2009035099

printed in the united states of america

This book is dedicated to Sharon, Daniel, Timothy, James, and Margaret

Contents Acknowledgments

9

Introduction

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1. A Poet ‘‘Better Than the Movies’’

25

2. ‘‘The American Spirit in Art’’: Williams and Abstract Expressionism

51

3. Imaginative ‘‘Blobs of Paint’’: Jackson Pollock in the Work of Williams and O’Hara

72

4. ‘‘A Blossoming of the Spirit’’: Williams, Emanuel Romano, and the Authenticity of Artistic Expression

98

5. Efficiency in Form: Artistry and Authenticity in the Works of Williams, O’Hara, and Smith

118

Conclusion

146

Notes

151

Bibliography

156

Index

164

7

Acknowledgments GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENT IS GIVEN TO NEW DIRECTIONS PUBlishing Corporation for permission to reprint the published and unpublished works of William Carlos Williams cited in this book. The Autobiography of William Carlos Williams. Copyright 1948. 1951 by William Carlos Williams. Collected Poems: Volume I, 1909–1939. Copyright 1938 by New Directions Publishing Corporation. Copyright  1982, 1986 by William Eric Williams and Paul H. Williams. Collected Poems: Volume II, 1939–1962. Copyright 1944, 1953,  1962, by William Carlos Williams. Copyright  1988 by William Eric Williams and Paul H. Williams. The Embodiment of Knowledge. Copyright  1974 by Florence H. Williams. I Wanted to Write a Poem. Copyright  1958 by William Carlos Williams. Imaginations. Copyright  1970 by Florence H. Williams. In the American Grain. Copyright 1925 by James Laughlin. Copyright 1933 by William Carlos Williams. Paterson. Copyright  1946, 1948, 1949, 1958 by William Carlos Williams. A Recognizable Image: William Carlos Williams on Art and Artists. Copyright  1978 by the Estate of Florence H. Williams. Selected Essays. Copyright 1954 by William Carlos Williams. Selected Letters of William Carlos Williams. Copyright 1957 by William Carlos Williams. Something To Say: William Carlos Williams on Younger Poets. Copyright  1985 by William Eric Williams and Paul H. Williams. Interviews with William Carlos Williams: Speaking Straight Ahead. Copyright  1976 by the Estate of William Carlos Williams. Previously unpublished material by William Carlos Williams included in the book  2010 by the Estates of Paul H. Williams and William Eric Williams. I also wish to acknowledge that excerpts appearing from Frank O’Hara’s Art Chronicles, Standing Still and Walking in New York, Amorous Nightmares of Delay, and unpublished letters are copyright  2010 by Maureen Granville-Smith and are reprinted by permission of Maureen Granville-Smith. Excerpts from ‘‘The Day Lady Died,’’ ‘‘On Rachmaninoff’s Birthday,’’ ‘‘A Step Away from Them,’’ and ‘‘What Sledgehammer? or W.C. Williams’s Been Attacked!’’ are copyright 9

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

1964 by Frank O’Hara and reprinted by permission of City Lights Books. Selections from ‘‘Autobiographia Literaria,’’ ‘‘Today,’’ ‘‘Poem Read at Joan Mitchell’s,’’ ‘‘Why I Am Not a Painter,’’ ‘‘Digression on Number 1, 1948,’’ ‘‘Biotherm (for Bill Berkson),’’ ‘‘Christmas Card to Grace Hartigan,’’ ‘‘Memorial Day 1950,’’ ‘‘A Walk on Sunday Afternoon,’’ ‘‘To A Poet,’’ ‘‘Mozart Chemisier,’’ ‘‘Ode on Causality,’’ and ‘‘Personism: A Manifesto’’ from THE COLLECTED POEMS OF FRANK O’HARA by Frank O’Hara, edited by Donald Allen, copyright  1971 by Maureen Granville-Smith, Administratrix of the Estate of Frank O’Hara. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc. Also, I offer grateful acknowledgment to Julie Dreyfuss Tatum for permission to quote from Emanuel Romano’s unpublished diary and correspondence, as well as to reprint his painting Self Portrait (1956). Finally, I thank Bob Arnold, literary executor for Cid Corman’s estate, for permission to quote from Cid Corman’s unpublished correspondence. I also wish to thank the library staffs at the Beinecke Library at Yale University, the Morris Library at the University of Delaware, the Mandeville Special Collections, University of California, San Diego, the Harry Ransom Research Center, University of Texas at Austin, and the Archives and Special Collections at the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center at the University of Connecticut, Storrs. I also wish to thank the professional staffs of Fairleigh Dickinson University Press and Associated University Presses for their feedback and efforts to produce this book. I am indebted to the students, administration, and faculty of Georgian Court University. Conversations with several colleagues influenced the development of this project: Claire Gallagher, Suzanne Pilgram, Sister Phyllis Bremen, and John Woznicki. I also would like to thank Mary Basso, Research Librarian at G.C.U., who located valuable information on Emanuel Romano. Michelle Depolo, a former student, offered research assistance during the project’s early stages with generous support from a G.C.U. Summer Research Grant. I also am grateful to G.C.U. for granting me a sabbatical to complete the writing and revising of this manuscript. On a personal note, I would like to thank Dr. Ian Copestake for providing me with several opportunities to present my work, including two W. C. Williams conferences held at Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany. I also would like to thank my men-

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tor Merrill Maguire Skaggs. She offered steady encouragement and read an early draft of the manuscript. Her sharp insights guided me through the final revision. Finally I would like to thank my parents and sisters and brothers for all of their support through the years. My children, Daniel, Timothy, James and Margaret, have been so patient with me during my research, writing, and traveling. Sharon, my wife, has offered steadfast support and wise counsel along the way. She also designed the book’s cover. This book would not have been written without her.

Introduction POETIC REPUTATIONS, OR ANY REPUTATIONS FOR THAT MATTER, CAN be ephemeral. Poets lauded during their lifetimes may find their work distrusted or dismissed by later generations. Conversely poets found suspect by their contemporaries may be later embraced by a younger generation of poets and readers. William Carlos Williams and Frank O’Hara are two poets who may better fit into the latter group. The case of Williams is an intriguing one. Relatively unknown early in his career, Williams’s reputation as a major American poet grew throughout his life and resulted in invitations to read at prestigious universities. Since his death in 1963, recognition for Williams’s verse has steadily increased. Once known only for his ‘‘red wheelbarrow’’ poem or that ‘‘plum’’ poem, Williams’s fuller range of work has garnered greater exposure. One way to gauge this exposure is through the inclusion of his poems in recent anthologies. For instance, the Oxford Book of American Poetry (2006), edited by David Lehman, includes twentyfive Williams poems. The New Anthology of American Poetry (Rutgers University Press, 2005), vol. 2, edited by Steven Gould Axelrod, Camille Roman, and Thomas Travisano, contains twenty-seven Williams poems, including an excerpt from Paterson and a prose excerpt from Spring and All. The Norton Anthology of American Literature (2007), a popular college-level anthology, also includes an excerpt of Spring and All among its Williams selections. In 2000, Cary Nelson reprinted The Descent of Winter and ‘‘Asphodel, That Greeny Flower, Book I,’’ along with several other Williams poems in his acclaimed Anthology of Modern American Poetry. Besides this anthology exposure, Chris MacGowan edited the compilation Poetry for Young People: William Carlos Williams (2003) as part of a series that also features Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, and Robert Frost. A River of Words: The Story of William Carlos Williams (2008) offers children another introduction to the poet’s life and work. Even Williams’s highly experimental work like The Great American Novel (2003) has recently been reissued by the small press Green Integer as part of its Masterworks of Fiction series. 13

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Williams’s lasting legacy is not only evident in the republication of his work. He also continues to receive consistent attention among literary scholars. With the recent resurgence of the William Carlos Williams Review, critics have regained an important venue for sharing the latest research and ideas about his life and work. With the help of the William Carlos Williams Society, Professor Ian Copestake has organized two international conferences over the past few years in Frankfurt, Germany, attracting scholars from all over the United States, Canada, and Europe. Professor Copestake also has edited two volumes that commemorate and reflect Williams’s varying influences upon other writers: Rigors of Beauty: Essays in Commemoration of William Carlos Williams (2004) and Points of Contact: The Legacy of William Carlos Williams (2007). In the latter collection, Copestake shows through the varying contributors how Williams’s legacy spreads from Zukofsky and Creeley to Lowell and O’Hara. Even Williams’s hometown of Rutherford, New Jersey, has been active in honoring one of its favorite sons. In 2005, organizers held a daylong symposium, featuring such noted critics as Kerry Driscoll, Chris MacGowan, and Emily Mitchell Wallace. The day concluded with a performance of Williams’s play A Dream of Love introduced by the famed actress Judith Malina, cofounder of The Living Theatre. The symposium in 2008, celebrating the poet’s 125th birthday, built upon this success and included talks by famed writers Robert Coles and Paul Mariani. Recently Williams even gained induction into the New Jersey Hall of Fame, a venue recognizing such notable Garden State citizens as Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, and Bruce Springsteen. As a now acknowledged major figure among American modernists, Williams’s reputation appears secure. Frank O’Hara’s reputation, although not widespread during his lifetime, has grown steadily over the years. Once dismissed as a minor poet of casual poems, O’Hara has emerged as a central figure in contemporary American poetry. Like Williams, the republication of his work in anthologies reflects the high regard for his verse. Fifteen O’Hara poems appear in Lehman’s recent Oxford Book of American Poetry. The most recent edition of The Norton Anthology of American Literature now includes five of his poems (with the recent addition of ‘‘A True Account of Talking to the Sun at Fire Island’’) and an excerpt of his famous mock-manifesto ‘‘Personism.’’ Nelson’s Anthology of Modern American Poetry includes eight of his poems. Besides O’Hara’s appearance in these anthologies,

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a new collection of his Selected Poems (Knopf, 2008) edited by Mark Ford has been published. In terms of critical publications, besides the reissuing of Marjorie Perloff’s landmark Frank O’Hara: Poet among Painters (1998), Lytle Shaw has recently published Frank O’Hara: The Poetics of Coterie (2006) that challenges the dismissive notion of the term coterie and offers a new language for appreciating and understanding O’Hara’s poetics. Like Williams, friends and admirers celebrate O’Hara’s life and work. In 2000, the Poetry Society of America devoted a journal issue of Crossroads to O’Hara. Among the contributors were Mark Doty, Barbara Guest, and John Ashbery. The Museum of Modern Art reissued In Memory of My Feelings: A Selection of Poems (2005) and held a three-day festival in 2006 to celebrate O’Hara’s poetry and work at the museum. In addition, Billy Collins and Paul Violi participated in a 2007 celebration of O’Hara’s verse presented by the National Book Foundation. On July 16, 2008, the Museum of Modern Art commemorated O’Hara’s life and the publication of his new Selected Poems with a poetry reading sponsored by the museum, the Poetry Society of America, and Knopf. In consideration of the respect and adulation both men continue to receive over forty years after their deaths, it is clear that each has significantly contributed to our experience, understanding, and appreciation of contemporary American poetry. My own exploration of their work began shortly after defending my dissertation on Williams back in 1998. It was at that time that I returned to reading O’Hara’s poetry. His poems seemed as fresh and alive as anything that I was reading at the time and I knew that I wanted to spend more time with them. As I continued reading O’Hara, I could not help thinking about Williams, a poet whose work (despite the draining demands of dissertation writing) remains invigorating to me. As the focus for the study emerged, I knew that I wanted to explore the extent of Williams’s influence on O’Hara. For O’Hara, Williams was one of the few American poets, as he famously remarks in his essay ‘‘Personism,’’ ‘‘better than the movies’’ (1995, 498). I already had read several informative studies that linked the two poets. Most notably, Marjorie Perloff explored it in her critically acclaimed Frank O’Hara: Poet among Painters. As of this time, though, no book-length study has focused solely upon the scope of O’Hara’s response to Williams. I wanted to examine more exclusively why O’Hara was drawn to Williams, as well as what he accepted and resisted in Williams’s verse. While researching this

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angle, I also became fascinated with both men’s keen understanding and appreciation for the visual arts and their active involvement with the avant-garde (all while maintaining their day jobs). These particular connections reshaped my focus. Not only would this study examine Williams’s influence on O’Hara, but it would examine Williams’s response to Abstract Expressionism, the art movement O’Hara most closely identified with throughout his lifetime. To date no booklength study has examined Williams’s response to this art movement. It should be recalled that both Williams and O’Hara viewed their poetic vocations in relation to the visual arts. O’Hara chose poetry over painting because, as he says, ‘‘one can write relatively fast’’ (1983, 21). Williams offers similar reasoning: ‘‘I might easily have become a painter . . . except that the articulate art of poetry gave a more immediate opportunity for the attack’’ (1958a, 3). For both the busy museum curator and the busy doctor, the need for expressive swiftness dictated their decisions to be poets rather than painters. Yet neither man’s fastpaced lifestyle precluded his interest in the avant-garde trends occurring in the visual arts. It is possible that this ‘‘on the go’’ lifestyle also influenced their mutual interest in an art movement rooted in their American locale that stressed design, action, and immediacy. To draw out the significance of the visual arts for both of these poets, particularly in relation to their American roots, this study examines their ties to the Abstract Expressionists or New York School artists. Many critics have traced the emergence of the New York School to World War II. This emerging school represented a reshifting of the avant-garde from Paris to New York. Williams had been calling on American artists to move to the forefront of artistic innovation; these artists of the New York School unintentionally fulfilled that call. Williams was clearly not an insider to the movement. He was aware and supportive of it, yet he was uncertain about its progression. He pointedly references the imaginative nature of Jackson Pollock’s ‘‘design’’ in his famed Paterson V, and he praises Robert Motherwell in his lecture entitled ‘‘The American Spirit in Art.’’ Yet he also openly questions the relevance of continuing in the abstractionist mode of painting. O’Hara, in contrast to Williams, was clearly an insider. More certain of the movement, he became a vital critic and promoter of many of the artists that composed this group. Consequently focusing on the outsider Williams and the insider O’Hara in the light of this artistic movement provides a unique vantage point for examining its

INTRODUCTION

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varying appeal to avant-garde poets, as well as for appreciating a defining moment in American art history. Initially when this study began, it was intended to focus on Williams and O’Hara’s correlation to many members of the Abstract Expressionists—Franz Kline, Joan Mitchell, and Willem de Kooning, among others. As this study progressed, however, it became apparent that the Williams and O’Hara connection seemed most directly relevant to the artists Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell, and David Smith. Such a narrow focus is not intended to dismiss the achievement or influence of these other artists, but it is an effort on my part to examine in greater depth and offer greater clarity about the ways that this poetic connection can be understood in relation to these particular American artists. Now, there is not much evidence that Pollock, Motherwell, or Smith read the poets (O’Hara reports that he discussed Williams’s poetry with Smith and Motherwell; presumably, both men read O’Hara’s work). Therefore, I cannot document that the poets influenced these artists in any definitive way. Yet intriguing parallels exist between their thoughts about creating art in America, as well as their production of art that reflects the poets’ own aesthetic beliefs. Before proceeding, though, it is necessary to acknowledge that the influence of differing arts upon one another remains difficult to label or define. O’Hara makes this point in his ‘‘Statement for Paterson Society’’: ‘‘Well you can’t have a statement saying ‘My poetry is the Sistine Chapel of verse,’ or ‘My poetry is just like Pollock, de Kooning, and Guston’ . . . first of all it isn’t’ . . .’’ (1995, 510). O’Hara’s qualification is noteworthy. The difference in materials, mediums, and production complicates any discussion. Also, there are essential differences between the ways we experience the verbal and visual arts. We see them differently, we read them differently, and we even imagine them differently. Nelson Goodman writes in Languages of Art, ‘‘No amount of familiarity turns a paragraph into a picture; and no degree of novelty makes a picture a paragraph’’ (1976, 231). Such differences between the arts might caution critics to keep their distance. However, as we are aware, critics continue to explore the bounds of this comparison. According to W.J.T. Mitchell, ‘‘[t]he comparison of poetry and painting dominates aesthetics, then, precisely because there is so much resistance to the comparison, such a large gap to overcome’’ (1986, 48). This gap oftentimes becomes difficult to navigate, offering critics varying paths for the discovery of ‘‘resemblances’’ or the judgment of differences. Mitchell’s Iconology has been particu-

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larly helpful for understanding these difficulties. He offers a compelling narrative about the ways that critics like Goodman, E. H. Gombrich, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, and Edmund Burke identify ‘‘the boundary lines’’ they perceive as existing between texts and images (50). The intrinsic problem of studying literature and the visual arts gets compounded by the fact that experts consider their own area of expertise of paramount importance, and the other subsidiary. Yet the seeming advantages of both art products—you can see visual art immediately and in its entirety, and you can read a good poem during an extended period of leisure—serves to explain the magnetic appeal of these opposite works to each creative group. Despite such practical distinctions, the reading of painting and poetry, as Goodman asserts, offer a ‘‘dynamic rather than static’’ aesthetic experience (1976, 241). It demands the ability to make ‘‘delicate discriminations’’ and perceive ‘‘subtle relationships.’’ It calls upon us to identify ‘‘symbol systems and characters within these systems’’ and to understand the work’s intrinsic relation to the world. All of this tests our ‘‘experience’’ and our ‘‘skills’’ and ultimately may even transform us (241–42). Ultimately the differences between texts and images should not exclude considerations of the way these arts resemble one another. Many scholars, in fact, explore these resemblances with the hope of gaining some greater understanding of the artists and their work. Now, admittedly I fall into this group. My interest and enjoyment of Williams and O’Hara’s verse has brought me to this place. To work out the parallels between these two particular poets, a critic must consider the ways that the visual arts have affected their poetry and their ideas about creativity. Thankfully, as evident in the many exceptional studies that inform my own work, I am not alone in seeking such connections. In the introduction to Painterly Abstraction in Modernist American Poetry, Charles Altieri makes a convincing case for studying the influence of visual arts on modernists like Williams: ‘‘what moved their imaginations and engaged them in the rather scary task of trying to be absolutely modern was their specific encounters with works of art’’ (1995, 8). By approaching poets in this way, Altieri argues that we gain a fuller understanding ‘‘of the challenges they saw themselves facing and the opportunities they envisioned for making their own medium explore possible models of agency’’ (9). Altieri is not blind to the difficulties inherent to such an analogical approach, especially for literary critics. Despite such difficulties, though, he suggests that ‘‘we might

INTRODUCTION

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well be following precisely the tracks that fascinated those whose business is words’’ (9). Such a comment is not intended to absolve my study from potential errors, but rather to disclose how my literary background may shape my reading of the resemblances between texts and images. The chapters of this book will examine the various contacts between the poets and artists, ultimately revealing the scope of their shared interests. The first chapter establishes the Williams and O’Hara connection. I outline the ways that O’Hara comes to Williams’s work and how he develops a regard for the older poet. One intriguing parallel for these men is their professional lives beyond their verse. Williams, as many know, was a physician working in Rutherford, New Jersey. O’Hara dramatically worked his way up at the Museum of Modern Art. He went from selling admission tickets to planning several major exhibits as a curator. Concomitantly both men wrote poetry as an integral part of their busy working days, focusing on the common, quotidian objects that defined their particular locales. Many poems recreate the quick pace and rhythm of this lifestyle. The study draws out that notion more fully, identifying the ways that several poems reflect the quickness and busyness of modern American culture. With the poetic parallels between the two established, chapter 2 focuses primarily on Williams’s immediate contact with Abstract Expressionism. In particular, the chapter offers a close reading of Williams’s ‘‘The American Spirit in Art,’’ an address intended as a defense of the abstractionists. In his address, Williams identifies this art movement with Robert Motherwell. Motherwell is the only member of the New York School with whom Williams corresponded. Consequently Williams’s contact with this younger painter is crucial. In this chapter, I also set out to establish the cultural relevance of Ralph Waldo Emerson, specifically in relation to Williams’s thoughts about the emergence of this art movement in America. This is not just a passing Emerson reference, but an effort to establish the foundational concepts of action and newness that inform the rest of the book, especially as they relate to Pollock and Smith. Chapter 3 examines the ways that Williams and O’Hara react and respond to the famed Action-painter Jackson Pollock. It uses a 1957 issue of the Evergreen Review, seemingly commemorating Pollock, as the starting point from which to explore how these poets relate to Pollock and each other. The chapter then systematically examines the varied references that Williams and O’Hara make about Pollock. It

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also examines several cultural and artistic connections between these artists—such as experimentations with form, placement ‘‘in’’ the work, and an emphasis on action. In the fourth chapter, I move the emphasis from the famous Pollock to a little known painter named Emanuel Romano. At a time when Pollock and Motherwell were emerging as central figures in the avantgarde, Williams was developing a close relationship with New York painter Emanuel Romano, son of famed Jewish sculptor Enrico Glicenstein. This exceptional relationship started when Romano painted Williams’s portrait, but it eventually became a close friendship and inspired Williams’s two essays ‘‘The Portrait’’ (1951) and ‘‘The Broken Vase’’ (1957). This chapter brings to light the surprising depth of their friendship as recorded by Romano in his diary. Beyond a biographical scope, however, this chapter reveals the crucial significance of the Romano essays, paying particular attention to the way he defined the Italian artist against the popular trend of abstraction. It also examines his hesitancy toward evaluating Romano’s artistry, as well as highlighting his uncertainty over the direction of abstraction. Despite such reservations, Williams finds in Romano what he ultimately seems to appreciate in artists like Motherwell and Pollock—authenticity of artistic expression. My final chapter looks at the sculptor David Smith. I analyze Williams’s key principles about artistic creativity in the context of David Smith’s words and sculptures. Several critics, such as Joan Burbick, Valerie Robillard, and David Sweet, have examined Williams’s response to Abstract Expressionism, specifically in regard to Jackson Pollock. Paul Mariani, Terrence Diggory, and Mike Weaver have touched upon Williams’s interest in Motherwell. Yet few critics have explored in-depth Williams’s relation to other members of the movement, like Smith. To date, only a brief reference by Frank O’Hara regarding Smith’s ‘‘interest’’ in Williams’s poetry exists; no full scholarly discussion of Williams and Smith has appeared. Yet Smith’s rise as a sculptor is one that Williams would appreciate. His work offers a compelling actualization of Williams’s ideas about ‘‘making’’ art in postwar America. His use of found objects, efficiency of production, and continual experimentation follow Williams’s own aesthetic practices. Consequently this chapter utilizes the essays and poetry of Williams and O’Hara, as well as the poetry, artistic commentary, and sculptures of David Smith, to analyze and illustrate this important convergence of artistic ideas and practices.

INTRODUCTION

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By examining O’Hara’s appreciation for Williams and Williams’s response to the New York art scene of the 1940s and 1950s, we gain a better understanding of their work individually, as well as together. The younger poet certainly learned from the older poet; they both demonstrated sensitivity to the changes occurring in the art world, particularly evident through the work of New York artists. For the first time, American artists appeared to be leading the way in the avantgarde quest for the new. While there are clear links between Williams and O’Hara, to fully appreciate this connection it is essential to examine their relation to some of the most prominent artists from this period. By focusing on these poets and artists, it is possible to see a unique amalgamation of ideas about art and poetry redefining American creativity in mid-twentieth-century America. Not only is this true about the ideas of newness and action, but also in terms of authentic creative expression.

William Carlos Williams, Frank O’Hara, and the New York Art Scene

1 A Poet ‘‘Better Than the Movies’’ IN HIS ESSAY ON THE SPIRITUAL IN ART, WASSILY KANDINSKY ASSERTS, ‘‘in our time, the different arts learn from one another and often resemble one another’’ (1994, 148). Kandinsky’s remark carries special relevance when exploring the poetry of William Carlos Williams and Frank O’Hara—two poets immersed in the art world. Williams had close friendships with painters like Charles Demuth, Charles Sheeler, and Marsden Hartley, to name but a few. O’Hara developed close ties with a later generation of painters like Larry Rivers, David Smith, and Joan Mitchell, again, to name but a few. Numerous studies have explored Williams’s participation with the artists of his era—Bram Dijkstra, Henry Sayre, and Peter Halter.1 Marjorie Perloff has defined, in many ways, O’Hara’s poetic and personal relationships with painters of his generation in Frank O’Hara: Poet among Painters. These works have informed my own efforts to understand Williams and O’Hara’s perception of Abstract Expressionism in America. To begin a study of the poets and these New York School artists, it’s first necessary to recognize the extent of Williams and O’Hara’s connection to one another. For me, Fred McDarrah’s 1959 photograph of O’Hara at an Artist Club’s panel discussion encapsulates the amalgamation of these poets and the New York art scene. McDarrah frames O’Hara at the center of his picture; O’Hara appears earnestly engaged and addressing the panelists. On a bulletin board directly above him, appears an advertisement for William Carlos Williams’s Many Loves, a play being staged that year by Julian Beck and Judith Malina at The Living Theatre. What is so compelling about this photograph is the presence of this ‘‘old’’ poet’s work at this vital spot for the younger generation of the avant-garde—it suggests that, despite his age and infirmity, Williams’s work still matters here. According to Jed Perl, who offers an enlightening study of the New York scene in his recent book New Art City, this generational amalgamation was key 25

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to the Club: ‘‘What presumably gave the goings-on at the Club their unique dynamic was the fact that a number of different generations— and backgrounds and attitudes—were involved. The Club could be a crazy laboratory, where these two generations, as different as they were, discovered that they were equally suspicious of ideologies, artistic or otherwise’’ (2005, 149). McDarrah’s photo with the Many Loves flyer above O’Hara portrays one key pairing in this generational laboratory.

Poetry and the Workplace As previously mentioned, Williams and O’Hara had active professional lives apart from their writing careers. Williams worked as a pediatrician in Rutherford, New Jersey, the same town where he was born and where he died. Most of his neighbors didn’t know him as the avant-garde modernist who changed the way poetry was thought about and written—rather, they simply saw him as ‘‘Doc’’ Williams.2 For Williams, the decision to be a doctor was not at the expense of his poetic aspirations. He viewed his physician’s work as providing the means necessary to write poetry. As he explains in his Autobiography, ‘‘But it was money that finally decided me. I would continue medicine, for I was determined to be a poet; only medicine, a job I enjoyed, would make it possible for me to live and write as I wanted to. . . . I would not court disease, live in the slums for the sake of art, give lice a holiday. I would not ‘die for art,’ but live for it, grimly! and work, work, work (like Pop), beat the game and be free (like Mom, poor soul!) to write, write as I alone should write’’ (1951a, 51). Clearly Williams had a plan, a ‘‘design’’ as he termed it, to be a poet. No doubt it would be on his own terms, evidence of his drive to write in his own unique way. Amazingly Williams balanced the chaotic nature of his medical practice with a prolific and critically acclaimed body of work as a poet, essayist, dramatist, and fiction writer. Williams’s work schedule was demanding. A poem like ‘‘Complaint’’ captures the on-call component of the profession: ‘‘They call me and I go. / It is a frozen road / past midnight’’ (1986, 153). From Williams’s perspective, though, his job did not subvert his verse. His working life enabled him to make contact with people and situations that many people never witness. In his Autobiography, he describes it

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this way: ‘‘I was permitted by my medical badge to follow the poor, defeated body into those gulfs and grottos. And the astonishing thing is that at such times and in such places—foul as they may be with the stinking ischio-rectal abscesses of our comings and goings—just there, the thing, in all its greatest beauty, may for a moment be freed to fly for a moment guiltily about the room. . . . it has fluttered about me for a moment, a phrase which I quickly write down on anything at hand, any piece of paper I can grab’’ (1951a, 289). In this way, Williams’s medical work provided him with the opportunity to know people in the most intimate of ways. His work consequently fed into his creativity and poetry production: ‘‘I have never felt that medicine interfered with me but rather that it was my very food and drink, the very thing which made it possible for me to write’’ (357). Like Williams, O’Hara viewed his work with visual arts as compatible with poetry. He first sought a front desk job at the Museum of Modern Art in 1951. His initial purpose for working here was to get close to Alfred Barr’s Matisse retrospective. His duties, though, did not prohibit or inhibit his creativity. James Schuyler remembered him writing a poem entitled ‘‘It’s the Blue!’’ on yellow lined paper while waiting to sell tickets at the museum (1988, 82). Jane Freilicher recalls him composing poems at a typewriter on the counter: ‘‘He had this sort of instant creativity’’ (Gooch 1993, 208). As Brad Gooch explains, O’Hara’s job ‘‘combine[d] his need for art, money, friendship, and poetry.’’ O’Hara did not stay chained to his front desk duties. In true Franklin fashion, albeit with an avant-garde twist, O’Hara worked his way from selling postcards and tickets to organizing exhibits as a museum curator. Like so many who rise through the ranks, the further along he went professionally, the busier he became. His assistant Rene´e Neu remembered him this way: ‘‘Sitting at my desk, with my back to you in our cramped little office, I never tried to learn whether you were drafting a letter, working on an introduction or writing a poem. You would go on working and then the phone would ring: Frank, from what poem is the following line? asks a well-known and literate trustee; Frank, Help! says one of your many friends who proceeds to dump on you his problems and/or the problems of his friends. And you always managed to come up with the right answer’’ (1988, 91). Neu’s reminiscence captures the frenetic pace that O’Hara kept, especially once he acquired his curatorial responsibilities and designed shows on Pollock, Kline, and Smith.

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The time and energy required to perform his duties would seem a drain on his poetic creativity. Yet it appears that, like Williams, the poetry and the work complemented one another. Waldo Rasmussen, a fellow curator at MoMA, offers the strongest support for this observation: ‘‘I don’t think his museum career depleted him. On the contrary, I think his involvement with American painting and sculpture fed into his poetry, both as a creative model and as part of his subject matter—which I take to be his sensibility operating in the specific New York art world arena which was part of his life’’ (1988, 87). There were times when his work seemed to impact his productivity; specifically Gooch notes this to be true of his last years (1993, 438).3 He even left MoMA for a brief period from 1954 to 1955 (247, 257); however, O’Hara apparently did not have plans to leave the museum before his sudden death. Although Williams’s and O’Hara’s jobs were strikingly different, they both viewed their work as a necessary part of their creative lives. The demands of their jobs, however, did not preclude their avant-garde interests, whether in art or verse. It also did not preclude their ability to create—whether it was Williams typing between patient appointments or O’Hara composing a poem atop a sales counter. Williams describes it this way: ‘‘. . . there is always time to bang out a few pages. The thing isn’t to find the time for it—we waste hours every day doing absolutely nothing at all—the difficulty is to catch the evasive life of the thing, to phrase the words in such a way that stereotype will yield a moment of insight. That is where the difficulty lies’’ (1951a, 359). This ability to create verse amid the day-to-day demands of a structured work environment seems to separate them from many of their peers. Yet it is not just the capacity to juggle work and poetry, but their ability to see beyond banal surfaces to express the intrinsic value of the things that made up their experiences. Compound that ability with their willingness to record it in a new language—this ultimately is what makes Williams and O’Hara’s verse unique and memorable.

Redefining the American Poetic At their core, both men refused to place restrictions on the things they included in their poems. They did not turn away from the coarseness of American materials. Wallace Stevens describes it as the ‘‘antipoetic’’ in Williams’s verse (1980, 125), and John Ashbery calls it the

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‘‘anti-literary and anti-artistic’’ in O’Hara’s poems (O’Hara 1995, vii). Attention to such subject matter reflects their rebellious attitude toward perceived literary conventions. Kevin Stein remarks, ‘‘It may be somewhat misleading to think of O’Hara as ‘anti-literary and antipoetic,’ as Ashbery describes him; he rebels less against ‘literature’ and ‘poetry’ than against the definition (and limits) given those terms by the dominant literary establishment’’ (1990, 360). Stein’s reading of O’Hara’s rebellion seems true of Williams as well. The Rutherford poet refused to acknowledge any sort of antipoetic distinction: ‘‘It’s all one to me—the anti-poetic is not something to enhance the poetic— it’s all one piece’’ (1978, 52). This emphasis upon inclusiveness, though, did not result in sugar coating America’s crudity. In chapter 5 of The Great American Novel (1923), for instance, he discusses the influence of Kandinsky and Expressionism. The speaker describes this movement as ‘‘a fine thing. It is THE thing for the moment—in Europe’’ (1970, 173). Of course, in America, the speaker acknowledges a difference—it is ‘‘reversed’’ and has a ‘‘water attachment to be released with a button. That IS art.’’ This discussion gets more heated as the speaker gets attacked for what he knows about European consciousness and American art: ‘‘Really you are too naı¨ve’’ (1970, 174). The speaker then retorts, ‘‘Europe is nothing to us.’’ Despite preferring America, he is under no illusions about the state of its culture—‘‘we have no art, no manners, no intellect—we have nothing’’ (175). Yet, instead of deferring to European supremacy, he embraces his identity: ‘‘I am an American. A United Stateser. Yes, it’s ugly, there is no word to say it better’’ (175). Frank O’Hara echoed Williams’s cultural charge: ‘‘there is more sheer ugliness in America than you can shake a stick at’’ (1983, 98). As a poet writing almost thirty years later in 1959, he understood the need to acknowledge this ‘‘ugliness’’ in relation to the production of American art: ‘‘it is the characteristic of the avant-garde to absorb and transform disparate qualities not normally associated with art, for the artist to take within him the violence and evil of his times and come out with something’’ (98). Considering the time frame of O’Hara’s observation, one not only thinks of the accomplishment of the Abstract Expressionists, but of Williams’s Paterson, a work that encapsulates such ‘‘disparate qualities’’ inherent in the American locale and transforms them into poetry. Further along in Stein’s reading of the antiliterary in O’Hara, he places the New York poet in an Emerson tradition: ‘‘. . . for he takes Emerson’s insistence on the primacy of

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experience and uses it as a cornerstone of his aesthetics. As with Emerson, what one sees and what one does matters to O’Hara. But while Emerson believed that some version of personal truth would issue from such attention, O’Hara is less sure of the results and more concerned with the action as a reward in itself’’ (1990, 362). Stein’s reading aligns O’Hara with an influential American precursor, one also important to Williams. On the surface, this may seem odd—neither Williams nor O’Hara come across as devotees of American Transcendentalism. Yet both men fulfill Emerson’s call for poetic originality and attentiveness to the everyday. In the next chapter, more time and space will be devoted to working out the ways that these Emersonian principles factor into the poet’s response to Abstract Expressionism. At this point, though, it is enough to acknowledge that in their own ways O’Hara and Williams extend into the modern era Emerson’s emphasis on perception, action, and experience. Before delving further into their poetic connections, it is necessary to relate how O’Hara discovered Williams. In 1946 following his service in the Navy, O’Hara entered Harvard on the G.I. Bill. Upon his initial enrollment, he viewed himself as an aspiring composer and pianist. By the time he graduated in 1950, he viewed himself as a poet. For good reason, O’Hara’s biographer Brad Gooch has emphasized the importance to O’Hara of Joyce and the French poets. Yet O’Hara’s purchase of Williams’s Complete Poems at Grolier’s in 1946 also suggests the emerging influence of an American precursor during this formative period (Gooch 1993, 101). In her seminal work Poet among Painters, Marjorie Perloff, in fact, accounts for Williams in her remarkable synthesis of the converging influences upon O’Hara during these early years. She cites a letter received from Donald Allen telling her how O’Hara claimed in the late 1950s that he was predominantly reading Williams at the end of the 1940s (1998, 205). At the same time O’Hara attended Harvard, the United States was emerging as a political and cultural center. The war years had decimated Paris and many other European cultural centers, leaving American painters an opening to take a lead role in the arts. As art historian Serge Guilbaut argues, ‘‘Strong, victorious, and confident, America in 1945 could boast of increasing public interest in art, of media support for the new enthusiasm, and of many willing artists, . . . as well as any number of art historians and museums ready and willing to turn their attention to the nation’s own art’’ (1983, 98). The same was true for the poets. ‘‘Now the second phase of the revolution in the word was

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beginning to make itself felt,’’ Paul Mariani explains, ‘‘and this time it was America that would take the lead’’ (1981, 519). Obviously Williams would play a key role in this phase of the poetic revolution, but so, too, would O’Hara. In light of his connection to Williams, O’Hara’s eventual promotion of Abstract Expressionism parallels his own artistic desire to express the vibrancy and dynamism of the moment. Marjorie Perloff notes that O’Hara’s love for ‘‘the motion picture, action painting, and all forms of dance’’ relate to his love for ‘‘art forms that capture the present rather than the past, the present in all its chaotic splendor’’ (1998, 21). In Spring and All, Williams places a similar emphasis on the present: ‘‘When in the condition of imaginative suspense only will the writing have reality . . . Not to attempt, at that time, to set values on the word being used . . . but to write down that which happens at that time’’ (1986, 206). Such an emphasis on this action-oriented poetry, one rooted in the present moment, offers a key into O’Hara’s responsiveness to Williams in postwar America. It also suggests a broader connection to Emerson’s call for American poets to express such present-ness and move beyond staid traditional forms.

Williams’s Early Influence on O’Hara With these initial associations set forth, I want to offer a closer examination of O’Hara’s early poems, specifically those aligned with Williams’s style. ‘‘Autobiographia Literaria,’’ written between 1949 and 1950, evokes Williams’s early verse; Perloff associates it with the four-line stanzas of ‘‘The Catholic Bells’’ and ‘‘The Last Words of my English Grandmother’’ (1998, 45). Yet the poem also evokes Williams’s ‘‘Pastoral’’ (‘‘When I was younger’’). O’Hara’s poem begins, When I was a child I played by myself in a corner of the schoolyard all alone. (1995, 11)

In each poem, the speaker recounts his struggle for poetic self-definition, assuming the classic romantic pose of an older person recalling younger days. Williams’s speaker feels alienated as a result of his par-

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ticular perspective on the world. Toward the close of the poem, he frames this isolation in cultural terms: ‘‘No one / will believe this / of vast import to the nation’’ (1986, 65). For O’Hara, there are no cultural consequences to his isolation; however, he does feel disconnected and declares, ‘‘I am an orphan’’ (1995, 11). Ultimately both speakers define themselves through their poetic roles. O’Hara rejoices in the fact: And here I am, the center of all beauty! writing these poems! Imagine!

The series of exclamations accentuates a speaker reveling in his creative role. Williams’s ending obviously lacks the same unbridled enthusiasm. Yet Williams’s closing assertion is noteworthy. In his despondence, the speaker implies that what he has seen and written does have value. Even if America is ‘‘a mass of pulp’’ he later writes in The Great American Novel, it requires an art of its own, ‘‘broken off from the European mass’’ (1970, 175). Another significant early poem by O’Hara is ‘‘Memorial Day, 1950.’’ It is often interpreted as a farewell poem. According to David Lehman, it ‘‘is a memorial for his childhood as well as his recently deceased father’’ (1998, 180–81). Yet the poem corresponds to Williams’s notion from poem XV in Spring and All that ‘‘destruction and creation / are simultaneous’’ (1970, 127). It is not solely about the end, but about the emergence of a new perspective on modernity. O’Hara’s poem pays homage to the artists who have helped to shape this modern perspective. The poem, in fact, opens by invoking Picasso, the artist who made him ‘‘tough and quick’’ (1995, 17). O’Hara later mentions Picasso’s famous Guernica. The speaker claims that the painting’s images of slaughter and brutality ultimately ‘‘hollered look out!’’ Picasso’s art emboldened the young speaker to push beyond the boundaries of traditional expression—whatever its consequences. The speaker expresses his understanding of the older generation’s destructiveness. ‘‘I / wasn’t surprised,’’ the speaker relates, ‘‘when the older people entered / my cheap hotel room and broke my guitar and my can / of blue paint’’ (1995, 17). With this destructive force bearing down upon him and threatening his self-expression, he must turn to alternative methods of creation. In stanza four, he states

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At that time all of us began to think with our bare hands and even with blood all over them, we knew vertical from horizontal, we never smeared anything except to find out how it lived. (17)

The final line evokes a Pollock-like process of discovering a painting’s viability. As Perloff points out, ‘‘This elliptical statement is an important reference to the doctrine of Action Painting (and, by implication, Action Poetry)—the belief that the materials used by the artist exist in their own right; they are not merely means to the creation of mimetic illusion’’ (1998, 50). Such a critical comment regarding the nature of Action Poetry/Action Painting offers a key for understanding the O’Hara and Williams’s connection, particularly as it relates to such an imaginative use of materials. In stanza six, O’Hara seems to even invoke Williams when he declares: ‘‘Poetry is as useful as a machine!’’ (1995, 18). The line echoes the introduction to The Wedge (1944) where Williams argues against the reductive notion that all art is an expression of the creator’s ‘‘frustration.’’ Instead he makes, what he describes, as ‘‘two bald statements’’: ‘‘There’s nothing sentimental about a machine, and: A poem is a small (or large) machine made of words. When I say there’s nothing sentimental about a poem I mean that there can be no part, as in any other machine, that is redundant’’ (1988, 54). O’Hara’s exclamatory declaration reinforces Williams’s idea—‘‘Memorial Day’’ is not a sentimental look back or a therapy session gone awry. Rather, it is a poem constructed to offer a linguistic, imaginative expression of this particular day—Memorial Day, 1950. The poem, in fact, concludes by portraying an artist who constructs his own unique space informed but not overshadowed by the ideas and examples of others. The poet’s ultimate transformation, as evident in the final stanza, again offers intriguing echoes of Williams. The singer no longer requires a piano to sing his songs. He has recovered from the destructiveness of ‘‘the older people,’’ making use of his guitar strings to ‘‘hold up pictures’’ and acknowledges that ‘‘naming’’ things functions as a preliminary step in a process to ‘‘make things’’ (1995, 18). David Lehman sees such an assertion as ‘‘fascinating’’ and ‘‘perplexing,’’ in part, because it seems to imply ‘‘a hierarchy between poetry and a higher aesthetic activity, making’’ associated with the visual artists of the day (1998, 184). Yet, it is not a given that O’Hara

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accords the visual artists this privileged position. After all, as Williams states in his introduction to The Wedge, ‘‘When a man makes a poem, makes it, mind you, he takes words as he finds them interrelated about him and composes them—without distortion which would mar their exact significances—into an intense expression of his perceptions and ardors that they may constitute a revelation in the speech that he uses. It isn’t what he says that counts as a work of art, it’s what he makes, with such an intensity of perception that it lives with an intrinsic movement of its own to verify its authenticity’’ (1988, 54). That process of ‘‘making’’ and ‘‘revelation’’ parallels O’Hara’s poem. For Williams, it is in such artistic making that a poem achieves authenticity, originality, and ultimately offers revelatory possibilities. In ‘‘Memorial Day,’’ this revelation seems to come from what O’Hara’s dead father has learned: . . . Now my father is dead and has found out you must look things in the belly, not in the eye. If only he had listened to the men who made us, hollering like stuck pigs! (1995, 18)

Strikingly, O’Hara’s ‘‘belly’’ image evokes Williams’s ‘‘The Right of Way’’ where a ‘‘man’s belly’’ becomes the focal point of a young boy’s gaze. For Williams, there is ‘‘supreme importance’’ to this ‘‘nameless spectacle’’ (1986, 206). Williams recreates the moment in verse but pulls back from explicating its larger relevance. O’Hara, too, refuses to explicate, choosing instead to underscore his dead father’s altered perspective, one that could have been averted if only he had listened better to artists (presumably like Picasso) whose art had ‘‘hollered look out!’’ Williams’s ‘‘Pastoral’’ and ‘‘The Right of Way’’ also offer a bridge to another O’Hara poem, ‘‘A Walk on Sunday Afternoon.’’ Despite its different locale (Boston, not New York), this poem functions as a precursor to O’Hara’s later ‘‘I do this, I do that’’ poems that detail walks through city streets yielding greater insight to life. In these poems, attentiveness to the moment is emphasized. They do not simply record remembrances, but they recreate for readers the freshness and vibrancy inherent in a moment. Such a perspective seems rooted in Emersonian thought. In ‘‘Circles,’’ for instance, Emerson writes that ‘‘[i]n nature, every moment is new; the past is always swallowed

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and forgotten; the coming only is sacred. Nothing is secure but life, transition, the energizing spirit’’ (2001, 237). In the best of Williams’s and O’Hara’s poetry of the moment, we can experience this ‘‘energizing spirit’’ in the careful attention given to the movement and newness of each instant. ‘‘A Walk on Sunday Afternoon’’ actually begins with the movement of gulls that ‘‘wheeled / several miles away’’ (1995, 20). Their departure, in turn, draws the speaker’s eyes to the details of his locale: ‘‘the bridge, which / stood on the wet-barked / trees, was broad and cold’’ (1995, 20). Besides these natural images, the speaker recounts a walk with a friend, George Montgomery (Gooch 1993, 161), along portions of the famed ‘‘Freedom Trail’’ in Boston. The two men stroll around Bunker Hill and travel by the Navy yard site to see the U.S.S. Constitution. Unlike the later ‘‘I do this, I do that’’ poems, O’Hara uses shorter, more compact lines, reminiscent of Williams’s early verse. Yet, like his later ‘‘I do this, I do that’’ poems, O’Hara’s speaker recounts specific details of his walk: . . . Outside the gate some children jumped higher and higher off the highway embankment. Cars honked. Leaves on trees shook. And above us the elevated trolley trundled along. (1995, 21)

Here O’Hara blends together nature images, traffic noises, and children’s play in a manner reminiscent of Williams’s ‘‘View of A Lake.’’ Children dare one another into dangerous but thrilling jumps amid a backdrop of daily constants—cars, trolleys, and rustling leaves. The drama of these jumps ultimately leads to the prophetic conclusion: ‘‘Tomorrow, / probably, our country / will declare war.’’ In this casual tone the speaker, who has been visiting the landmarks of an earlier war, seems to allude to an impending war in Korea. Ironically O’Hara’s early action poem recounts the types of action tied not only to America’s Revolutionary origins but also to its continuing selfdefinition as a postwar military power. Like Williams before him, O’Hara creates a poetry very much in tune with the pace and rhythm of the streets. He comes into imagina-

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tive contact with what he sees and hears and expresses it in what Williams might consider ‘‘a language of the day.’’ In Kora in Hell, Williams describes it as, ‘‘That which is heard from the lips of those to whom we are talking in our day’s-affairs mingles with what we see in the streets and everywhere about us as it mingles also with our imaginations. By this chemistry is fabricated a language of the day which shifts and reveals its meaning as clouds shift and turn in the sky and sometimes send down rain or snow or hail. This is the language to which few ears are tuned . . . Nowadays the elements of that language are set down as heard and the imagination of the listener and of the poet are left free to mingle in the dance’’ (1970, 59). Williams’s lines express to me what O’Hara accomplishes in so many of his street poems. His acute sensitivity to the sights and sounds of the streets invite readers into an imaginative and revelatory experience. As with Williams, the key for establishing this rapport resides in the poet’s use of language. In his well-known essay ‘‘Personism,’’ O’Hara recounts his discovery of this principle: ‘‘I went back to work and wrote a poem for this person. While I was writing it I was realizing that if I wanted to I could use the telephone instead of writing the poem, and so Personism was born. . . . It puts the poem squarely between the poet and the person, Lucky Pierre style, and the poem is correspondingly gratified. The poem is at last between two persons instead of two pages. In all modesty, I confess that it may be the death of literature as we know it’’ (1995, 499). For O’Hara, it seems, familiarity in language offers the poet and reader a chance for greater intimacy with one another. Robert Duncan offers an especially perceptive reading of what O’Hara is saying here. As Robert Creeley recounts, Duncan ‘‘noted that extraordinary poet’s attempt ‘to keep the demand on the language as operative, so that something was at issue all the time, and, at the same time, to make it almost like chatter on the telephone that nobody was going to pay attention to before . . . that the language gain what was assumed before to be its trivial uses. . . . So I think that one can build a picture, that in all the arts, especially in America, they are operative. We think of art as doing something, taking hold of it as a process’ ’’ (1989, 369–70). Duncan’s interpretation is quite illuminating. For him, O’Hara’s attentiveness to what some may perceive as triviality actually results in an operative language. Michael Magee, who first brought Duncan’s commentary to my attention in Emancipating Pragmatism, correlates this idea to John Dewey’s Art as Experience. In this work, Dewey de-

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scribes the ‘‘opaque’’ meaning that results when art objects are removed from their ‘‘origins and operations in experience’’ (2004, 138), as well as the meaning of those efforts to produce art ‘‘and the everyday events, doings’’ (139). As Magee asserts, ‘‘If on the one hand the poem separated from ‘operations in experience’ is rendered opaque, then, conversely, the poem grounded in such operations (as ‘event,’ as ‘doing’) is endlessly significant; it is set in unanticipated motion as a process that is ‘doing something’ for the poet and his readers. This latter possibility is what Duncan means when he discusses O’Hara’s ‘demand’ that the language be ‘operative’ ’’ (2004, 139). Magees’s commentary also seems applicable to Williams’s use of language, especially in light of his commentary in Kora in Hell about ‘‘the language of the day.’’ Whether as a ‘‘dance’’ or in ‘‘Lucky Pierre Style,’’ both poets sought to create poems that made genuine contact with their imagined readers. Through attentiveness to the ever-changing nature of language, each man discovered memorable ways to communicate the signification and imaginative possibilities available in even the most mundane daily occurrences. ‘‘Today’’ offers yet another example of Williams’s influence on O’Hara’s early verse. It does so through its emphasis on the ‘‘things’’ that form the poem. The speaker expresses emphatic enthusiasm for things—natural and manmade, ordinary and extraordinary—that surround him. Oh! kangaroos, sequins, chocolate sodas! You really are beautiful! Pearls, harmonicas, jujubes, aspirins! all the stuff they’ve always talked about still makes a poem a surprise! These things are with us every day even on the beachheads and biers. They do have meaning. They’re strong as rocks. (1995, 15)

The speaker’s celebration of these things clearly places O’Hara in Williams’s camp. Anthony Libby describes it as a bizarre restatement of the ‘‘ ‘Red Wheelbarrow’ theme’’ (1990, 133). While some of these ‘‘things’’ may not be found in Williams’s verse, as John Lowney points out (1997, 112), they do represent O’Hara’s creative interpretation of the things that Williams’s credo calls upon poets to use to make ‘‘the

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poem a surprise.’’ Lowney’s reading also points out O’Hara’s important affirmation: ‘‘The poem affirms the meaning of things, but refuses to impose a recognizable order on them.’’ In this way, in the tradition of Whitman and Williams, O’Hara achieves an egalitarian representation of these things. As Lowney further notes, the poem’s closing rock reference alludes to ‘‘A Sort of a Song,’’ a poem appearing in Williams’s The Wedge. In that poem, Williams advocates for a writing made-up of ‘‘sleepless’’ words. As he writes, —through metaphor to reconcile the people and the stones. Compose. (No ideas but in things) Invent! Saxifrage is my flower that splits the rocks. (1988, 55)

By equating the ‘‘things’’ ranging from jujubes to pearls with ‘‘rocks,’’ O’Hara’s poem illustrates the creative possibilities inherent in Williams’s dictum. Williams charges poets not only to arrange or compose, but also to be imaginative and ‘‘Invent!’’ The saxifrage flower—a plant that grows in rock crevices and literally means rock breaking— functions as this metaphorical creative act. O’Hara’s assertion at the conclusion of his poem—‘‘They’re strong as rocks’’ (1995, 15)— points out the potential value intrinsic in such ‘‘stuff’’; it just awaits the right imaginative splitting power to express something new. O’Hara’s ‘‘Christmas Card to Grace Hartigan’’ echoes another well-known poem from Williams’s The Wedge, ‘‘Burning the Christmas Greens.’’ Williams’s commentary describes his poem as envisaging ‘‘a rebirth of the ‘state’ perhaps but certainly of the mind following the destruction of the shibboleths of tradition which often comfort it’’ (1988, 461). Williams’s poem literally describes a gathering of holly, balsam, and hemlock to decorate the home and then the burning of it all following the holiday season—‘‘Their time past, / relief!’’ (1988, 63). O’Hara’s poem, not surprisingly set in his city environ, lacks a trek into the woods and the placement of decorative holly. Like Williams, though, O’Hara emphasizes the colors red and green traditionally associated with Christmas. For Williams’s speaker, there is something attractive about the green of the holly. It offers protection and security at a time when all else seems lifeless and cold.

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For him, ‘‘Green is a solace / a promise of peace, a fort / against the cold’’ (1988, 64). It’s also the place where ‘‘small birds hide and dodge / and lift their plaintive / rallying cries.’’ For O’Hara’s speaker, the color green is tied directly to its traditional connotations. He describes Christmas as ‘‘green and general / like all great works of the / imagination’’ (1995, 212). This generality has its origins ‘‘from minute / private sentiments in the desert.’’ For both poets, this green contrasts with red. In Williams’s poem, a red fire consumes and transforms the holly. He describes it as ‘‘a living red, / flame red, red as blood wakes / on the ash’’ (1988, 63). O’Hara, too, emphasizes this color. In the third stanza, he echoes Williams’s correlation of red and blood: ‘‘For red there is our blood’’ (1995, 212). O’Hara’s speaker wants this redness—this active life-giving agent— maintained: it ‘‘must be / protected from spilling into generality by secret meanings.’’ He fears this sense of generality, a quality he previously correlated with Christmas, because it masks the intimacy and immediacy he values. In Williams’s poem, the branches from the green trees gathered at the darkest of moments, ‘‘winter’s midnight,’’ initially filled such a ‘‘need’’ (1988, 63). After decorating the house with this ‘‘living green,’’ all ‘‘seemed gentle and good / to us.’’ Yet this illusory comfort is shortlived. The passing of time and the Christmas season ultimately reveals the illusion. It is then that the speaker and his companion attempt to destroy the greens. Upon their initial burning, the speaker confesses, ‘‘our eyes recoiled from it’’ (64). Yet through the flames the green turns to red—it is ‘‘instant and alive.’’ Consequently the speaker perceives that the burning is transformative and restorative. There is something purgative through the process of destruction—as green transforms to red and then ultimately to white: an infant landscape of shimmering ash and flame and we, in that instant, lost, breathless to be witnesses, as if we stood ourselves refreshed among the shining fauna of that fire. (1988, 64–65)

Through the process of destruction, the speaker and his companion are renewed in the moment and its possibilities for creation.

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O’Hara’s final stanza draws heavily upon the same notion of burning that permeates Williams’s poem. It begins, Christmas is the time of cold air and loud parties and big expense, but in our hearts flames flicker answeringly, as on old-fashioned trees. I would rather the house burn down than our flames go out. (1995, 212)

Here O’Hara juxtaposes common associations of Christmas—cold weather, parties, and presents—with something he finds more intimate and real—his relationship with Grace Hartigan. Their burning hearts feed ‘‘on old-fashioned trees.’’ Moreover, he would prefer the destruction of fixed structures—‘‘the house’’—to the extinguishing of this generative life-giving flame.

Referencing Williams Besides these numerous allusions to Williams’s verse, O’Hara also directly references the Rutherford doctor in his poetry. For starters, in June, 1952, O’Hara wrote the Dada-like poem ‘‘What Sledgehammer? Or W.C. Williams’s Been Attacked!’’ On a first reading the poem appears playful and nonsensical. Benjamin Sloan argues that it counters Williams’s ‘‘clean, purely pared poems’’ (1990, 73). He claims that in the first two stanzas ‘‘O’Hara gives Williams another knock on the head.’’ Instead of attacking Williams, though, O’Hara’s poem in fact functions as a defense. The title actually references Joseph Bennett’s article on Williams in the 1952 summer issue of the Hudson Review entitled ‘‘The Lyre and the Sledgehammer.’’ In this article, Bennett systematically takes Williams apart as a poet. He describes him as ‘‘intensely self-preoccupied, entranced with the image of his own ego’’ (1980, 263). He sees Williams’s description as ‘‘a childish pleasure in the gruesome for gruesomeness’ sake’’ (264). He condemns Williams’s efforts at profundity and serious verse. He asserts, ‘‘To hammer against the major anvils requires intelligence, rational discrimination, dramatic skill, psychological acuity, and emotional subtlety—especially intelligence. And patience and care. These qualities simply do not form a part of Williams’ poetic equip-

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ment’’ (271). Bennett struggles in his piece for something positive to say about Williams’s poetics, clearly preferring his early cultivation of ‘‘images, sounds, colours and textures’’ (271). He equates him with Sandburg, although Williams ‘‘has a better ear and uses a more subtle and evolved technique.’’ In this light, O’Hara’s poem functions as a counter to Bennett’s estimation of Williams’s work. In classic O’Hara fashion, his speaker opens with an account of his afternoon walk, albeit one taken beforehand that curiously involves a tiglon: Yester the heat I walked my tiglon ‘‘Charles F’’ around the Park, as three nuns in a stationwagon (au Zoo) robbed the Elizabeth Arden Building. In the University pistols were not shot off because they aren’t ‘‘clean precise expression.’’ Ho ho, ho, kra, chuh, chuh, tssk, tssk, tssk, tereu. . . . (1996, 80)

Like the later ‘‘I do this, I do that’’ poems, O’Hara’s speaker references specific New York landmarks like the Elizabeth Arden building. Yet he also summons the surreal image of nuns robbing it. He juxtaposes this rebellious act with the ineptitude and inaction of the university, a place where nothing gets fired-off because of the demand for ‘‘clean precise expression.’’ O’Hara then contrasts this demand with what appears to be a nonsensical collection of sounds. Yet the juxtaposition of this demand with these sounds offers another link to Williams. To appreciate this connection, it’s helpful to turn again to Bennett’s article. At one point, he ridicules Williams’s ‘‘anti-intellectual attitude,’’ which he describes as ‘‘puerile’’: ‘‘The dreary, repeated attack on the university throughout his work amounts to phobia in ‘Paterson,’ with the hammering repetition of its motto ‘No ideas but in things.’ It reveals a pompous, bigoted mind, not merely antiintellectual in attitude, but dedicated to the principle of non-intelligence’’ (1980, 265). O’Hara would no doubt find such a charge against Williams insulting. His poem thus functions as a sharp rejoinder. According to Marjorie Perloff, it ‘‘is obviously an attack on the school of Eliot and the New Critical orthodoxy that made ‘The Waste Land’ with its scenes of Philomela’s rape (‘tereu’) its sacred text’’ (1998, 45). Such a reading makes sense, especially considering Bennett’s article and Williams’s

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long opposition to Eliot’s poetics. The irony of the university’s demand for ‘‘clean precise expression,’’ with the almost nonsensical reference to Eliot, a poet embraced by the academy, suggests what universities have missed when it comes to appreciating Williams’s verse. The poem concludes with the announcement of a monstrous wedding—one that pairs ‘‘Metatheosophists with Italian bedbugs / swinging from their woolly nipples and The Hudson Review / (that Organ)’’ (1996, 80). O’Hara’s disdain for the Hudson Review is clearly evident through his monstrous and grotesque imagery, somewhat reminiscent of Bennett’s disgust with Williams’s image of a bedbug crawling about ‘‘a coloured boy’s eardrum’’ (1980, 270). Only ‘‘Boola-boola,’’ a reference to a Yale fight song, gets an invite to this monstrous affair. Coincidently the composer Morton Feldman, O’Hara’s close friend, later wrote an essay entitled ‘‘Boola Boola’’ (1966) that railed at academia for its self-perpetuating system of music teachers rather than original musicians. Concerning O’Hara’s poem, it is this crowd that the speaker claims ‘‘paints ‘Elegance a Thoroughfare / to Yellow Drawers, the Commonwealth of Closed Cavities’ / on the Town (get it?) Line’’ (1996, 80). Although it is uncertain exactly what there is to get, such a pairing marks boundary lines. The poem ends with a statement of the day and the speaker’s sense of his poem: ‘‘Indian afternoon. my dirty.’’ Despite the poem’s obfuscation, it offers an intriguing marker of O’Hara’s literary allegiance. Upon reading Bennett’s scathing critique of Williams, O’Hara answered back. ‘‘Poem Read at Joan Mitchell’s’’ offers a further impression of O’Hara’s Williams. He wrote it on the occasion of a party the famed painter held in honor of Jane Freilicher’s pending marriage to Joe Hazan. Freilicher and O’Hara were close friends. In the poem, O’Hara takes on a heraldic role: ‘‘I’m sort of the bugle, / like waking people up, of your peculiar desire to get married’’ (1995, 265). O’Hara then playfully focuses on its ‘‘newness.’’ It’s so original, hydrogenic, anthropomorphic, fiscal, post-anti-esthetic bland, unpicturesque and WilliamCarlosWilliamsian! it’s definitely not 19th Century, it’s not even Partisan Review, it’s new, it must be vanguard! (265)

Despite the teasing tone, O’Hara’s reference to Williams amid this grouping reflects certain qualities associated with the older poet, both

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in terms of originality and in terms of what Wallace Stevens might describe as the ‘‘anti-poetic’’ (1980, 125). Yet, even in his playful tone, as he denies what ‘‘it’s definitely not,’’ he does ascribe it as new, and tangentially describes Williams as a man identified at the ‘‘vanguard’’ of newness. For O’Hara, Williams represented that break from the past and an American poet of real originality. While O’Hara was certainly influenced by Williams, he was not one to mimic or imitate, to become merely another one of what he called the ‘‘WC Williams-ites’’ (Perloff 1998, 45). This determination to forge his identity comes across in ‘‘To a Poet.’’ O’Hara’s poem opens with the following declaration: I am sober and industrious and would be plain and plainer for a little while until my rococo self is more assured of its distinction. (1995, 185)

The speaker, with a ‘‘rococo / self’’ reminiscent of Williams’s poet in ‘‘The Wanderer,’’ seeks his own distinction apart from poetic predecessors. In this apostrophe, the speaker references the creation of ‘‘new verses’’ that break from earlier verses that ‘‘brood over an orderly / childhood’’ (1995, 185). In later lines, he directly reverses Williams’s well-known dictum ‘‘No ideas but in things.’’ His revised line appears, ‘‘and when the doctor comes to me / he says ‘No things but in ideas.’ ’’ At first glance, such a line rejects Williams’s famous credo. Perloff does note that in his lecture on ‘‘The New Poets’’ at The Club in 1952, O’Hara warns of the dangers of following too closely to the Rutherford doctor. He refers to such poets as ‘‘WC Williams-ites’’ who assert their identity as, ‘‘I am the man your father was Americanism’’ and cultivate a cult of the ‘‘He-Man’’ (1998, 45). His reversal of the Williams dictum therefore enables O’Hara to create the space needed to be his own poet and not merely another of Williams’s imitations—something Williams, in fact, would have encouraged. The poem concludes by suggesting that these lines may have been ‘‘overheard / in the public / square, now that I am off my couch’’ (1995, 185). Whether heard privately or publicly is of no matter, though. The utterance has enabled him to get off the couch and become an active and original speaker.

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O’Hara was clearly conscious of his own imitative tendencies. He sent ‘‘Heroic Sculpture’’ to John Ashbery on October 10, 1958, for what he described as ‘‘a Larry Rivers ‘stone’ in our the-worst-inlithography book’’ (Allen Collection). Immediately following the poem he asks, ‘‘Not much for a grown poet, is it?’’ He then casually moves on in the letter to suggest a meeting between Ashbery and Waldo Rasmussen. His uncertainty about the poem, however, creeps back into the letter—‘‘In ref above pome [sic] do you think I’m getting too William-Carlos—Williams—out-of-Sce`ve? I hate purity.’’ The reference to the monstrous conjoining of the sixteenth-century French poet and Williams suggests a fear of his own imitative tendencies, as well as his own struggle to resist a perceived ‘‘purity’’ that he felt Williams’s prose conveyed. To varying degrees, the preceding discussion illustrates Williams’s stylistic influence upon O’Hara’s poetry. Marjorie Perloff is right to point out that O’Hara’s ‘‘debt to Williams . . . is less to the complex epic poem Paterson than to the Dadaesque prose poems of Kora, and especially the early shorter poems’’ (1998, 45). In regard to Kora in Hell, an early experimental work that moves beyond staid traditional forms, O’Hara wrote to his friend Jasper Johns that it is ‘‘very good, interesting because very early and ambitious’’ (45). His mention of this improvisational prose poem shows an attraction to Williams’s experiments with form and language. As Perloff argues, this work, along with Williams’s earlier short poems, influenced O’Hara’s short lines, line breaks, and colloquial language (45). ‘‘From the first,’’ according to Perloff, ‘‘he accepted Williams as a master, no doubt because he identified with Williams’s struggle against convention, pretentiousness, conformity—the ‘going thing’ ’’ (44). Yet, for this study, it is important to point out that O’Hara still finds Williams a relevant poet throughout the 1950s. In his famous mock manifesto ‘‘Personism’’ (1959), O’Hara, in fact, declares Williams to be the only living American poet better than the movies. From reviewing his correspondence, his enjoyment of Williams seems to span the doctor’s career. In that same letter to Johns that lauds Kora in Hell, he writes: ‘‘You said you liked PATERSON; all the books of WCW have great great great things in them. I don’t believe he ever wrote an uninteresting poem’’ (Perloff 1998, 45). In another letter to his good friend Jane Freilicher, he playfully adopts the role of Williams in their close relationship: ‘‘Just call me Doc Williams and you’seff Flo.’’4 In a different letter to Feilicher dated June 6, 1951, he shares his enjoyment

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in reading Paterson—Book IV: ‘‘I have just bought Paterson 4 which is so far incomparably lucid and beautiful, my frontal lobes are awhirl’’ (1951b, Allen Collection). He then offers Freilicher an excerpt to explain his reaction: The gulls, vortices of despair, circle and give voice to their wild responses until the thing is gone . then, ravening, having scattered to survive, close again upon the focus, the bare stones, three harbor stones, except for that . useless unprofaned

O’Hara’s selection comes from section 1 of Paterson IV, specifically lines that begin what Williams’s poetic persona Corydon calls ‘‘Corydon, a Pastoral’’ (1992, 160). In her recital of the poem to her friend Phyllis, she skips the presumably pastoral references to ‘‘rocks and sheep’’ and starts instead with the disruptive presence of a search helicopter upon a flock of gulls. In his letter, O’Hara doesn’t quote Corydon’s critical self-appraisal—‘‘It stinks!’’ (161). Such criticism emerges in part because the poem lacks metrical regularity. Cordyon goes on, If this were rhyme, Sweetheart such rhyme as might be made jaws would hang open . But the measure of it is the thing . None can wish for an embellishment and keep his mind lean, fit for action . such action as I plan (161)

As previously noted, the lines O’Hara quotes to Freilicher do not include Corydon’s critique. This critique, however, offers insight into what O’Hara may have found appealing about the poem, specifically its break from rhyme and metrical regularity. In his letter to Freilicher, he remarks about the excerpt: ‘‘Aint that sumptuous’’ (1951b, Allen Collection). He then asserts, ‘‘I hate people like Reed Whittemore who think this is composition by imitation, I think they jes don’t know nuffin bout metric as our old massah Ezzard Pound taught um

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it.’’ In defending Williams, O’Hara refutes the sense that Williams offers a mere imitation of Pound. For O’Hara, it is Williams’s originality, particularly in terms of metrics, that is so appealing. As mentioned earlier, O’Hara corresponded with Johns in 1959 about Paterson. Later letters suggest that O’Hara continued to hold Williams in high regard. In correspondence dated December 7, 1961, he tells Ashbery about his recent interview with researchers from Time and the Brinkley Report: ‘‘I did put in lots of plugs for your Tennis Court Oats, on the order of, ‘But dears, after William Carlos Williams and Pierre Reverdy (Would you mind spelling the last name?— researchers, indeed!), what is there on either continent but Ashes?’ ’’ (1961b, Allen Collection). He wrote to Larry Rivers on October 29, 1962, about some books he sent to Steven Rivers for his library because it was ‘‘pretty dull and academic’’: ‘‘so I dished him up some W.C. Williams, LeRoi Jones, Diane Di Prima, David Schubert, and even Joel Oppenheimer and a couple of other very avant-garde looking pamphlets which should keep the kids either burping or scorning for a week or so.’’ Clearly Williams is the old man of this ‘‘avantgarde’’ anti-academic group, yet he is also the first one mentioned. O’Hara did struggle at times with his devotion to Williams’s writings, most notably his prose. He labored through Williams’s Autobiography. In a February 11, 1956, letter to James Schulyer he writes, ‘‘I’ve also been reading W C Williams’s autobiog and refuse to stop loving him although he certainly is doing his best to discourage me’’ (Allen Collection). A few days later, in a letter dated February 16, 1956, he offers a more detailed assessment to his friend Mike Goldberg: Did you read William Carlos Williams’ autobio? I love his poems, but the book is oddly crotchety and contentious and provincial—what made me get rather nervous was that it zoomed along he was keeping his equilibrium through the years by refusing to really admire anybody in this funny Yankee way, without having any megalomaniac blind confidence in himself and his work, which would have been understandable and possibly attractive (like, say, in Mayakovsky where you know he felt that all the other poets were just plain WRONG and you like him for coming out with it whether you agree or not), but Williams has this ‘‘show me’’ Puritanical streak; which miraculously never appears in his poems. I’m not sure that at the time things happened he didn’t feel genuine admirations and thereby could advance and be stimulated, and then when he comes to write this book so many years later he forgets them, now that he is sitting well up the mountain. Or maybe I’m just complaining because you like to think

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someone you admire is like you in some way, and he isn’t. (Allen Collection)

O’Hara seems put-off by Williams’s lack of expressed ‘‘admirations’’ for others. In contrast, he outspokenly admired his friends, painters, and fellow poets (including Williams). For him, it was a key for the stimulation and advancement in his own work. He also perceives in Williams a Yankee/Puritanical streak, which no doubt would have driven Williams crazy, especially in light of his constant diatribes against the Puritans. To O’Hara’s credit, though, he does give Williams the benefit of the doubt regarding his age. He concludes his commentary with a humorous ultimatum about ‘‘Asphodel, That Greeny Flower’’: ‘‘If the long poem in his new book of poems Journey to Love isn’t great, I’m going to take up knitting’’ (Allen Collection). All of this jaunty correspondence demonstrates O’Hara’s continuing interest in Williams, notably in reference to the older poet’s relevancy in the ongoing push toward the creation of the ‘‘new’’ in poetry. O’Hara may not seek to write a long poem like Paterson; after all, it had been done by Williams. However, Williams’s continuance as a vital working presence seems inspiring to a younger poet continuing to carve out his own unique space as a contemporary American poet.

Bridging the Gap between Williams and O’Hara An intriguing link between the two poets is Donald Allen and his seminal anthology The New American Poetry (1960). Allen is the editor of O’Hara’s Complete Poems, as well as several other O’Hara collections. Furthermore, his important anthology of ‘‘third-generation’’ poets published by Grove Press offers one of the earliest critical connections between the two poets. In this anthology, Allen divides contemporary poets into five groups: Origin/Black Mountain Review, San Francisco Renaissance, Beat Generation, New York School, and what Allen describes to Williams in a letter dated December 23, 1959, as a ‘‘variety of poets who have appeared to be developing their own style’’ (Williams Papers). Allen places the works of these poets in an exclusively American context. He claims, ‘‘Through their work many are closely allied to modern jazz and abstract expressionist painting, today recognized throughout the world to be America’s greatest achievements in contemporary culture’’ (1960, xi). Such a reference, in the

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light of this study, reinforces the cultural importance of this artistic movement to the poetry of the period. The anthology includes several poems by O’Hara.5 Allen, in fact, devotes thirty-one pages to O’Hara’s poetry; only Charles Olson’s work appears on more pages (thirty-seven). He thanks O’Hara, as well as Olson, Creeley, and Ginsberg, for what he describes as ‘‘solid support and encouragement without which I should not have been able to complete this project’’ (1960, xiv). Also, Allen presents toward the conclusion of the book several ‘‘Statements on Poetics,’’ including one written by O’Hara. From the writings included in the ‘‘Statement of Poetics,’’ O’Hara clearly influenced several poets of this younger generation. Leroi Jones (Amiri Baraka) and James Schuyler both reference him in their statements; Kenneth Koch mentions him in his biographical note. In his preface, Allen places his anthology in a postwar period that he describes as ‘‘singularly rich’’ in American poetry. He describes it as a vital, not static time in American poetry and records the accomplishments of the ‘‘older generation’’ (like Williams) and the ‘‘second generation’’ (the poetry of Elizabeth Bishop). He specifically mentions Williams’s later achievements: Paterson, The Desert Music and Other Poems, and Journey to Love. He then directly links the younger generation of poets he has assembled to the Williams/Pound line: ‘‘Following the practice and precepts of Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams, it has built on their achievements and gone on to evolve new conceptions of the poem’’ (xi). Such references reflect Williams’s import to Allen, as well as his perceived importance to poets like O’Hara who appear in the anthology. ‘‘I stayed up last night reading your anthology,’’ wrote O’Hara in a letter to Allen dated April 28, 1960, ‘‘and it is really a beautiful book. The preface is terrific, just right, and the book as a whole is marvelous’’ (Allen Collection). For Williams’s part, in a 1960 interview with Walter Sutton, he acknowledged a link to the younger poets found in Allen’s anthology who were ‘‘following the same path’’ (1976, 39). Yet, Williams drew a distinction, ‘‘though they don’t know exactly, metrically, what they’re doing, most of them. They have a tendency to call it free verse, but I object.’’ Clearly, as has been shown, O’Hara valued Williams’s poetry. It remains much more difficult to ascertain Williams’s view of O’Hara. So far, I have yet to discover any direct commentary by Williams regarding O’Hara. Two of Williams’s correspondents—Denise Levertov and Cid Corman—made disparaging references to O’Hara. In a Septem-

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ber 26, 1956, letter to Williams, Levertov describes O’Hara as part of ‘‘a little clique’’ with Ashbery and Koch who ‘‘aren’t much good I think’’ (51). Corman’s reference to O’Hara, which appears in a letter dated June 18, 1960, evaluates the current crop of younger poets. He finds faults in all of the following: Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen, Michael McClure, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Gregory Corso, Kenneth Koch, and O’Hara. He devotes the most space in his letter to a critique of Koch and O’Hara: ‘‘O’Hara and Koch belong to the spill school that must be related, I’m afraid to say, to the Freudian couch. These people have studied all the psychiatric twists and have all the sophisticated answers. They add up to nothing. O’Hara’s mutterings interest me not at all. It’s true, at their best in this vein, they are good vaudevillians; they can amuse and entertain. But they will gradually realize, maybe, that art, no more than dying, is not [h.w.] an amusement—though it may, in passing, amuse’’ (Williams Papers).6 Corman’s letter, somewhat reminiscent of H. D.’s chastisement of Williams referenced in ‘‘Prologue to Kora in Hell,’’ reflects his clear disregard for O’Hara. It is unclear how Williams responded to Corman’s assessment; however, Corman’s need to offer such a lengthy critique of O’Hara, suggests his competitiveness with the New York poet. His letter is also noteworthy for his direct association of O’Hara with Abstract Expressionism. Considering Williams’s interest in so many of the young poets, it is surprising that he does not discuss in any specific ways the writings of Frank O’Hara. He certainly had the opportunity to encounter it through The New American Poetry or the Evergreen Review. Williams’s silence could be construed as rejection. Yet any reading of Williams’s letters will tell you that he would not hold back critiquing or commenting upon any young poet he encountered. Throughout the 1950s, after all, he was writing to numerous young poets of his day, including Allen Ginsberg, Charles Olson, Gregory Corso, and Robert Creeley. According to James Breslin, ‘‘Unlike Pound, Williams battled with his own generation, but for his sons and daughters in the following generations he was a tender, nurturing father who was there’’ (1983, 15). Therefore his silence regarding O’Hara could be interpreted as indifference. Had he read O’Hara, but was unmoved by him? This also seems unlikely. After all, O’Hara’s place in Allen’s anthology would garner attention and prompt some sort of a response. In conference talks about this subject, some have conjectured that O’Hara’s homosexuality may have contributed to Williams’s silence.

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Although this point is worth considering, it seems to me that Williams held close and supportive relationships with a number of gay painters and poets, most notably Charles Demuth and Allen Ginsberg. Therefore, it remains unclear to me why he remained silent about O’Hara.7 The other side of this story is O’Hara’s failure to contact Williams. One has to wonder why this energetic and personable young poet, who appeared outgoing and so much a part of the avant-garde ‘‘scene,’’ would not seek out a reputedly encouraging older poet, especially one that he held in such regard. Allen Ginsberg, a mutual friend of both men, in fact suggested in a discussion with Robert Duncan that ‘‘O’Hara had picked up on Williams because he saw Williams as goodhearted’’ (1988, 63). In the end, it is a mystery why these two men never directly sought each other out—whether to talk about poetry or even the local painting scene. Regardless of such direct evidence, I now want to turn from Williams and O’Hara’s connectedness to an examination of their response to Abstract Expressionism, specifically focusing on the artists Motherwell, Pollock, and Smith. Despite their differing positions as outsider and insider to this group, both men appreciated the importance of this movement in the progression of American art. Besides an adherence to the new, Williams and O’Hara share with these artists an emphasis on spontaneity, immediacy, and action. By highlighting Williams and O’Hara in this light, I intend to show what binds them as poets, particularly in regard to the push for American originality and creativity.

2 ‘‘The American Spirit in Art’’: Williams and Abstract Expressionism MANY STUDIES HAVE DEMONSTRATED THAT WILLIAM CARLOS WILliams was influenced to a large degree by the early art movements of the twentieth century. For instance, Bram Dijkstra and Henry Sayre offer compelling studies that point to the extent of the plastic arts influence upon Williams. In The Hieroglyphics of a New Speech, Dijkstra points out how Williams was influenced by an earlier assemblage of the New York avant-garde led by Alfred Stieglitz and the exhibitions at 291 during the 1910s. ‘‘The picture of these years as a grey cultural age for the majority of Americans may indeed be accurate,’’ he writes, ‘‘but for a small circle of poets and writers in or near New York during those years, the opposite was true. Williams was an enthusiastic and openeyed, if occasionally baffled, member of this group’’ (1969, 7). Williams continued to see New York as an avant-garde center where ‘‘they do meet’’ and ‘‘talk,’’ albeit ‘‘nothing is exchanged / unless that guff / can be retranslated’’ (1988, 163). In ‘‘A Place (Any Place) To Transcend All Places’’ (1948), a response to Wallace Stevens’s ‘‘Description Without Place’’ (Mariani 1981, 517), he details the grotesqueness of this place complete with its ‘‘tuberculin-tested herd’’ (Williams, 1988, 164). Yet there is also a claim for what ‘‘we have,’’ which includes ‘‘Southern writers’’ and ‘‘foreign / writers’’ (165). As Paul Mariani remarks, ‘‘New York, for all its obscenity and abstraction, was still finally a place, and as a place it could still nourish one’s roots, still nourish a poetic’’ (517). Understandably, due to his limited contact with Abstract Expressionism, his association with this movement has not garnered exhaustive study. Yet it is the art movement during Williams’s lifetime that signaled America’s emergence as the vital center of the avantgarde—an occurrence that did not go unnoticed by the Rutherford poet. To expand upon the larger cultural relevance of this movement to Williams, it is necessary to examine his most sustained commentary 51

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about it—an address entitled ‘‘The American Spirit in Art,’’ which he delivered on December 18, 1951, to the National Institute of Arts and Letters. In his address, Williams links the various contemporary experiments with abstraction to an Emersonian call for a distinct American art. In consideration of the ideas he expresses to the National Institute, it is also necessary to examine his contact with several key figures associated with the movement, most notably the painter Robert Motherwell and the art critic Harold Rosenberg. Both his address and personal contacts make clear that Williams, although an outsider to the nexus of the movement, was in tune with its avant-garde aspiration for authentic newness. Prior to making his address to the National Institute of Arts and Letters, Williams had entertained the idea of resigning from the Institute. As he explained in a July 1951 letter to Edward Dahlberg, though, he believed he might make a difference within this group: ‘‘the thing is, which would the better forward the cause of good writing: my staying in or my getting out?’’ (1951b, Edward Dahlberg Collection). His decision to remain suggests his desire to reform American writing from within rather than railing from without. In the address that he ultimately delivered, he attempts to explain and defend the development of abstraction in the visual arts. According to Paul Mariani, Williams’s address was met with ‘‘catcalls and boos’’ (1981, 643). In a January 23, 1952, letter he wrote the following to Kenneth Burke: I damned near DIED reading my ten pages to the wolves. I could hear them growling before I had got half way down the first page. I was nervous enough as it was, I had not taken a cocktail thinking I’d keep my tongue free, I didn’t eat what was on my plate, but as the pressure mounted my old heart began to torment itself until it was a painful lump in my chest. I had to grit my teeth and grind out the words from a parched throat. They wanted to kill me. That Irishman, [Francis] Hackett, former editor of the New Republic I think was the only one who defended me at least vocally. It was a stand off otherwise, half the guys went away scowling, the other grinning. I felt better as soon as I had finished the reading. (1957b, 311)

For Williams, this address was a salvo aimed directly at the cultural establishment. He understood, even before he made the address, that his words would not be welcome here. Nevertheless, he forewent his cocktail and meal and delivered his defense of these artists. The re-

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sult—at least in Williams’s eyes—was neither victory nor defeat. Yet this ‘‘stand-off’’ left him alive to continue to fight another day. It also left him more knowledgeable about those that opposed his view of American art. In a January 6, 1952, letter to Louis Zukofsky, he wrote the following about the experience: ‘‘It has made me a wiser and a sadder man. But I have been able to round out my own concepts as against them. If I survive I may have learned something at the end of another year’’ (2003, 449). In his remarks to the Institute, Williams’s appreciation for the Abstract Expressionists is clear. He saw the painters responding to the same challenges he struggled with as an American poet. Specifically they pushed against conventional constructs to discover new forms of artistic expression. In his earlier essay, ‘‘The Poem as a Field of Action’’ (1958), he describes the need to find ‘‘a new measure or a new way of measuring that will be commensurate with the social, economic world in which we are living as contrasted with the past’’ (1969, 283). He saw young Robert Motherwell, whom he specifically mentions in the address, as the personification of a group of painters who honor this ‘‘new vision’’ in their particular medium (1978, 215).

A Close Look at Williams’s Defense To fully grasp Williams’s perception and understanding of Abstract Expressionism, we must examine his address closely. Through this approach, we see Williams utilizing some very Emersonian notions about American artistry, in order to defend these young artists. In his introduction to The Recognizable Image, a collection of essays including this address, Bram Dijkstra offers an intriguing overview of what Williams said that night to the Institute. In Dijkstra’s words, Williams ‘‘went on to elevate the American artist to the position of the world’s savior, since the ‘drift of time’ had selected America to be the locus for the next step in the transcendence of obsolete modes of expression. The article is a rousing utopian statement of all the wonderful things which will happen to us if only we make certain to continue the pursuit of new form in art. That this ‘new form’ closely corresponded to the processes of object delineation advocated by Williams in both art and literature goes without saying’’ (1978, 29). Obliquely Dijkstra’s language suggests Emerson’s presence shadowing Williams’s essay. The depiction that Djkstra mentions of the artist as ‘‘savior,’’ for instance,

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echoes a similar idea in Emerson’s essay ‘‘The Poet’’ that ‘‘poets are thus liberating gods’’ (2001, 194). In an effort to cultivate his audience’s appreciation for abstraction in the visual arts, Williams begins his address by identifying with them. His use of ‘‘We’’ rather than ‘‘You’’ evinces this role: ‘‘Have we the courage, the honesty, and the patience to grasp our opportunities? . . . The best of modern benefits are rooted in us; when we walk in the medieval past we walk (, in all the world,) away from America’’ (1978, 210). Williams’s use of the pronoun is not simply a technique to manipulate his audience’s attitude toward abstraction in the arts. He sincerely struggled to come to terms with the significance of this movement. ‘‘We are puzzled and bewildered,’’ he states, ‘‘by the apparently inexplicable emergence in our day of the abstractionists in the pictorial arts.’’ Therefore, in an effort to convey his understanding and appreciation for pictorial abstraction, he places it within the broader trends occurring in modern poetry. Together they are, as he describes, the ‘‘children . . . of that time-drift which has brought our culture pattern, what we call America, to the fore’’ (1978, 211). It is in this way that Williams identifies these artistic trends with the authenticity of being American. In accordance with this notion of American authenticity, it is not surprising that Williams invokes the name of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Emerson’s call for an authentically American art dates back to the 1830s. As Paul Mariani points out, Emersonian thought pervaded Williams’s early Unitarian upbringing, particularly in terms of a ‘‘well-developed, self-reliant intellectual perspective toward matters spiritual’’ (1981, 12). However, I do not want to argue here about Williams’s spiritual alignment with Emerson, but rather I want to compare several of their ideas about poetry. It should be noted that Williams rarely references Emerson directly. When he does mention Emerson, as in ‘‘The American Background,’’ he offers the famed essayist qualified praise, describing his verse as ‘‘too often circumscribed by a slightly hackneyed gentility’’ (1969, 155). In short, for Williams, while Emerson promulgates important ideas and ideals for American poets, he seems too connected in his poetry to the traditions he seeks to escape. According to Mariani, ‘‘It would therefore remain for Williams to fulfill the promise of Emerson in his own essays on American art’’ (1981, 351–52). In his address to the National Institute for Arts and Letters, Williams directly references Emerson only once. Yet it is a reference that

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informs the scope of his address. He states, ‘‘Art raises the dignity of man. It allows him to say, I am, in concrete terms. It defines his environment. As Emerson put it (to our shame we have never adequately heeded his words): ‘A national literature consummates and crowns the greatness of a people. The best actions, indeed, and the greatest virtues, are scarcely possible, till the inspiring force of literature is felt.’ For only by a multiplication of the gestures of art does any man show himself to be fully alive upon the earth (, does any culture pattern grow to be distinquished)’’ (1978, 212). These words encapsulate Emerson’s ideas expressed in his August 31, 1837, address to the Phi Beta Kappa Society at Cambridge, Massachusetts, later entitled ‘‘The American Scholar.’’ Yet, surprisingly, the words are not Emerson’s.1 They are, in fact, from Horace Bushnell’s 1837 oration entitled ‘‘The True Wealth or Weal of Nations,’’ which he delivered to the Alpha of Connecticut at Yale College a few weeks before Emerson’s address. In that speech, Bushnell follows up the portion that Williams quoted with the following assertion, ‘‘There cannot even be a high tone of general education without a literature’’ (1915, 19). Despite the error, Williams’s reference is valuable. He associates a value of authentic identity—the ‘‘I am’’—with the formation of a national art. It is this authenticity of artistry that fosters the ‘‘best actions’’ and ‘‘greatest virtues’’ necessary in a great culture. It remains unclear why Williams attributed Bushnell’s words to Emerson. Both addresses follow one another in a collection entitled Representative Phi Beta Kappa Orations, so it is plausible that while writing down the quote Williams conflated Bushnell’s speech with the more famous Emerson address. Nevertheless, although the words are not Emerson’s, the spirit of what he says is very much in line with Emerson’s desire to cultivate an authentic cultural expression as evident in an essay like ‘‘The Poet.’’ Bram Dijkstra points out that the American Transcendentalists influenced Alfred Stieglitz’s desire to formulate a ‘‘consciously American art movement’’ and that Williams ‘‘eagerly listened’’ to the photographer in his formative years (1969, 104). This influence finds expression in Williams’s work of the 1920s. For instance, Ian Copestake persuasively argues that in Spring and All Emerson is ‘‘buried in its prose by the very forces of history and cultural authority of which Williams wants to make the reader aware’’ (2004, 7). He goes on to assert the following: ‘‘Emerson makes no appearance, but the weight of his insistence on the cultural independence of the United States from Europe stands behind every line of

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the project Williams puts forth’’ (8). This same notion of cultural independence is true over thirty years later in ‘‘The American Spirit in Art.’’ In the case of this later address, however, Emerson does make a significant appearance, although inexplicably cloaked in the words of another famous nineteenth-century figure. Despite Williams’s error, it is clear he invokes Emerson to ground his defense of the Abstract Expressionists in explicitly American terms. After these misquoted lines, Williams touts the importance of the artist to his audience. He tells them, ‘‘The artist is the most important individual known to the world. He is not an accessory, not a decoration, not a plaything. His work is supremely necessary’’ (1978, 213). Such an assertion of the artist’s value is reminiscent of Emerson’s ‘‘The Poet.’’ For Emerson, the poet’s importance is based upon his role in society. Early on in that famous essay, he declares, ‘‘The signs and credentials of the poet are, that he announces that which no man foretold. He is the true and only doctor; he knows and tells; he is the only teller of news, for he was present and privy to the appearance which he describes. He is a beholder of ideas, and an utterer of the necessary and causal’’ (2001, 185). Williams, the literal doctor / poet, understood the vital role of the artist in society, particularly in regard to the notion of news. After all, as he famously states in ‘‘Asphodel, that Greeny Flower,’’ It is difficult to get the news from poems yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there. (1988, 318)

Williams understood that much art in his day lacked such ‘‘relevance’’ and the consequences for society are deadening. When art—whether in word or image—is created from authentic and imaginative origins, it becomes ‘‘necessary and causal’’ for the sustenance and growth of a people. As Williams continues his defense of this contemporary art movement, he touts the importance of artists staying grounded in the present day. Such an artist has amazing power. He asserts, ‘‘the artist drives us to believe that we are alive . . . now, here—as others have lived in days past—or as others, we hope, have lived in the past, of

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whom we are jealous that they may have known and experienced more than we’’ (1978, 213). Williams’s words are strikingly Emersonian. In the introduction to Nature, Emerson asserts that artists cannot be satisfied to build ‘‘the sepulchers of the fathers’’ (2001, 35). Rather, he calls on his generation to recognize that ‘‘the sun shines to-day also. . . . There are new lands, new men, new thoughts.’’ For Williams, the artist is different than the priest and philosopher. The artist plays the crucial role of grounding us in our living moment. Like Emerson before him, Williams insists upon originality for the artist, particularly as he or she attempts to represent the particular time and place. In many ways, for Williams, the cultivation of such originality gives evidence of an ‘‘ourstanding [sic] culture’’ (1978, 213). He references ‘‘Athens, Rome, Paris, London—perhaps Tecochtitlan’’ as he frames the question ‘‘Who will be next?’’ His essential point, however, remains the differences and uniqueness of these periods, as evident in the Greek hexameter, Dante’s terza rima, Shakespeare’s English line, and ‘‘Walt Whitman’s amorphous line of yesterday.’’ In short, progression in the arts is natural and must be cultivated. Not surprisingly, Williams also places this avant-garde trend of newness amid the larger Emersonian goal of American artistry. Toward the opening of ‘‘Circles,’’ Emerson claims that ‘‘[t]he new continents are built out of the ruins of an old planet . . . New arts destroy the old’’ (2001, 175). Like Emerson, Williams believed the cultivation of an authentic national art important. Paul Mariani reminds us, ‘‘Emerson had called for a national literature as long ago as 1837 in his address to the Harvard divinity students, and here was Williams at the end of 1951 again insisting that the National Institute heed what was truly distinctive in the American art experiment’’ (1981, 643). For Emerson, what was associated with this goal of American artistry was a new way of seeing the world. This emphasis upon seeing is evident from the very first lines of Nature when Emerson chides his American contemporaries: ‘‘Our age is retrospective’’ and ‘‘The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes’’ (2001, 35). For Emerson, such backward looking reliance on other people’s eyes cripples an individual. By the close of Nature, in ‘‘Prospects,’’ Emerson talks about the change that needs to be worked in the individual so that ‘‘he shall enter without more wonder than the blind man feels who is gradually restored to perfect sight’’ (55). In ‘‘The Poet,’’ Emerson laments the fact that no poet yet truly sees

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America and its newness. ‘‘We have yet had no genius in America,’’ he charges, ‘‘with tyrannous eye, which knew the value of our incomparable materials, and saw, in the barbarism and materialism of the times, another carnival of the same gods whose picture he so much admires in Homer’’ (2001, 196). Williams also attaches a cultural importance to the concept of perception. In his address, he identifies two things that faced the first settlers: ‘‘a physical world of tremendous resources’’ and ‘‘a new vision . . . which has baffled them to the present day’’ (1978, 215). For Williams, this new vision has proved to be the thing more difficult to master. It is also essential for authentic American art—it is what he describes as ‘‘the backbone of our literature and so of all our art.’’ For Williams, it seems clear. To revert back to tradition, ‘‘the more medieval patterns of privilege,’’ American art perishes. He understands that this desire to return to a European past emerges in many ways from the anxieties and uncertainties of facing the American ‘‘wilderness’’ (217). He offers his audience an example: Henry James. Williams counts James as a ‘‘great artist.’’ Yet in his refuge in the ‘‘intellectual comforts of Victorian England,’’ he left, according to Williams, ‘‘another world behind’’ (216). Williams asserts that artists like James who have ‘‘turned their backs on us’’ should not be either admired or criticized. Rather, he argues that they have foregone what he sees as ‘‘the tremendous opportunity of our letters to follow a pioneering mind into the implications of our new cultural opportunity . . . that is the fault’’ (216). Regardless of this ‘‘fault,’’ these artists are praised by the establishment for clinging to what Williams describes as ‘‘the old modes’’ (217). Consequently those who diverge or break from these established modes are ‘‘badly at a loss.’’ It is only in moving forward, according to Williams, ‘‘to patterns bred of a cultural initiative hitherto untried’’ that Americans can create an authentic artistic expression (1978, 215). In this way, Williams sets up the dilemma facing artists: ‘‘either to seek what security and comfort there is for him in past configurations of learning, or to follow his great constructive genius into his own world, to raise that to such distinction that it will shine in the galaxies of historical cultures of the world as something incomparably great’’ (217). In such an either/or proposition, Williams clearly identifies cultural authenticity and artistic greatness with the latter. After famously declaring in ‘‘The Poet’’ that it is a ‘‘metre-making argument’’ and ‘‘not metres’’ ‘‘that makes a poem,’’ Emerson describes this argument as ‘‘a thought so passionate

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and alive that like the spirit of a plant or an animal it has an architecture of its own, and adorns nature with a new thing. . . . in order of genesis the thought is prior to the form’’ (2001, 186). For Williams, it becomes incumbent upon the artist to respond to his unique ‘‘constructive genius.’’ That constructive attribute enables him to be truly imaginative and therefore ‘‘incomparably great’’ (1978, 217). In short, Williams seeks from his audience at the very least toleration for the new. He quotes extensively from the article ‘‘Not the Age of Atoms but of Welfare for All’’ by the famed British historian Arnold Toynbee, which appeared in the New York Times Magazine October 21, 1951. Williams taps into Toynbee’s recently stated belief that the twentieth century will be remembered for the desire ‘‘to make the benefits of civilization available for the whole human race’’ (1978, 214). Williams argues that this sociohistorical assessment corresponds as well to modern art—it is, as he argues, ‘‘permission, for all’’ (1978, 218). By accepting such a premise, it enables one to better appreciate modern art. ‘‘From that through cubism, Matisse, to Motherwell, the ultimate step is one gesture. And it is important because it says that you don’t paint a picture or write a poem about anything, you make a picture or a poem of anything. You see how that comes from Toynbee’s discovery. Abundance for all’’ (218). Such a democratic notion of acceptance towards art seems ideally American. Importantly Williams’s link of Matisse with an abstractionist like Robert Motherwell legitimizes the generation of younger painters under scrutiny. Not only does the link offer validation, it shifts the artistic representative from France to America and suggests the fulfillment of America’s artistic promise. Williams’s reference to Motherwell also demonstrates that the older poet was not blind to the younger man’s contribution to the visual arts. As previously mentioned, he respected Motherwell’s work as a continuation of earlier modernist goals. He saw Motherwell and the others responding to the same artistic issues that he struggled with throughout his career, continually pushing against fixed boundaries in the quest for imaginative authenticity. He also saw this linked to a larger goal of American artists that stretches back to Emerson. For Williams, these artists should not be criticized by National Institute members, but rather applauded. Instead of ‘‘turning their backs on us’’ (1978, 219), Williams believes these artists have seized ‘‘the new opportunity.’’ With any new effort, there is naturally uncertainty. For Williams, though, there is some degree of excitement with such

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uncertainty. Discoveries await the artist who pushes ahead: ‘‘what savannas, what elemental forests, what seas of the white whale we shall next be called upon to penetrate.’’ Williams’s reference to Melville invokes the greatness of another misunderstood American experimenter. Upon the release of Moby Dick, Melville was seen as cracked— it was not until much later that his genius became recognizable. Only a few years after Williams’s address, Pollock would paint The Deep (1953), alluding to a passage in Melville’s masterpiece (Frank 1983, 97). Therefore, by situating the abstractionists in such a tradition, Williams calls upon his fellow members to accept them. He remarks, ‘‘Of such a one as Motherwell, the abstractionist, who says that the whole occupation of painting is a matter of the relationship between pigment and the surface to which it is applied, to such a man we cannot but offer a hearty welcome. We should be glad that someone has turned up among us to work out that (thankless) historical process. It does not exclude other processes though it does constitute a criticism of them and will prove, in the end, an enlargement upon them to the benefit of the total process of painting’’ (1978, 219). In these remarks, Williams’s appreciation for Motherwell and the Abstract Expressionists is clear. He saw Motherwell and others honoring this ‘‘new vision’’ in their particular medium (215).

Williams’s Contact with Motherwell Williams’s references to Motherwell are intriguing to consider, especially given the few critical explorations involving Williams and Motherwell. In ‘‘The Blue Nude and Mrs. Pappadopoulos,’’ Terrence Diggory discusses Williams’s ‘‘excitement’’ for Pollock’s abstraction and ‘‘design’’; he ultimately links Motherwell to this ‘‘tradition’’ (1992, 31). Paul Mariani notes Williams’s admiration for both Pollock and Motherwell (1981, 670). In William Carlos Williams: The American Background, Mike Weaver notes Motherwell’s interest in Williams and their mutual ‘‘need for the sensual in art’’ (1971, 140). He also points out Williams’s discomfort with the surrealism he perceived Motherwell championing. Motherwell appears to be the only younger generation New York School painter with whom Williams had personal contact. He was an avid reader and attracted to such writers as Joyce, Melville, Stevens, and Hopkins. After receiving his A.B. from Stanford University and

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studying philosophy at Harvard, he came to New York in 1940 to study with Meyer Schapiro in the Art History Department at Columbia University (Caws 1996, xix). He soon became acquainted with several surrealists, most notably and influentially Roberto Matta. His friendship with Matta resulted in a desire, as he told Paul Cummings in a 1971 interview for the American Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, ‘‘to start a revolution, a movement within Surrealism.’’ Motherwell claims that at this time he ‘‘went around explaining the theory of automatism to everybody because the only way that you could have a movement was that it had some common principle.’’ From Motherwell’s perspective, this surrealist technique ‘‘had all kinds of possibilities that had really never been developed.’’2 It was at this time, toward the close of 1941, that Motherwell contacted Williams about the surrealist journal venture VVV. In his introductory letter, Motherwell admits that it was his idea to get Williams involved (1992, 16). In part, this explains why Motherwell was the one writing, but, according to the younger painter, Williams’s nationality also mattered. Of the other men involved in the magazine (Nicholas Calas and Andre´ Breton), Motherwell was the only American. Therefore, with Williams’s inclusion on the editorial board, the two men would represent the United States and Breton and Calas would represent Europe. Motherwell set forth an extremely flexible arrangement for Williams: ‘‘Your collaboration can be extremely active, if you have the time, or, if not, limited to giving me occasional advice. The use of your name in any case is of such obvious aid to us that it needs no comment’’ (17). Clearly the terms for Williams’s involvement revolved around the clout affiliated with his ‘‘name.’’ That avant-garde reputation made Williams a desirable collaborator and an approachable person to younger artists. Besides providing the scope of Williams’s possible participation, Motherwell also offers Williams an informative personal introduction. He explains how he came into ‘‘contact’’ with the surrealists who offered him what he describes as ‘‘a solution to those problems of how to free the imagination in concrete terms, which are so baffling to an American’’ (17). He thus transformed from the passivity of ‘‘an observer, like a character in James’’ to taking a ‘‘partisan stand, in the creative sense’’ (17). Coincidently the problem that Motherwell confronts is one that Williams faced with his own poetry. (After all, isn’t it what Spring and All is about?) His comment also parallels Williams’s thoughts in ‘‘The American Spirit in Art’’ about the ‘‘new vision’’ that

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has ‘‘baffled’’ settlers since their arrival in North America. Motherwell later laments the limited quantity of ‘‘imaginative writing’’ in America—‘‘you and Stevens are the only ones I know whom I can read.’’ This quality is in fact why Motherwell has even contacted Williams to serve as editor, even willing, as he wrote, ‘‘to spend a whole day waiting about, and talking between calls’’ (18). Another important feature of Motherwell’s letter is an introduction to his ideas about Surrealism. He offered Williams four propositions: ‘‘stimulation of the imagination’’; ‘‘the preservation of the dignity and value of personal feelings’’; ‘‘revolutionism’’; ‘‘the dialectic’’ (17–18). The ideas about the ‘‘stimulation of the imagination’’ and ‘‘revolutionism’’ particularly align themselves with Williams’s goals as an artist. In his seminal study, William Carlos Williams: The American Background, Mike Weaver points out that Williams also shared Motherwell’s emphasis on personal feeling based in part on an ‘‘acceptance of the aggression and violence in the American character, as well as repudiation of the power of the natural and social sciences in society’’ (140). Weaver is so pertinent here because he persuasively argues that Williams’s problem with Surrealism was its French origins, dating back to the First World War. ‘‘In Williams’ unusual view,’’ he writes, ‘‘an art of correct naming of internal events had been supplanted by a professional vanguardism which, transplanted in America, managed to exploit the weakness of a society not unlike the first one it had abandoned’’ (140). Earlier in The Embodiment of Knowledge Williams had written that American art would emerge independent of French artistry. ‘‘What shall be seen then in America? Nothing French surely’’ (1974, 24). Now, he feared that Surrealism, particularly as identified with Breton, could stifle this true invention. As expressed in his earlier rumination in The Embodiment of Knowledge, French imitation could have disastrous effects: ‘‘to ape French manner is to put out his eye’’ (25). Such imitation ultimately would destroy any potential for the emergence of self-reliant American artists. Therefore, as Weaver explains, ‘‘by 1946 the closed fraternity of the French group in New York represented to Williams a new confinement of the mind instead of its hoped-for release’’ (1971, 141). Given this context it seems that Williams perceived in the abstractionists that he described in ‘‘The American Spirit in Art’’ the possibility for a hoped for release. Williams did reply to Motherwell. According to Motherwell’s December 8, 1941, letter, he ‘‘liked’’ what the young painter had to say.

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Motherwell told Williams he was ‘‘even more pleased at my suspicion that we speek [sic] the same language’’ (Williams Papers). Eventually the two men met. And although Williams did not serve as an editor of the magazine, he did publish the poem ‘‘Catastrophic Birth’’ in its inaugural issue (Motherwell 1992, 19). One stanza, in particular, speaks to the idea of newness that Williams would later use in his address to the National Institute. Each age brings new calls upon violence for new rewards, variants of the old. Unless each hold firm Unless each remain inflexible there can be no new. The new opens new ways beyond all known ways. (1988, 56)

The poem chronicles the volcanic eruption of Mt. Pele´e in 1902, an event that Williams claims ‘‘wiped out the last of my mother’s family, the Hurrards’’ (1951a, 71). Despite the devastation caused by the explosion, the poem ends with a belief in cyclical regeneration: Rain will fall. The wind and the birds will bring seeds, the river changes its channel and fish re-enter it. (1988, 57)

Williams’s poem relates the necessity of violence to bring change— ‘‘violence alone opens the shell of the nut’’ (55). In his address to the National Institute, he asserts that the old ‘‘line must be broken down before it is built up anew, on a broader basis, according to another measure’’ (1978, 219). Interestingly, by the time that the short-lived magazine was first published in 1942, Motherwell also was not an editor of VVV. According to that 1971 interview conducted by Paul Cummings, Motherwell resigned because of an expectation that he would provide or raise the funds necessary for the magazine’s publication. Despite his resignation, he did, along with Harold Rosenberg, contribute to the first issue. Williams’s defense of Motherwell and the abstractionists in his address to the National Institute, however, seems somewhat short lived. Right after his remark about Motherwell, he surprisingly offers ‘‘one further step’’ in the progression of ‘‘abstract painting’’ and that is

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‘‘when it is being done by the blind’’ (1978, 219). The remark is quite curious in the overall context of this address. Does he mean it to be funny? If so, it comes at a strange moment in the speech. It undercuts the very movement he has been defending—perhaps, he is merely throwing the proverbial meat to his conservative audience. More than likely, though, it offers a candid expression of his uncertainty about the direction and outcome of this art movement. In his discussion of Williams’s response to Surrealism, Henry Sayre points out an interesting pattern in Williams: ‘‘if Williams was sympathetic to the surrealist venture, he was antagonistic as well. Both his enthusiasm for and his reservations about the movement could in fact be extended to most other modern art, including his own’’ (1983, 24). For Williams, as Sayre suggests, such a tension seems rooted in an aesthetic ‘‘based on an unresolvable dialectical opposition: on the one hand was the mind, the imagination, and its potential to create order and form; on the other was the world, fragmented and chaotic’’ (5). Sayre’s study identifies Williams’s competing pulls toward abstraction and reality that Surrealism or Abstract Expressionism never seem to satisfy in him (26). Williams’s reference to Motherwell as the representative painter of this movement is worthwhile to consider. By singling him out, Williams, in some way, concretizes this trend of abstraction. At this point in his painting career, Motherwell had created such key paintings as The Little Spanish Prison (1941–44), Pancho Villa Dead and Alive (1943), At Five in the Afternoon (1949). Williams most likely referenced Motherwell because of their personal connection. However, at this time Motherwell did write extensively about art. In fact, he emerged as one of the leading spokesmen of Abstract Expressionism. His writings from 1950–51 even offer some intriguing parallels to Williams’s address. For instance, in 1950, he wrote a preface to Georges Duthuit’s The Fauvist Painters. He praises Henri Matisse, the painter Williams links to Motherwell’s emergence, and highlights how Matisse’s use of color in relation to objects actually initiated the ‘‘move toward abstraction’’ (1992, 75). Motherwell’s address ‘‘The New York School,’’ delivered October 27, 1950, goes on to situate the rise of abstraction. His address, like Williams’s later one, responds to criticisms of Abstract Expressionism and offers a defense. Like Williams, he expresses uncertainty over its ‘‘value’’; however, he touts its ‘‘authenticity’’ (77). He denigrates artistic conventionality and promotes the New York School artists as more interested in ‘‘discovery’’ than imposition (78).

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Several other Motherwell addresses and commentary predate Williams’s address. On February 5, 1951, for instance, he participated in a symposium at the Museum of Modern Art. In his contribution entitled ‘‘What Abstract Art Means to Me,’’ Motherwell asserted that ‘‘each period and place has its own art and its aesthetic—which are specific applications of a more general set of human values, with emphases and rejections corresponding to the basic needs and desires of a particular place and time’’ (1992, 85). Also in 1951, he wrote the preface to Seventeen Modern American Painters, delivered ‘‘The Rise and Continuity of Abstract Art,’’ a lecture he presented at Harvard in April, and he wrote a preface to The Dada Painters and Poets: An Anthology, as well as a statement and introduction to Modern Artists in America: First Series. Whether or not Williams read these pieces, clearly Motherwell emerged at this time as an articulate spokesperson for the artistic movement. Consequently, given the personal contact and public recognition, Williams’s use of Motherwell’s name in his address makes sense.

O’Hara and Motherwell Like Williams, O’Hara also admired the work of Motherwell. He describes the painter ‘‘as one of the leading figures in the greatest revolution in modern art since Cubism, Abstract Expressionism’’ (1975, 65). Motherwell, according to Perloff, was one of O’Hara’s ‘‘gods’’ (1998, 85). He became personally acquainted with Motherwell through the painter Helen Frankenthaler, Motherwell’s wife and one of O’Hara’s close friends. In 1965, Motherwell handpicked O’Hara as curator for a retrospective exhibition of his work at the Museum of Modern Art (Motherwell 1992, 148). He desired the exhibition to be ‘‘more like a poetry recital than a retrospective.’’ In consideration of his public praise, O’Hara was the perfect man for the exhibition. His essay ‘‘The Grand Manner of Motherwell,’’ first printed in Vogue in 1965, describes Motherwell as ‘‘tough, sassy, and, yes, elegant, as a painter’’ (1983, 175). He claims their talks were ‘‘almost always about poetry’’ (176), including the work of Williams, Stevens, and his French favorites. These conversations no doubt informed O’Hara’s view of Motherwell’s artistry. ‘‘Without being literary in content,’’ O’Hara writes, ‘‘his work continually reflects the importance of poetry in his life and

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art’’ (177). Earlier in a 1963 issue of Kulchur, he even described Motherwell’s work at the Janis as ‘‘a great lyric gift’’ (151). O’Hara’s affiliation with Motherwell upset some of O’Hara’s set. According to Brad Gooch, ‘‘his disgruntled Downtown friends’’ viewed this as a ‘‘shift Uptown’’ (1993, 446). O’Hara’s friend Larry Rivers even asserted that O’Hara did not care for Motherwell’s work at all—‘‘He admitted to me that he didn’t like Motherwell’s work at all. And he thought that he was an idiot on top of it’’ (447). It is difficult to reconcile O’Hara’s work on the exhibit and praise of Motherwell with such a comment. It may have more to do with Rivers’ own feelings about Motherwell than with O’Hara’s. When faced with composing a statement for the Motherwell retrospective catalog, O’Hara struggled with ‘‘writer’s block’’ (Motherwell 1992, 148). He asked Motherwell for some ideas and then went on to use the painter’s letter in the exhibition catalog. Although this action initially upset Motherwell, he later admitted that he respected its inclusion (155). Motherwell’s letter offers an arbitrary series of ideas related to art, poetry, and modernity. For instance, he mentions that he often turned to ‘‘the poets for suggestions and arguments’’ when Abstract Expressionism was criticized (154). He contends that ‘‘painting is also a language’’ (148) and expresses the problematic nature of ‘‘inventing a new language’’ to express feeling more accurately (149). No doubt Williams, if alive at the time, would understand Motherwell’s dilemma, regardless of the different mediums. The letter, despite Motherwell’s initial reservations, offers an imaginative display of the painter’s thoughts and feelings sure to complement the artistry exhibited.

Another Contact with the ‘‘New’’ American Art At this point, it may help to discuss Williams’s friendship with Harold Rosenberg, another influential figure associated with Abstract Expressionism. Rosenberg gained notoriety as an art critic and coined the phrase ‘‘Action Painters.’’ In his landmark essay ‘‘The American Action Painters’’ (1952), he describes the artistic process this way: ‘‘At a certain moment the canvas began to appear to one American painter after another as an arena in which to act rather than as a space in which to reproduce, re-design, analyze or ‘express’ an object, actual or imagined. What was to go on the canvas was not a picture but an event.

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(1965, 25). This active involvement with the canvas echoes Williams. Bill Berkson, for one, has noted this relation: ‘‘Rosenberg had, after all, only recently come to art criticism from a short career as a poet, and, whether he knew it or not, his vision of the painter’s canvas as ‘an arena in which to act’ had at least one antecedent in William Carlos Williams’ lecture of 1948, ‘The Poem as a Field of Action’ ’’ (1994, 146). Berkson’s assumption about Williams’s influence on Rosenberg seems highly likely. In two essays from his landmark collection The Tradition of the New, Rosenberg references Williams’s verse. In the essay ‘‘French Silence and American Poetry,’’ he lists Williams, in fact, as one of the ‘‘poets who spoke American best’’ (1965, 91). More telling is the fact that Rosenberg corresponded with Williams in the early 1940s. In one of the letters dated January 25, 1941, Rosenberg discusses the need for ‘‘Great Literature’’ for the ‘‘Times’’ and references, in part, what Williams and others have done in verse. The letter closes with Rosenberg’s praise for Williams’s Edgar Allan Poe essay included In the American Grain: ‘‘That article, which goes counter to every/a ccepted [sic] notion about American Literary Tradition, seems to me one of the chief critical embryos of modern U.S.’’ (Williams Papers).3 The second Rosenberg letter dated April 6, 1942, pleads with Williams to write a ‘‘blurb’’ for his book of poems, Trance Above the Streets. He confesses, ‘‘My poems owe a lot to your work, as anyone can see’’ (Williams Papers). In the letter, Rosenberg also candidly admits his desire to use Williams’s positive response: ‘‘I have been depending on that, even though I know that you are busy, and might not be sufficiently ‘seized’ by the collection to have something come out of itself.’’ Williams did write a ‘‘blurb’’; however, for obvious reasons, Rosenberg never included it in his book. The essay theorized more about poetry than offering a compelling hook for Rosenberg’s poems. Williams devoted the opening pages to a theoretical discussion of the line. When he did get around to discussing Rosenberg, it was less than flattering: ‘‘This book is made up mostly of early work. I find it a little tiresome, it seems to me a little too much a language study (a bad thing to say here). Many of these poems do not come off, they are not exciting enough, not differentiated enough one from the other, they seem all drawn after one model. This is, of course, an exaggeration but it is the feeling I get from the book. Here’s a man I respect. I am not satisfied with him, probably because he exhibits too many of the incompletions I see in myself. Perhaps he will be the one to come out of the

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present stage of his writing to a fuller realization of his cues’’ (1985, 128). Clearly, from the perspective of an aspiring poet like Rosenberg, Williams’s preface missed the mark. Williams’s bluntness, however, conveys two discerning points. First, Rosenberg was not an original or profound poet. Second, Rosenberg had potential to move beyond this ‘‘tiresome’’ phase of his writing, perhaps predictive of the acclaim he later would receive for his art writing. The apparent influence of Williams upon Rosenberg, however small, cannot be dismissed, particularly because Rosenberg promoted Abstract Expressionism and coined ‘‘Action Painting.’’ His emphasis upon action also taps into an influential cultural ideal rooted in Emersonian thought. In ‘‘The American Scholar,’’ a famed speech delivered in 1837 to the Phi Beta Kappa society of Harvard University, Emerson calls upon his audience of young Harvard graduates to be active, not static thinkers and to emulate ‘‘Man Thinking.’’ Emerson proposes three influences to foster such an ideal: Nature, Books, and Action. Although Emerson claims that action is subordinate for the scholar, he sees it as an essential component in his ideal. ‘‘Without it,’’ he writes, ‘‘he is not yet a man. . . . The preamble of thought, the transition through which it passes from the unconscious to the conscious, is action. Only so much do I know, as I have lived. Instantly we know whose words are loaded with life, and whose not’’ (2001, 61). It is this notion of action, embedded in the very essence of what it means to be an American ‘‘Man Thinking,’’ that permeates the poetry of Williams and O’Hara and infuses the work of artists like Jackson Pollock and David Smith. One can not help to read or see their particular works and see the ‘‘living’’ inherent in the art. That notion of ‘‘action’’ almost functions as a requisite cultural expectation. Instead of action geared toward a Franklin productivity and material self-improvement, Emerson frames action as necessary to intellectual, artist, and spiritual self-improvement. Later in his address he states, ‘‘I do not see how any man can afford, for the sake of his nerves and his nap, to spare any action in which he can partake. It is pearls and rubies to his discourse. Drudgery, calamity, exasperation, want, are instructors in eloquence and wisdom. The true scholar grudges every opportunity of action past by, as a loss of power. It is the raw material out of which the intellect molds her splendid products. A strange process too, this by which experience is converted into thought, as a mulberry leaf is converted into satin. The manufacture goes forward at all hours’’ (2001, 61). In these lines, Emerson trans-

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forms the meaning of action for the American artist/intellectual from the notion of earning material well-being to something more valuable, at least from an Emersonian perspective, that of creating something new in either thought or artistry. In fact, Matthew Baigell asserts, ‘‘In the drip paintings, Pollock becomes Emerson’s Genuine Man, one who ‘acts his thoughts’ ’’ (2001, 145). It is not particularly new to associate Emerson with the Abstract Expressionists. In his study Artist and Identity in Twentieth-Century America, Baigell offers a compelling exploration of several artists— Pollock, Clifford Still, and Barnett Newman—who demonstrate a shared sensibility with Emerson. For Baigell, Emerson is an important presence in understanding this movement: ‘‘It is a presence rather than a source or an influence. And it is not limited to Emerson, since it can be found in such figures as Walt Whitman and William James, among others. But it is easier to say ‘an Emersonian presence’ because precise influences are difficult probably impossible to establish’’ (2001, 142). He goes on to trace this Emersonian presence back to the influence of Thomas Hart Benton who was an important influence on Pollock—one that the young painter needed to react against to forge his own authenticity and artistic independence. For Baigell, this is a ‘‘supreme Emersonian statement’’ (143). In his discussion, Baigell also references Rosenberg’s description of action painting. Instead of associating it with Williams, like Bill Berkson does, Baigell traces it to Emerson. As he argues, ‘‘Rosenberg posits the ideal Emersonian situation of a presumably knowledgeable artist in the act of self-definition who is aware of, but at the same time forgets, the inhibitions of past training and experience for a more direct and more honest and more authentic response to the stimulus at hand’’ (150). Baigell does not stop there—he also traces Rosenberg’s idea to a possible antecedent in Marsden Hartley’s writing. Specifically he cites Hartley’s 1914 exhibition statement: ‘‘A picture is but a given space where things of the moment which happen to the painter occur. The essential of a real picture is that the things which occur in it occur to him in his peculiarly personal fashion. It is essential that they occur to him directly from his experience’’ (151). For Baigell, Hartley’s proposition, like Rosenberg, reflects Emersonian thought. Now, to bring this Emersonian association full circle, it’s helpful to recall that Williams and Hartley were close friends. Both were outsiders, William Marling contends, who believed in ‘‘the potential for a native modern art in America’’ (1982, 70). To this end, Williams men-

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tions Hartley’s Adventures in the Arts (1921) several times in Spring and All. Toward its conclusion, Williams references ‘‘The Importance of Being Dada,’’ Hartley’s afterword, which advocates reducing the capital front letter of ‘‘Art’’ to ‘‘art’’ to create ‘‘a release for the expression of natural sensibilities’’ (1921, 252). Echoing this call, Williams writes that the imagination’s effect is ‘‘to free the world of fact from the impositions of ‘art’ (see Hartley’s last chapter) and to liberate the man to act in whatever direction his disposition leads’’ (1986, 235). His assertion offers yet another compelling antecedent to Rosenberg’s definition about action painting. All of these antecedents, whether from Emerson, Hartley, or Williams, reflect a cultural build-up to Rosenberg’s definition and ultimately the American artists who exemplified it.

A Final Summation of the ‘‘American Spirit’’ Unsurprisingly, given the Cold War backdrop of his address to the National Institute, Williams concludes ‘‘The American Spirit in Art’’ by contrasting American artistry with Russia. He touts the progressive nature of American artists who ‘‘may lead his world to a healing knowledge of its present state’’ (1978, 220). In contrast, ‘‘You see what a mess the Russians make of it when they try (through Marx) to imitate us. Instead of freedom they found themselves on the denial of freedom; instead of giving their writers a free reign to develop what they, as a nation, are in need of, they castrate them, leaving us conceptually (if not in practice) supreme. (The lag of the middle ages is too much for them) to make the necessary readjustments they are, to all intents and purposes, impotent.)’’ (220). Williams’s comment places an intriguing political dimension on this artistic movement. He sees sharp contrasts between the American and Russian sense of revolution: freedom versus denial of freedom; creation and superiority versus impotence and castration. Serge Guilbault points out that for Williams ‘‘no alliance was possible’’ between Marxism and the American tradition (1983, 23). Based upon his comments to the National Institute of Arts and Letters, Guilbault would no doubt count Williams among the new liberals of the period. This group, according to Guilbault, ‘‘identified with this art . . . because it embodied characteristics of international modern painting (perceived as purely American)’’ and reflected values of ‘‘individualism and the willingness to take risks’’ (200).

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For Williams, these American artists were attempting to fulfill a cultural charge Emerson had heralded over a hundred years earlier. He simply defended their right to do so. Years later he continued to reflect upon that defense. He wrote Edward Dahlberg on February 19, 1958: ‘‘I am a member of The Institute of American Artists. Once 5 years ago they asked me to read a paper on some phase of the current work of our contemporary painters. I did so. I was not familiar with all they were putting on canvas at the time, my theme was WAIT AND SEE, meanwhile be generous, give them a chance to express themselves’’ (1958b, Edward Dahlberg Collection). This recollection reveals a telling point about his speech’s purpose. To him, it is absolutely essential to demonstrate patience and generosity toward the artist if we are truly to foster creativity in the United States. As the letter continues, Williams describes the fallout for such an assertion: ‘‘Even while I was talking the boos! began. I was furious and continued talking furiously. A month following the talk there are those in the influential organization who do not talk to me—so that following my stroke I do not go to the meetings any more. Trala trala.’’ The resonance of those boos all these years later is quite telling. Williams was injured standing up for these artists. They may never have known it or even cared, but for Williams it wasn’t about the need to be included in their circle. Rather, it was about his need to foster a more welcoming atmosphere for the progression of an authentic American artistry, even if he himself was not sure about the outcome. In consideration of this later reminiscence, Williams’s address to the National Institute was a significant public assertion of his views on Abstract Expressionism. As an artistic movement, it did not have the same impact on Williams’s poetry and technique as earlier movements. However, it did have significance for him concerning what it suggested about American art to be authentic and ‘‘new’’ and thus fulfill earlier cultural expectations.

3 Imaginative ‘‘Blobs of Paint’’: Jackson Pollock in the Work of Williams and O’Hara TO DRAW PARALLELS BETWEEN WILLIAMS’S AND O’HARA’S WRITINGS and the painting of Jackson Pollock is nothing new.1 Several critics have offered some noteworthy studies regarding the ways that these artists relate to one another. For instance, Joan Burbick’s ‘‘Grimmaces of a New Age: The Postwar Poetry and Painting of William Carlos Williams and Jackson Pollock’’ conjectures that ‘‘[t]he reason for this alignment . . . [of Williams and Pollock], rests not so much on historical influences as on a shared sensibility that resulted in similar experimentation with compositional technique’’ (1982, 110).Valerie Robillard builds upon Burbick’s work and explores what she describes as ‘‘the ritualistic images’’ found in their work (2002, 137). David Sweet offers a different slant in his study; he brings O’Hara into the discussion and concludes that O’Hara’s famous ‘‘I do this I do that poems’’ are ‘‘Action Poems; yet they are completely personal and new—a leap into the unknown, not an imitation’’ (2000, 387). These earlier studies provided the critical groundwork for my own exploration of Williams and O’Hara’s responses to Pollock. As all now acknowledge, Abstract Expressionism shifted the center of the avant-garde from Paris to New York. This symbolic shift fulfilled what Williams and others had been calling on artists to do for years. For the first time, American artists appeared to take the lead in the visual arts from their European counterparts. These artists were reinventing what was perceived as ‘‘painting.’’ Because of the notoriety of his method and his paintings, Jackson Pollock became renowned as one of the leaders of the movement. While Williams’s promotion of ‘‘American’’ art and artists is clear, O’Hara appears more resistant to such nationalistic labels. In responding to questions from Lucie-Smith about an ‘‘American flavor’’ or tradition in art, O’Hara clearly rejects such labels: ‘‘I think Pollock was 72

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absolutely right when he said . . . there is no such thing as American painting or any other kind of painting. There is good painting’’ (1983, 7). Pollock, in fact, claimed in a statement for the journal Arts and Architecture, ‘‘The idea of an isolated American painting . . . just as the idea of creating a purely American mathematics or physics would seem absurd’’ (Karmel 1999, 16). Yet in continuing his answer, Pollock connects the creation to the artist’s cultural origins: ‘‘An American is an American and his painting would naturally be qualified by that fact, whether he wills it or not’’ (16). For Pollock, the dilemma facing contemporary artists was global, regardless of the local imprint on its artistic production. Much like Williams and even O’Hara, he did not feel an overwhelming desire to expatriate. In 1946 he wrote to a friend, ‘‘Everyone is going or gone to Paris. With the old shit (that you can’t paint in America) have an idea they will all be back’’ (Landau 1989, 244). Art historian Ellen Landau, in fact, credits him with shifting the avant-garde to New York. ‘‘I don’t see,’’ Pollock ultimately concludes, ‘‘why the problem of modern painting can’t be solved as well here as elsewhere’’ (Karmel 1999, 15). In probing O’Hara’s writings further, he does identify a quality intrinsic to American art. In the essay ‘‘American Art and Non-American Art,’’ O’Hara relates American artistry to the new (an idea repeatedly stressed by Williams): ‘‘So far as I can see lately, what we mean by American art is . . . simply avant-garde art’’ (1983, 97). As O’Hara continues his explanation, he grounds his answer in relation to the New York locale: ‘‘Europeans often find contemporary American art violent. I don’t, but violence is the atmosphere in which much of it is created and which makes its commitment extreme and serious. New York is one of the most violent cities in the world and its pace is hectic. What can survive must have had some quality’’ (97). As much as O’Hara doesn’t want to make cultural distinctions about art, he does slip into this mode of thinking. Later on, when concluding the essay, he makes this final summation: ‘‘[I]f there really is such a thing as American painting, I think it can only be because for the first time in our history an art is appearing which is aware of the rest of the world in a non-imitative way. And the more naked we get, the more clearly we will be seen to be ourselves. Why should we be ashamed? The French aren’t ashamed of being French’’ (98). Such lines correlate to the prevailing view that Abstract Expressionism signals, for the first time, the emergence of American art as a setter of artistic trends and style. To achieve this, O’Hara rightly points out that those Ameri-

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can painters had to break from imitation and embrace their own cultural origins. O’Hara’s attitude toward the American art scene is also evident in an intriguing episode related to the republication of his ‘‘Poem’’ (‘‘The eager note on my door said, ‘Call me . . .’ ’’) in New World Writing. After the acceptance of his submission, O’Hara wrote to Mrs. Porter, executive editor of the New American Library.2 He earnestly sought work as a reviewer: ‘‘I could write interestingly about poetry, novels, music, I think,—and I’d be very eager to do art criticism, especially reviews of current exhibitions in New York’’ (1951a, New World Writing). O’Hara’s pitch to Porter reflects his eagerness and enthusiasm for the artistry of his era; he also takes the opportunity to recommend the work of his friends Violet Lang and John Ashbery. Of special note for this study, O’Hara offers Porter a compelling assessment of contemporary American art: ‘‘the center of the art world is now New York rather than Paris, and one could write with sufficient relaxation to avoid scaring the public, without however permitting the public a false sense of familiarity towards the ‘all over painting’ or American Expressionism or any of the other trends which seem at an interesting period of maturity.’’ In this way, he proposes himself as the perfect middleman for cultivating an appreciation among the public for what is occurring in American art. Unfortunately Porter wrote back and informed O’Hara that New World Writing had no need for his skills at that time. A more creative commentary about the American art scene occurs in Kenneth Koch, a tragedy, a play O’Hara cowrote with Larry Rivers. The play offers a spoof on the New York artists as experienced by the poet Koch. Other true-to-life characters appear in the play, including Franz Kline, Willem de Kooning, and Jackson Pollock. At one point a foul-mouthed Pollock engages in a heated exchange with Koch: Jackson Pollock: Fuck you. (Turning to KK) My wife is a lousy lay, but you’re the worst. Kenneth: You’re a bald-headed idiot, and a perfect example of what I mean. America is very strong, but all it amounts to is action. You’re about as necessary as an automatic salt shaker. But don’t mistake me, I love your painting. Jackson Pollock: Shit. Kenneth: How can we tell today? That’s the tragedy, Jackson. I’m sorry I called you baldy. Were you serious about me? (1997, 129)

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Despite the obvious humor, this fictionalized argument points out the paradoxical nature of Pollock’s value in cultural terms. Rivers and O’Hara correlate the ‘‘American’’ qualities of action and strength with Pollock—qualities that engender questionable results. Then, they playfully compare Pollock’s value to an automatic salt shaker—a product reflective of the gimmickry of American culture, nothing more. Rivers and O’Hara even attempt to poke fun at themselves through these characters. Kenneth exclaims that they wouldn’t talk that way ‘‘if Larry or Frank were here’’ (130). Jackson Pollock: Those fags. Franz Kline: Those dope addicts.

Rivers and O’Hara’s sketch offers an intriguing parody of the personal and artistic dynamics in the New York art scene. These dynamics, resulting in both artistic collaboration and friction, made New York the center for creativity and newness.

A Point of Contact: The Evergreen Review As suggested earlier, there is nothing new in connecting either Williams and Pollock or O’Hara and Pollock. By examining the ways that both poets respond to Pollock, however, it becomes possible to see a unique tie that binds these poets to each other and that informs their creative approaches and productions. With that said, I want to begin this study of the poets and abstract art at its most tangible point— volume 1 issue number 3 of the 1957 Evergreen Review. All three artists are represented here. Along with several Hans Namuth photographs of Pollock, appears O’Hara’s much-anthologized poem, ‘‘A Step Away from Them.’’ It contains the famous lines: . . . First Bunny died, then John Latouche, then Jackson Pollock. But is the earth as full as life was full, of them? (1995, 258)

O’Hara’s poem—complete with laborers wearing yellow helmets and a clicking blonde chorus girl—captures, for the speaker, the beauty,

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diversity, and vitality of the moment. O’Hara frames the moment with the tragic deaths of fellow friends and artists, including the recently deceased Pollock.3 The poem offers a wonderful starting point for an exploration of O’Hara and Pollock’s shared artistic sensibilities. Its quick pace, through the use of short lines and enjambment, poetically evokes the dynamism and lyricism evident in a painting like Pollock’s Summertime: Number 9A, 1948. Like the painting, O’Hara’s energetic lines draw you along. Its images of masculinity (laborers) and charged sexuality (the Negro and chorus girl) again call to mind the iconic American painter, as well as the rhythmic physicality of his painterly technique. One need only look as far as the Namuth photos in the Evergreen Review to see such images on display: the cover shows the rebellious American painter wearing jeans in front of his beat up truck; another shot depicts the artist at work ‘‘in’’ his painting. The speaker in the poem, like Pollock, straddles two worlds. One world is populated by a ‘‘lady in foxes’’ who ‘‘puts her poodle / in a cab’’ (O’Hara 1995, 258). In the other world, one can purchase a cheeseburger and chocolate malted. Perhaps the most intriguing reference made in O’Hara’s poem is to the Manhattan Storage Warehouse: the speaker notes that the building will soon be destroyed (which is yet another death). He admits, ‘‘I / used to think they had the Armory / Show there’’ (258). His mistaken assumption invokes the famed 1913 Armory Show, a seminal event in modern American art that caused Williams, as he says, to laugh ‘‘out loud . . . happily, with relief’’ (1951a, 134). Geoff Ward notes this connection and argues that the poem is ‘‘influenced by Williams at the levels of style, literary allusion and cultural matrix’’ (2001, 57). Like O’Hara’s speaker, Williams may have faulty memories with the show. Yet O’Hara’s reference to this event in a poem written shortly after Pollock’s death amalgamates avant-garde achievement in American cultural history. In this Evergreen Review issue, O’Hara also published ‘‘Why I Am Not a Painter’’ and ‘‘On Rachmaninoff’s Birthday (Quick! A last poem before I go).’’ The former poem functions as O’Hara’s poetic declaration: ‘‘I am not a painter, I am a poet’’ (1995, 261). Notably, like Williams, O’Hara defines himself in the context of the visual arts. He even admits, ‘‘I think I would rather be / a painter, but I am not.’’ The poem then chronicles O’Hara’s visit with Mike Goldberg who tells him that he added sardines to his painting because ‘‘it needed something there.’’ When O’Hara stops days later, Goldberg has removed the sardines telling O’Hara ‘‘It was too much.’’ After this brief narra-

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tive, O’Hara then describes his own creation of ‘‘Oranges.’’ He concludes, . . . My poem is finished and I haven’t mentioned orange yet. It’s twelve poems, I call it ORANGES. And one day in a gallery I see Mike’s painting, called SARDINES. (262)

In these lines, O’Hara identifies a distinction in the mediums, yet he also identifies a commonality in the artistic process. Through the making of his poem, he learns to value his medium: ‘‘There should be / so much more, not of orange, of / words.’’ Such a discovery enables him to declare—‘‘I am a real poet.’’ O’Hara’s poem offers several key parallels to Abstract Expressionism. Barbara Guest describes it as ‘‘an exact statement of an Abstract Expressionist principle. . . . [It] is about the importance of not having a subject’’ (Lehman 1998, 344). David Lehman points out that O’Hara actually feigns spontaneity in this poem (The poem ‘‘Oranges,’’ in fact, precedes his friendship with Goldberg.) Thus, it reflects another Abstract Expressionist ‘‘lesson’’: ‘‘What looks spontaneous may really be the product of a calculation’’ (344). This point became increasingly important to Pollock amid criticism of the chaotic nature of his work. In response to Time’s 1950 article on him entitled ‘‘Chaos, Damn It!,’’ Pollock wrote a letter to the editor claiming, ‘‘NO CHAOS DAMN IT. DAMNED BUSY PAINTING’’ (Karmel 1999, 71). As he explained in an interview with William Wright, ‘‘with experience—it seems to be possible to control the flow of the paint, to a great extent . . . I don’t use the accident—‘cause I deny the accident’’ (1999, 22). Considering his admiration of Williams, O’Hara must have been thrilled with Allen’s placement of his poem right next to Williams’s ‘‘View of a Woman at Her Bath.’’ In the context of this study, their appearance on facing pages serves to concretize the poetic link between them. The other O’Hara poem appearing in the magazine, ‘‘On Rachmaninoff’s Birthday,’’ actually evokes the older Williams in his line, tone, and aesthetic of ‘‘things’’: . . . Oh my palace of oranges, junk shop, staples, umber, basalt;

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I’m a child again when I was really miserable, a grope pizzicato. My pocket of rhinestone, yoyo, carpenter’s pencil, amethyst, hypo, campaign button, is the room full of smoke? Shit on the soup, let it burn. . . . (1995, 159)

Ward, referencing Koch’s praise of O’Hara’s ‘‘things,’’ concludes that O’Hara ‘‘bestows approbation on what is basically a continuation by O’Hara of Williams’ aesthetic of inclusion’’ (2001, 53). In an issue seemingly commemorating the rebellious and imaginative Pollock, the inclusion of O’Hara and Williams certainly offers a memorable display of American avant-garde poetry.4 The use of things evident in O’Hara’s poem, which is also a staple in Williams’s verse, offers an intriguing correlation to Pollock, specifically I have in mind his landmark Full Fathom Five, 1947. The painting emerges from Pollock’s highly productive period 1947–50, what O’Hara defines as the ‘‘classical period of Pollock’’ (1975, 30). The painting’s title alludes to Shakespeare’s Tempest, as well as Joyce’s Ulysses.5 The novel has been documented as an important work to Pollock, Williams, and O’Hara.6 ‘‘There is a defiance of tradition on each page of Ulysses,’’ Ellen Landau writes, ‘‘which equates directly with Pollock’s new approach to painting’’ (1989, 174). The painting reflects Pollock’s pouring technique and ‘‘allover’’ design. Unlike a larger sized painting like Summertime Number 9A, 1948, Full Fathom Five (50 7/8 x 30 1/8 in.) appears on a relatively smaller canvas. That size seemingly contributes to the painting’s unity and intensity. Pollock’s interlacing of green, black, and silver lines with dynamic marks of orange, yellow, and purple creates a forceful, swirling effect. Along with these energetic lines and pulsating colors, Pollock adds surface depth to the painting by enveloping various objects onto the canvas—nails, cigarettes, matches, tacks, and buttons to name a few. ‘‘These objects were not obtrusive in the design,’’ Landau contends, ‘‘and Pollock allowed them to retain their individuality despite their transformed role’’ (1989, 174). Landau’s description of this transformation parallels what happens to ‘‘things’’ that O’Hara and Williams make use of in the design of their own poems. Such an approach again reflects a perceptive ability to enfold even the most common and base materials into art.

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Now it never appears that Williams met Pollock, but O’Hara did run into him a few times at the Cedar Tavern. There is, in fact, a legendary incident at the Cedar when Pollock called O’Hara a ‘‘fag’’ (Gooch 1993, 204), alluded to earlier in Kenneth Koch, a tragedy. Another time O’Hara reportedly exited the bar when he heard Pollock was on yet another ‘‘drunken rampage’’ (204). Yet O’Hara enjoyed frequenting the painter’s hangouts: ‘‘if Jackson Pollock tore the door off the men’s room in the Cedar it was something he just did and was interesting, not an annoyance. You couldn’t see into it anyway, and besides there was then a sense of genius’’ (O’Hara 1983, 169). Despite these troubling anecdotes of homophobia and violence, O’Hara clearly revered Pollock as a painter. In fact, while working on a retrospective exhibition of Pollock for the fourth Bienal in Sa˜o Paulo in 1957, he wrote to Ashbery, ‘‘How great he is! I got to select the exhibition myself’’ (Gooch 1993, 295). The exhibition actually garnered a ‘‘special commendation’’ and was, according to Gooch, O’Hara’s ‘‘first curatorial success.’’

Artists ‘‘In’’ Their Work Despite minimal evidence regarding Pollock’s interest in either poet, it still remains possible to examine his thoughts about artistry as a way of paralleling him to O’Hara and Williams.7 For the magazine Possibilities, edited by Motherwell and Harold Rosenberg, Pollock describes his technique this way: ‘‘I prefer to tack the unstretched canvas to the hard wall or the floor. I need the resistance of a hard surface. On the floor I am more at ease. I feel nearer, more a part of the painting, since this way I can walk around it, work from the four sides and literally be in the painting’’ (Karmel 1999, 17). Pollock does not claim originality for this technique—he quickly remarks that western Indians had practiced this approach. What is noteworthy in the context of Williams and O’Hara is that Pollock’s strategy of being ‘‘in’’ the painting simulates what Williams had been doing in his poetry for years and what O’Hara later mastered. You often have both poets ‘‘in’’ their poems without overwhelming them and rendering them ‘‘confessional.’’ For example, in an early poem entitled ‘‘The Young Housewife’’ (1916), Williams situates us, much like O’Hara would later do, at a specific time:

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At ten a.m. the young housewife moves about in negligee behind the wooden walls of her husband’s house. I pass solitary in my car. (1986, 57)

Although the speaker is ‘‘in’’ the poem, the structure of the stanza reflects the division he feels from the scene described. In the next section, she appears ‘‘shy, uncorseted, tucking in / stray ends of hair.’’ The speaker then self-consciously describes his attempt at creation— ‘‘and I compare her / to a fallen leaf.’’ By offering such explicit commentary on his process of seeing this young woman, the speaker / poet conveys what makes him different from the ‘‘ice-man’’ and ‘‘fish-man’’ that act almost robotically in response to her call. He literally can be more independent, more creative in his actions concerning her. Such a self-conscious expression of the creative process also permeates O’Hara’s verse. According to Raphael Schulte, O’Hara and other New York poets ‘‘focused on the relationship between the surface of their writings and their own artistic involvement and processes during the writing of poems’’ (1999, 47). Almost forty years earlier Williams had done the same thing. The third and shortest stanza of Williams’s poem moves beyond the self-conscious comparison to describe the momentary contact between the speaker and the woman—a moment Williams manages to express as it occurs— The noiseless wheels of my car rush with a crackling sound over dried leaves as I bow and pass smiling. (1986, 57)

Unlike many of O’Hara’s more famous poems, which not only place you at a specific time and specific locale, Williams’s poem can be situated on almost any street. Through a curious juxtaposition of silence and sounds, images and imaginings, he thus invites readers to participate in this intimate moment of contact. Earlier I mentioned Harold Rosenberg’s essay ‘‘The American Action Painters’’ and its possible roots in Williams’s ‘‘The Poem as a Field of Action.’’ Along with Rosenberg’s oft quoted description of the canvas as ‘‘an arena in which to act,’’ he describes the concurrent meanings intrinsic to a ‘‘moment’’ of painterly action. He explains,

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‘‘The painting itself is a ‘moment’ in the adulterated mixture of his life—whether ‘moment’ means the actual minutes taken up with spotting the canvas or the entire duration of a lucid drama conducted in sign language. The act-painting is of the same metaphysical substance as the artist’s existence. The new painting has broken down every distinction between art and life’’ (1965, 27–28). In this way, the action painting releases the ‘‘artist’s individual possibilities.’’ It also invites the viewer to participate imaginatively in the subtle nuances of spontaneity and design intrinsic to this creative moment. It seems to me that in an early poem like ‘‘The Young Housewife’’ Williams achieves such an effect. In a later poem, ‘‘The Right of Way’’ (1923), Williams describes another scene that he is a part of and apart from. Again, he sets his poem in action-oriented space—‘‘the right of way’’ on the road. By the ‘‘virtue of the law,’’ the speaker can ‘‘enjoy’’ this place (1986, 205), which currently preoccupies his imaginative focus. Such a poem achieves its pace through Williams’s tightly constructed short lines and enjambment. It recreates the speaker’s imaginative motion—the ‘‘passing’’ of his mind—and the corresponding images that bombard his eyes. In this transitory space, he observes a smiling ‘‘elderly man,’’ a laughing ‘‘woman in blue,’’ and ‘‘a boy of eight’’ (1986, 205–6). Despite the unity of the scene, each looks in a different direction. The elderly man ‘‘looked away’’ from the others; meanwhile, the woman ‘‘look[s] up’’ into the man’s face while the boy stares ‘‘looking’’ at a watchchain upon ‘‘the man’s belly.’’ In contrast to an earlier poem like ‘‘Pastoral’’ that directly asserts the scene’s cultural significance, this poem ambiguously asserts the ‘‘supreme importance’’ of this ‘‘nameless spectacle.’’ The moment is indeed important and evades quick categorization from a speaker who also looks, but moves past them ‘‘without a word.’’ Witnessing this moment, though, does affect him as he continues to drive: ‘‘Why bother where I went?’’ (206). He becomes one with the ‘‘spinning’’ of his car and the ‘‘wet road.’’ This lasts until, as he states, ‘‘I saw a girl with one leg / over the rail of a balcony.’’ Once again, his insularity and confinement get disrupted when looking upon an arresting and ambiguous image. Is the girl disfigured? Suicidal? Stealing away? Tempting? This time he doesn’t even allude to the image’s ‘‘supreme importance’’; rather, the image has the profound effect of concluding the poem, even eluding the confinement of punctuation.8 O’Hara appears in more personal terms than Williams throughout

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what he labels his ‘‘I do this, I do that’’ poems. He understood what painters like Pollock offered poets: ‘‘I think certain poets have been very much inspired by American painting. You know, not in the sense of subject matter, or anything like that, but in the ambition to be that, to be the work yourself, and therefore accomplish it’’ (1983, 17). O’Hara pulls this off masterfully. For instance, in the aforementioned ‘‘Why I Am Not a Painter,’’ he continually plays upon the idea of being ‘‘in’’ the poem—whether it’s stopping ‘‘in’’ at Mike’s, the gallery, or even his own poem (1995, 261–62). According to Sweet, ‘‘O’Hara uses his immediate situation to shatter the edifice of the selfportrait. In this way, he avoids the trap of confessional poetry’’ (2000, 386). Such an approach engenders uniqueness. In trying to elucidate the painter’s influence, John Ashbery suggests that they offered ‘‘abstract truths’’: ‘‘something like Be yourself . . . nobody ever thought he would scatter words over a page the way Pollock scattered his drips’’(Ferguson 1999, 25). By ‘‘being in the poem’’ therefore, O’Hara, like Williams, creates not only a work identifiable with him, but also a revelatory poem available for other readers to experience imaginatively. In his 1947 essay ‘‘Revelation,’’ Williams articulates this goal. He says, ‘‘[t]he objective in writing is, to reveal. It is not to teach, not to advertise, not to sell, not even to communicate (for that needs two) but to reveal, which needs no other than the man himself’’ (1954, 268). Williams’s idea seems related to what a poem like ‘‘The Right of Way’’ achieves—its grounding in the ordinary, yet through imaginative contact it celebrates a ‘‘nameless spectacle.’’ O’Hara subscribes to this artistic objective, as evident in his review of John Rechy’s City of Night, which he claims falls short of such revelation (1983, 163). Conversely in his poem ‘‘Digression on ‘Number 1,’ 1948,’’ he represents Pollock’s accomplishment of it. In typical O’Hara fashion, he describes a day in the life. Yet on this day he is ill, but maybe, as he says, ‘‘not too ill’’ (1995, 260). This correction of his state of well-being is important to note. As Libby suggests, ‘‘What is ‘corrected’ is not erased, not completely painted over, but left to enrich the general texture; the sense of acting personality comes from the poet’s constant movement through various perspectives’’ (1990, 146). This contradictoriness reveals a genuine complexity in the speaker. Despite such contradictions, ‘‘warm / for winter, cold for fall,’’ he asserts that it’s ‘‘A fine day for seeing’’ (1995, 260). What he sees are works by Miro´,

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Le´ger, and Picasso. The poem shifts dramatically upon the encounter with Pollock’s oil on canvas: There is the Pollock, white, harm will not fall, his perfect hand and the many short voyages. They’ll never fence the silver range. Stars are out and there is sea enough beneath the glistening earth to bear me toward the future which is not so dark. I see. (260)

The reference to the Pollock, as compared to the other works, privileges its effect on the speaker. The painting itself is notable for its size (68  8⬘8), reflecting Pollock’s exploration of larger canvases. The painting also includes handprints upon several edges. Several critics have noted this as further evidence of Pollock’s presence in the painting, an incarnation of his earlier statement for Possibilities.9 O’Hara’s speaker himself seems particularly drawn to that outlying image, as suggested in the reference to ‘‘his perfect hand.’’ It’s worthwhile to note that in his Pollock monograph O’Hara describes the actual handprints of the painting as ‘‘the seemingly bloodstained hands of the painter’’ and they function as ‘‘a postscript to a terrible experience’’ (1975, 31). Considering such a reading, the speaker’s identification with this painting suggests something of his own ‘‘dark’’ feelings and experiences on this day. Despite this darkness, though, Pollock’s expansive creative expression offers the poet a means to ‘‘see’’ the world in a way that dramatically bolsters and re-energizes him. In Pollock’s painting, he sees an imagination refusing to be fenced in by traditional expectations and limitations. The largeness of the canvas draws in the spectator, almost consumes him. Upon closer exploration, one perceives the subtle use of color—yellows amid the more dominant bluish-gray, black, and white. The painting itself offers an energetic interweaving of line and color that emits both force and gracefulness. In describing Pollock’s line, Michael Fried draws upon the paintings optical power: ‘‘It is a kind of space-filling curve of immense complexity, responsive to the slightest impulse of the painter and responsive as well, one almost

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feels, to one’s own act of looking’’ (2005, 257). This reading seems true in the case of O’Hara’s poem. Both painting and poem reveal the power of such art to move us beyond our own isolation. O’Hara offers a telling statement about Pollock’s work from this period: ‘‘It is about what we see, about what we can see. In the works of this period we are not concerned with possibility, but actuality’’ (1975, 32).10 Number 1, 1948 offers him such an actuality.

Action Artistry Action and revelation seem linked in the works discussed so far. The two Williams poems previously cited offer instances of action-oriented poetry. Another poem, ‘‘January Morning: Suite’’ offers another compelling example of this aesthetic. The poem features a ferry ride on the Hudson River during an early January morning. The speaker, although not in ‘‘real time’’ at the poem’s opening, depicts various local images the speaker finally seems to be able to see. Because it is early morning, ‘‘the domes of the Church of / the Paulist Fathers in Weehawken’’ can be seen as ‘‘beautiful as Saint Peters / approached after years of anticipation’’ (1986, 100). Unashamedly the speaker compares the new world with the old, thus deconstructing a hierarchal privilege of traditional aesthetics and creating an opening for seeing different types of beauty. John Lowney puts the importance of the scene this way: it ‘‘affirms the aesthetic value of New World spontaneity, contrasted to the more rational Old World ‘anticipation’ ’’ (1997, 33). It is this ‘‘discovery’’ of the local beauty that heightens the speaker’s attentiveness to detail and enables him to record more keenly what he sees—‘‘the tall probationers,’’ ‘‘a young horse with a green bed-quilt,’’ and ‘‘dirt-colored men / about a fire bursting from an old / ash can’’ (Williams, 1986, 101). The poet’s eye does not discriminate between the moving images that he sees— the sacredness of the church is no more valued than the vision of the horse. According to poet/critic David Young, this series of images is comparable to ‘‘turning the pages of a sketchbook, inspecting a display of photographs, or watching a film . . . All the analogies involve a sense of movement, one that feels rapid and energetic’’ (2006, 72). The movement of the ferry, ironically called Arden, seems to shift the speaker from what he ‘‘saw’’ to what he ‘‘is.’’ Section X declares

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The young doctor is dancing with happiness in the sparkling wind, alone at the prow of the ferry! . . . (1986, 102)

The transformation, as evident through the exclamation points throughout the stanza, marks the speaker’s exuberance in this moment. Despite the immediate unattractiveness of the things he notices, ‘‘curdy barnacles’’ and ‘‘broken ice crusts,’’ the doctor’s imagination is triggered and acutely alive. The perception of the movements surrounding him results in his own celebratory rhythmic motion. In the next section, he asserts what he now knows—there is something beyond the largeness of ‘‘the moody / water-loving giants of Manhattan’’ (103). There is ‘‘the Palisades,’’ the break of the river, and those ‘‘little peering houses that brighten / with dawn.’’ These active moving images—the boat, the dancing doctor, the ‘‘sparkling wind’’—are subsequently framed by death in section XIII: Work hard all your young days and they’ll find you too, some morning staring up under your chiffonier at its warped bass-wood bottom and your soul— out! —among the little sparrows behind the shutter. (103)

The use of that personal pronoun ‘‘you’’ creates ambiguity about the reference—is it the young doctor or the reader being addressed? Either way you read it, death—an assured feature of the human condition—touches us all, poet and reader alike. Later on in the poem, the ‘‘flapping flags’’ are at half-mast for the more famous ‘‘dead admiral.’’ Young notes, ‘‘death is still something final, however marked or commemorated’’ (2006, 86). The speaker’s recognition of this truth ultimately enables a more powerful contact with these momentary impressions. The finality and connectivity of death, especially in relation to famous personages, is evident in one of O’Hara’s most famous ‘‘I do this, I do that’’ poems, ‘‘The Day Lady Died.’’ In this poem, O’Hara recounts the lunch time errands he makes on July 17, 1959. His prepa-

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ration for the weekend includes a shoeshine and lunch, as well as fairly routine stops at the bank, the Golden Griffin, and the Park Lane Liquor Store. Yet in the tobacconist in the Ziegfeld Theatre, he experiences a profound moment. It’s there where he ‘‘casually’’ asks for a carton of Galuloises and Picayunes: . . . and a NEW YORK POST with her face on it and I am sweating a lot by now and thinking of leaning on the john door in the 5 SPOT while she whispered a song along the keyboard to Mal Waldron and everyone and I stopped breathing (1995, 325)

The news of this day—Billie Holiday’s death—stops the poet. The death crystallizes the significance of this actual moment. O’Hara manages to draw us into his particular experience—complete with a memory of her singing. The once rapid pace of the poem slows down significantly, and O’Hara masterfully connects us all, poet, dead singer, and reader, to the moment when ‘‘everyone and I stopped breathing.’’ In this way O’Hara transcribes the news of his day into news for all days, not solely about Holiday’s death, but about the potential of art—her song/his poem—to connect us all in the moment. It epitomizes Williams’s comment on artistic creation in Spring and All. ‘‘[T]he artist does exactly what every eye must do with life,’’ Williams explains, ‘‘fix the particular with the universality of his own’’ (1986, 193). O’Hara’s poem expresses this idea. His particular lunch hour experiences connect to those beyond his immediate experience of that Friday afternoon. He offers the reader a chance to, as Williams says in Kora in Hell, ‘‘mingle in the dance’’ of imagination (1970, 59). Williams’s ‘‘January Morning,’’ which is not as compact as O’Hara’s poem, clearly does not have the same dramatic impact as O’Hara’s discovery of Holiday’s death. Yet there is that same awareness of death amid life that causes the poet to be arrested in his contemplation and expression of the moment. Also, there is that transcendent sense of momentary connectivity through death. Even people like the great admiral and the great Billie Holiday die—that’s part of what heightens the actual significance of the moment. Young asserts the following in regard to Williams’s poem: ‘‘We die, all of us, as individuals. Yet something persists, something lives on, connecting us to the light and

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movement that exist around us in the seasons and cities we inhabit’’ (2006, 86–87). Young’s almost Emersonian expression, highlights the import of movement not only in Williams’s poem, but in a poem like O’Hara’s that focuses so intensely on time, movement, and death. The final section (XV) of ‘‘January Morning’’ pays tribute to a specific woman, noted in drafts as ‘‘Mother’’ (1986, 489). Although the opening lines of this section are directed at the old woman, they seem to speak to those who may be entrenched in the old ways of thinking about poetry and art. I wanted to write a poem that you could understand. For what good is it to me if you can’t understand it? But you got to try hard— (103–4)

It’s clear through this direct remark that Williams wants to engage his readers. Yet, he also demands that they equal this effort. He then describes himself with a curious comparison to ‘‘young girls [who] run giggling / on Park Avenue after dark’’ (104). This self-description contrasts with the staid older woman who presides at the opening of the section. It projects a sense of rebellion, action, and quickness. For David Young, this poem is representative of Williams’s aesthetic: ‘‘If his poems are machines made out of words, they tend to be built for speed. His line, his diction, his handling of form, and even his punctuation all contribute to our sense that his poems reflect the restless, rapid pace of modern American life, a world of business, hurry, and constant change’’ (2006, 73). Young has it right. In fact, his close reading of this poem illustrates how necessary it is to understand Williams’s aesthetic of motion and immediacy. As evident in these poems, action plays a central role in the Williams and O’Hara poetic aesthetic. To heighten its value to these poets and to Pollock, it may help to refer again to Ralph Waldo Emerson. Art historian Matthew Baigell offers an intriguing reading of action in accordance with Emersonian thinking. ‘‘For Pollock,’’ he argues, ‘‘action was important because it underlined his active presence’’ (2001, 145). He then cites the following lines from Emerson’s ‘‘SelfReliance’’ as an explanation for such action-oriented paintings: ‘‘Power ceases in the instant of repose; it resides in the moment of

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transition from a past to a new state’’ (129). He goes on to cite Emerson’s further assertion ‘‘that the soul becomes’’ as he explains that these paintings offer evidence of ‘‘Pollock’s soul in the process of becoming . . . in discovering its own qualities, its own powers, its own true voice.’’ Although I value Professor Baigell’s reading of Pollock’s drip paintings in the context of Emerson’s essay, I am hesitant to extend the point fully to Williams or O’Hara. To me, neither poet seems to achieve that same mystical sense of ‘‘becoming’’ through his poems. Nevertheless, that sense of power through action and stasis through repose seems a fundamental feature of the creative process inherent in these men and their artistry. ‘‘Against the Weather,’’ an essay Williams published in 1939, expresses some further parallels between Williams and Pollock’s action artistry. For starters, Williams touts the importance of the artist in action-oriented terms. He claims, ‘‘The artist is to be understood not as occupying some outlying section of the field of action but the whole field’’ (1969, 197). One thinks of Pollock’s action-oriented technique emphasizing directness, movement, and space—the painter’s presence in his work. In language that seems inspired by Emerson’s ‘‘The American Scholar,’’ Williams explains that ‘‘[t]he artist is to be conceived as a universal man of action—restricted by circumstances to a field in which only he can remain alive, whole and effective.’’ Yet in contrast to Emerson’s advocacy for the liberating power of symbols, Williams maintains that the artist ‘‘does not translate the sensuality of his materials into symbols but deals with them directly. By this he belongs to his world and time, sensually, realistically’’ (197). A work like Pollock’s Full Fathom Five, with its use of disparate materials enfolded upon the canvas, almost seems to enact Williams’s idea. Williams’s ‘‘The Non-Entity’’ (1950), a poem written at the height of Pollock’s artistry, even evokes qualities of action painting. The opening stanza portrays vivid images of ‘‘cramped’’ trees in descriptive color (‘‘rusty-gold green’’) and definable shapes (‘‘cone-shaped’’). In the second stanza, the focus narrows to ‘‘a maple solitary / upon the wood’s face’’ (1988, 225). Toward the conclusion of the stanza, the ocean becomes an active creating force that ‘‘roars’’ and ‘‘rocks’’ the mind, janistically pours autumn, shaking nerves of color over it (225)

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The ocean’s power is evocative here as action verbs dominate the lines. The final stanza in particular invokes an image of the ocean as a Pollock-like action painter. For starters, though, it is necessary to consider the complicated term ‘‘janistically.’’ Chris MacGowan notes that it is a ‘‘non-word’’ and suggests that Williams may have intended ‘‘jansenistically,’’ a term related to Jansenism and the denial of free will (1984, 484).11 Building from that suggestion, the use of the word may imply that the creative force here asserts control of the pouring that takes place. Pollock, it should be recalled, denied the accident. The ensuing expression, ‘‘pours autumn,’’ conjures up Pollock’s technique, particularly when associated with ‘‘shaking nerves / of color.’’ Williams often used the term ‘‘nerves’’ in connection with the Abstract Expressionists, most notably Pollock, to portray what he perceived as a Freudian-inspired process of painting. In the context of Williams’s poem, it’s also worth mentioning Pollock’s famous response to Hans Hoffman’s critique of his work. ‘‘You do not work from nature,’’ Hoffman reportedly remarked to Pollock (Karmel 1999, 28). Pollock’s retort—‘‘I am Nature’’—expresses a surety in his artistic powers and the work he has been creating. As Carter Ratcliff points out, such a claim was not new with Pollock: ‘‘authentic art is the work of those who embody natural forces’’ (1996, 69). Williams’s poem expresses that sense of authentic expression derived from a Pollock-like technique. In this way, he portrays a real imaginative force that ultimately ‘‘rocks the mind.’’

The Need for Newness For Williams, Pollock and these other abstractionists were responding to the challenge of representing the ‘‘newness’’ innately inherent in modernity. In ‘‘The Poem as a Field of Action,’’ he describes it as the need to find ‘‘a new measure or a new way of measuring that will be commensurate with the social, economic world in which we are living’’ (1969, 283). As previously discussed, he saw Motherwell honoring this ‘‘new vision’’ in his medium (1978, 215). Jackson Pollock, during a 1950 interview with William Wright, describes in Williamslike fashion the same objective: ‘‘My opinion is that new needs need new techniques. And the modern artists have found new ways and new means of making their statements. It seems to me that the modern painter cannot express this age, the airplane, the atom bomb, the

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radio, in the old forms of the Renaissance or of any other past culture. Each age finds its own technique’’ (Karmel 1999, 20). Williams’s appreciation for Pollock’s artistry becomes even clearer when reading Paterson V. Here are some telling lines from part 1: —the virgin and the whore, which most endures? the world of the imagination most endures: Pollock’s blobs of paint squeezed out with design! pure from the tube. Nothing else is real . . (1992, 211)

Henry Sayre describes these lines as a ‘‘celebration of the plastic reality of art’’ (1983, 126), one that Williams desired in his own verse. ‘‘The formal purity of poetry is achieved not in its saying,’’ Sayre writes, ‘‘. . . but in its visual shaping’’ (126). In Williams’s lines, the old poet identifies with Pollock’s later technique—one adopted after critics felt his greatness ebbed. Elizabeth Frank, however, contends that Pollock continued to experiment and push himself beyond his old forms: ‘‘He took chances, and did not automatically rule out possibilities, not only pouring but applying paint right from the tube in the thick impasto of Number 28, 1951, and trailing yellow, red, blue, and white over the complex black and white network of Convergence: Number 10, 1952’’ (1983, 97). By referencing this particular technique in the above lines, the older Williams identifies with the younger painter’s desire to push beyond artistic stagnancy. As he asserts in a note to Paterson V, ‘‘I had to take the world of Paterson into a new dimension if I wanted to give it imaginative validity’’ (1992, xv). Such a concept seems related to another Emersonian ideal. In ‘‘Circles,’’ he describes himself as ‘‘only an experimenter.’’ He writes, ‘‘I unsettle all things. No facts to me are sacred; none are profane; I simply experiment, an endless seeker, with no past at my back’’ (2001, 180). Such an experimental pursuit—whether successful or not—remains evident not only in Williams and Pollock’s works, but as we will come to see in David Smith’s as well. Notably Williams does not reference a particular Pollock painting, but rather a figural representation of Pollock’s technique. In a section of Paterson dominated by specific works of art—most notably the

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medieval Unicorn Tapestries and Brueghel’s The Adoration of the Magi—this reference to technique takes on special significance, especially in regard to Williams’s attention to artistic making. In early drafts of Book V, Williams does not identify the blobs of paint with Pollock. When he first introduces the lines, handwritten on the margins, they appear as ‘‘a blob of paint squeezed pure from the tube’’ (Williams Papers).12 The use of the word ‘‘pure’’ has intriguing connotations given Williams’s past usage. In an earlier work The Embodiment of Knowledge, Williams writes that ‘‘In painting, the pure is design. It is painting itself’’ (117). He also relates this principle to the notion of ‘‘pure writing,’’ which he sees as an art and quite distinct from journalism. Ultimately, in Williams’s drafting of Paterson V, he sought to identify this ‘‘pure’’ inherently artistic act with a specific artist. In subsequent drafts, when introducing Pollock’s name, he also introduced the concept of ‘‘design,’’ another crucial concept for both painter and poet (Williams Papers).13 Later in his artistic life Williams desired to ‘‘fuse’’ the ‘‘design’’ of poetry and painting as an ‘‘abstract work’’ (1976, 53). ‘‘[S]ometimes when I write,’’ he told Walter Sutton, ‘‘I don’t want to say anything. I just want to present it. . . . I don’t care whether it’s representational or not.’’ He then went on to stress the importance of design in both poetry and painting: ‘‘A design in the poem and a design in the picture should make them more or less the same thing.’’ O’Hara seems particularly responsive to Williams’s concern with the concept of design, as evident in his notes ‘‘Design etc.’’ for a 1952 talk at The Club (1983, 33). To differentiate his use of the term ‘‘design’’ from ‘‘form,’’ he even used a Williams poem. He then offered the following definition: . . . design is the point where the poet can hold his ground in the impasse between formal smothering and emotional spilling over. In this sense design need not be apparent typographically, it is a clearheaded, poetry-respecting objectivity, without which the most sublime and inspired love lyrics or hate-chants would be muddy rantings. As the poem is being written, air comes in, and light, the form is loosened here and there, remarks join the perhaps too consistently felt images, a rhyme becomes assonant instead of regular, or avoided all together. . . . All these things help the poem to mean only what it itself means, become its own poem, so to speak, not the typical poem of a self-pitying or infatuated writer. (1983, 35)

O’Hara’s explanation offers some clarity to the shadowy ground that exists between an adherence to form and a desire for spontaneity. The

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goal he articulates correlates with Williams’s well-known call to break free from the constraints of formal structures. Nowhere is this clearer than in Williams’s essay ‘‘The Poem as a Field of Action’’ (1948). Here he asserts his desire ‘‘to find an objective way at least of looking at verse and to redefine its elements’’ (1969, 286). For Williams this redefinition seems rooted in the language, and offers the poet an ‘‘opportunity to expand the structure, the basis, the actual making of the poem’’ (291). For Williams, Pollock’s adherence to some aspect of design functions as a critical feature for his own understanding and acceptance of the painter’s style. As stated earlier, it is difficult to argue that Williams championed Pollock and Abstract Expressionism. In many ways, though, he sees the artist and the movement as an outgrowth of earlier modernist movements. An intriguing link to this notion appears in two letters to Charles Sheeler from this period. In these letters, Williams references both the imagery and ideas found in Paterson V. In the earlier of the two letters (January 29, 1959), he correlates Sheeler with the movement: ‘‘you were a pioneer in the dominence [sic] of abstract color in your canvasses’’ (1959a, Sheeler Papers).14 As he elaborates, though, he marks a distinction between Sheeler and these later painters: ‘‘You wanted structure in your objects until the abstractionist come along with no relation to anything human. It is a further breakdown until nothing is left, no color but a blob, a Roarshk test, a study of a man’s nervous system seen from the inside. It’s going a long way to learn to relax the nerves. Maybe it’s worth it, I don’t know.’’ Obviously the image of the blob and its schizophrenic qualities offers a blending of Williams’s earlier images and ideas related to Pollock. Williams remains skeptical of such artistry, but he also leaves the door open to its value. In response to Williams’s comments and concerns, Sheeler shares with Williams his own uncertainty over the abstractionist. In a June 10, 1959, letter written to Flossie, Sheeler writes, ‘‘I am as puzzled as Bill by the present scene—the de Koonings, etc. etc. I don’t go farther than saying I don’t understand. I don’t want to repeat the same mistakes that were made in the past when there are so many mistakes that are different which can be made. . . . It seems the present can only be evaluated in retrospect. I will have to continue in the small circle of my belief for better or worse’’ (Williams Papers). Sheeler’s own puzzlement is important to note. As well respected as Williams is for his artistic appreciation, he did not consider himself a painter. Conse-

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quently Sheeler’s admission puts Williams’s own uncertainty over Abstract Expressionism in good company. Sheeler’s effort not to judge also mirrors Williams’s own. Both older artists understand the dangers of harsh, uninformed judgment on imaginative expression. Another intriguing aspect of Williams’s letter to Sheeler is the distinction that he draws between Sheeler’s ‘‘structure’’ and the abstractionist lack of it. This idea runs counter to the concept of ‘‘design’’ that Williams appears to associate with Pollock in Paterson and that Pollock insisted on to William Wright (‘‘I deny the accident’’). Yet in a later letter to Sheeler, dated June 8, 1959, Williams offers a more direct, fuller explanation of his belief in design and abstraction. The letter begins by establishing common ground between Ben Shahn and Sheeler: ‘‘his head was clear, as yours is clear in the matter of design and if painting is not a matter of design primarily it looses half its effectiveness’’ (1959b, Sheeler Papers). Williams then relays Edith Halpert and Henry Niese’s ‘‘concern’’ over the future of abstract paintings. He offers Halpert’s assessment: ‘‘She appears to me to be convinced that some modicum of design, conscious design is at the back of all this activity.’’ Williams also mentions that Niese, a young painter whom he respected, did find value among the Abstract Expressionists: he ‘‘much admires De Kooning but does not imitate him.’’ According to Niese, during his first visit to Rutherford, he talked with Williams about art—‘‘particularly Kline, de Kooning, and abstract expressionism. He didn’t quite know what to make of it. I think the absence of a recognizable image had him buffaloed for a while’’ (1983, 689). Although playful in closing his letter to Sheeler, Williams appears to adhere to Halpert’s belief about ‘‘design’’: ‘‘You go on with your inhuman but never cruel forms . design is at the back of it. Design is beatific . perhaps angelic.’’ He signs-off, ‘‘Bless you, Bill’’ (1959b, Sheeler Papers). Despite the humorous tone, his emphasis upon design in effective painting is reminiscent of his previously cited response to Walter Sutton. Consequently his crediting of Pollock’s ‘‘blobs of paint’’ in Paterson V with the principle of design, which he correlates with the work of close friends like Shahn and Sheeler, suggests Williams’s ultimate belief in the ‘‘real’’ power of Pollock’s artistry. Williams’s reference to Niese in this letter is also important. Williams had written about Niese two years earlier in a broadsheet for an exhibition catalogue of his work at the ‘‘G’’ Gallery in New York City

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(Dijkstra 1969, 266). Williams found Niese’s work quite impressive. He even wrote the poem ‘‘Jersey Lyric’’ in response to Niese’s lithograph Jersey Composition (Mariani 1981, 759). He wrote to Denise Levertov, ‘‘Saw some paintings of a young New Jersey painter who lives about 40 miles from us in country district about Lake Hopatcong that are quite marvellous today; thrilling work, actual records of life but NOT abstracted for a patterned to appeal to a geometric unity’’ (1998, 41). In his essay, he touts Niese as seeking a ‘‘new way of life as well as a new way of painting it’’ (1978, 231). This brief commentary on Niese also offers one of Williams’s strongest, most direct critiques of abstraction: ‘‘I have noticed, in seeing the previews at the movies, that they are far more exciting than the finished pictures. That is because we see them graphically, unburdened by the banal story. Abstract painting has missed the point, we are not so much interested in those cerebral exercises, as in freeing the real from its boring implications: we want to recognize our lives but not the tiresome scenes and fellows which and whom we know all too well’’ (231). Williams equates abstraction with a failed mental exercise—it has offered freedom from the real but a freedom into what? The next year when Paterson V appears, though, Williams is not only correlating Pollock’s ‘‘blobs of paint’’ with ‘‘design,’’ but he also correlates the notion of the ‘‘real’’ with abstraction: ‘‘pure from the tube. Nothing else / is real’’ (1992, 211). In consideration of the Niese piece, therefore, Williams’s Paterson V suggests a change in thinking about Pollock’s artistic ability to ultimately free ‘‘the real from its boring implications.’’ Like O’Hara’s lunch hour walk in ‘‘A Step Away from Them,’’ which commemorates Pollock’s death, Williams follows the lines in Paterson V about Pollock’s ‘‘blobs of paint’’ with an emphasis on being a part of the world: WALK in the world (you can’t see anything from a car window, still less from a plane, or from the moon!? Come off of it.) (1992, 211)

Significantly both poets’ Pollock references correlate the activity of walking with the immediacy of being a part of the thing you create. Both O’Hara and Williams also emphasize ‘‘seeing.’’ These connec-

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tions further parallel the process of action painting, which Pollock made famous. O’Hara describes it this way: ‘‘Only the artist who has reached this state [of clarity] should be indicated by Harold Rosenberg’s well-known designation Action Painter, for only when he is in this state is the artist’s ‘action’ significant purely and simply of itself. Works of this nature are new in the history of Western civilization’’ (1975, 26). The ideas of clarity, newness, and the notion of ‘‘unimpeded force and unveiled honesty’’ speaks not only to Pollock’s work, but to O’Hara’s and Williams’s poetry as well. The imagination bursts forth in the final book of Paterson—renewed and reinvigorated. As old and decrepit as the poet has become, the creative process enables him to transcend the finiteness of his situation. A final intriguing association between Williams, O’Hara, and Pollock concerns their mastery of the line. For Williams and O’Hara, their control over shorter lines and strategic line breaks are unparalleled. Pollock was no different in his own medium. As O’Hara remarks, Pollock had ‘‘an amazing ability to quicken a line by thinning it, to slow it by flooding, to elaborate that simplest of elements, the line—to change, to reinvigorate, to extend, to build up an embarrassment of riches in the mass by drawing alone’’ (1975, 32). The lines in Paterson Book V illustrate what Williams learns, in part, from artists like Pollock. As Mariani asserts, ‘‘Williams was using a sharp, jagged tercet or—less frequently—a quatrain without benefit of any punctuation beyond an initial capital. What he achieved with this form was a sense of speed where line breaks kept cutting against syntax. The result was a fine tension between the ‘meaning’ of a line and the presence of the line as a formal entity with as much solidity as pigment squeezed out onto a canvas’’ (1981, 726). Clearly Mariani’s description of Williams’s technique echoes Pollock’s own. He, in fact, describes Williams’s ‘‘The Desert Music’’ as a type of Pollock ‘‘action painting’’ with its concern over ‘‘process’’ and the ‘‘need to locate the moment of life-sustaining inspiration’’ (1981, 635). To see the poet’s work described in this way heightens Pollock’s subtle influence upon Williams at this time. In his statement to Book V, which was originally conceived as four books, he says, ‘‘I have come to understand not only that many changes have occurred to me and the world, but I have been forced to recognize that there can be no end to such a story I have envisioned’’ (1992, xv). In a similar way, Pollock’s late paintings reflect a struggle to create what Williams calls ‘‘imaginative validity.’’ As noted earlier, Frank argues that Pollock did

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not ‘‘repeat himself.’’ Despite the well-documented turbulence of his final years, he managed to create praiseworthy works like The Deep (1953) and (Scent) (1953–55). Take The Deep for example. Leonhard Emmerling asserts that Pollock’s placement of colors ‘‘runs counter to his earlier practice of setting the entire picture plane in rhythmical vibration’’ (2003, 82). Pollock uses white to almost entirely cover the canvas and swallow a central darkness; in fact, several white lines cross this gap and appear to be initiating the process of absolute coverage. Lest one take away something too uplifting about the whiteness bridging this blackness, it may help to recall Melville’s ‘‘The Whiteness of the Whale’’ in Moby Dick, a work seemingly evoked by Pollock’s title. There Melville conveys the complexity of white’s meaning and the nothingness that it holds for the meditative Ishmael. Like the forlorn wanderer Ishmael, The Deep reflects an artist continuing to explore the depths of his medium. The innate inventiveness of Pollock’s imagination incessantly struggled to push beyond repetition and traditional limitations. Williams could understand that desire even late in life. Paterson V after all opens with the speaker consumed by old age, diminishing creativity, and death: ‘‘death is a hole / in which we are all buried’’ (1992, 210–11). In part, Pollock’s artistry offered Williams a key for escape. O’Hara, for one, enthusiastically praised Pollock’s much-maligned late works. He describes Blue Poles (1952) as ‘‘one of the great masterpieces of Western art’’ (1975, 37) and The Deep (1953) as ‘‘a scornful, technical masterpiece’’ (38). According to curator Waldo Rasmussen, O’Hara challenged ‘‘the prevailing view that Pollock’s gift had dried out and convinced that for all their undeniable unevenness the late works were pointing in new directions’’ (Gooch 1993, 295). Established art critics, most notably Clement Greenberg, scoffed at O’Hara’s adulatory and poetic art critiques. Yet O’Hara unabashedly praised Pollock. ‘‘This is the affirmation of an artist,’’ O’Hara writes, ‘‘who was totally conscious of risk, defeat, and triumph. He lived the first, defied the second, and achieved the last’’ (1975, 39). Like Williams, O’Hara found inspiration in Pollock’s artistry. The poem ‘‘Ode on Causality,’’ originally entitled ‘‘Ode at the Grave of Jackson Pollock,’’ offers a poignant expression of this inspiration.15 In neo-Romantic fashion, O’Hara’s poem expresses praise for the painter through a child’s voice. A little girl runs away from Pollock’s bronze grave marker indicating to the speaker that the painter is not in the ground, but among the surrounding trees. The speaker then prays for

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‘‘strength and vitality’’ to enhance his artistic technique (Perloff 1998, 214): . . . make me be distant and imaginative make my lines thin as ice, then swell like pythons the color of Aurora when she first brought fire to the Arctic in a sled a sexual bliss inscribe upon the page of whatever energy I burn for art (1995, 302)

The poet finds in the painter a guiding force for his own creative efforts. He desires both the imaginative vibrancy and subtle control inherent in Pollock’s work. Like Williams, he connects the notion of artistic imagination to Pollock’s renowned technique and talent. By aligning these three artists, we are witness to a unique expression of artistic synergy in postwar America. The Evergreen Review offers a concrete expression of this relationship. However, its importance stretches beyond one issue of this literary magazine. To better appreciate the link between Williams and O’Hara’s poetry, it’s essential to examine their connection to Pollock. They both respond, in particular, to the painter’s creative design, unflagging experimentation, and desire to represent, in all of its honesty and vitality, what Williams describes in Paterson V as the ‘‘hole / in the bottom of the bag’’ (1992, 210).

4 ‘‘A Blossoming of the Spirit’’: Williams, Emanuel Romano, and the Authenticity of Artistic Expression THROUGHOUT THE LATE 1940S AND EARLY 1950S, WILLIAM CARLOS Williams was close to the center of the New York School of painters.1 Yet this geographic proximity did not result in a great deal of interaction with this younger generation of artists. As previously discussed, Williams briefly corresponded with Robert Motherwell and notably references him in ‘‘The American Spirit in Art’’ (1951). He never met Jackson Pollock. However, as mentioned in the preceding chapter, he does reference the famed Action Painter in several writings, most memorably in Paterson, Book V. He never, at least in my reading, references the works of important artists like Franz Kline or David Smith. At this time when American artists were emerging as central figures in the avant-garde, Williams was instead developing a close personal relationship with a New York painter, the Italian born Emanuel Romano, son of famed Jewish sculptor Henryk (Enrico) Glicenstein. Such a friendship once again shows that creative individuals like Williams follow their unique instincts and curiosities, not the predictable paths convenient to scholars. The relationship started with Romano painting Williams’s portrait, yet it also resulted in Williams writing ‘‘The Portrait’’ (1951) and ‘‘The Broken Vase’’ (1957). Besides their commentary on Romano’s artistry, these essays and his interaction with the painter reveal Williams’s continuing interest in artistic experimentation and also his uncertainty about its meaning and direction within the contemporary art scene. Now, this chapter will focus almost exclusively on the Williams and Romano relationship. O’Hara, from my research to date, seems to have been unaware of Romano’s work. Part of his silence, no doubt, stems from the timeframe of his arrival in New York. O’Hara did not 98

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start living in the city until August of 1951 (Gooch 1993, 189). By that time, though, much of the public attention for Romano’s work had dissipated. Only two notices for a Romano exhibition appear in the New York Times during O’Hara’s time in the city—both for his exhibition at the Passedoit Gallery in December, 1951.2 Early in this same month, O’Hara, who was inspired to be around a Matisse retrospective, started working at the Museum of Modern Art as a sales clerk (Gooch 1993, 207). No doubt the Matisse exhibition and new job overshadowed O’Hara’s possible notice of any Romano showing.3 The museum also never acquired any of Romano’s paintings. Besides these personal disconnects, O’Hara appeared drawn to abstract art rather than the more figurative work that Romano produced during this period. Some past critical explorations of Williams’s Romano essays have viewed them amid a broader art study. For instance, Henry Sayre briefly references ‘‘The Broken Vase’’ in The Visual Text of William Carlos Williams for what the essay says about Pollock and Abstract Expressionism. In William Carlos Williams and the Maternal Muse, Kerry Driscoll suggests that they enable Williams to ruminate on the nature of portrait painting and the idea of autobiography that goes into creative expression. She convincingly argues that Williams does this for ‘‘two strategic reasons’’ (1987, 16). The first is that such an approach enables him to offer a more ‘‘honest’’ assessment of Romano’s work ‘‘without exaggerating its importance.’’ The other reason, according to Driscoll, concerns his mother’s proclivity for portrait painting and his then recent discovery of three medals that she earned at L’Ecole des Arts Industrielle. Such a reading offers a sound foundation for my own exploration of the essays, particularly for examining Williams’s broader thoughts about art. For my purposes, though, a closer look at the biographical, specifically Williams and Romano’s friendship, is essential for clarifying his views of Romano’s art, as well as his thoughts about contemporary artistic trends.

Emanuel Romano’s Background To begin a discussion of Romano, it is necessary to discuss briefly his artistic heritage. Romano’s father was a well-respected sculptor of Polish origins who studied, according to historian Łucja Pawlicka Nowak, at the Munich Academy and eventually won the Prix de Rome

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for his works Arion and After Work It Is Good to Rest. At the 1900 World Exhibition in Paris, his Cain and Abel earned a silver medal. According to an extended obituary in the New York Times, Glicenstein was ‘‘said to be the only sculptor to have exhibited jointly with Auguste Rodin’’ (1943, 23). He created busts of several famous figures, including Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Pope Pius XI, and Benito Mussolini. Regarding Mussolini, Glicenstein recalled in an interview that the infamous dictator disliked cold steel. During the measuring of his head with compasses, Mussolini stood up and shouted, ‘‘Corpo di Bacco!’’ Ultimately a conflict with Mussolini triggered Glicenstein’s departure for the United States in 1927 (Zigal 1985, 75). When in Rome in 1897, Glicenstein’s son Emanuel Romano Glicenstein was born. According to Charlotte Snyder Sholod, an Italian clerk suggested ‘‘Romano’’ as a name that would offer the child a symbolic connection to his birthplace (2001, 15), and upon his emergence as an artist, Romano used this middle name as a way of earning acclaim on his own merits rather than exploiting his father’s reputation. During his lifetime, Romano did garner artistic recognition and exhibited at several notable museums, including the Whitney Museum. Dorothy Adlow, art critic for the Christian Science Monitor, described him in the early 1930s as seeing ‘‘the relationship between the expressionists and primitivists and abstract painters of today with the imagery of the past’’ (‘‘Emanuel Romano, Painter’’ 1).4 His paintings of working people predate, according to Adlow, ‘‘the vogue for ‘social’ subject-matter’’ (2). She saw such works not as ‘‘documentary,’’ but evidence that Romano ‘‘discerns the universal in the particular’’ (2). Besides his subsequent portrait of Williams, Romano also created portraits of Tennessee Williams, Carson McCullers, and Andre´ Gide. He did illustrations for woodcuts of T. S. Eliot’s ‘‘The Wasteland’’ and Beckett’s ‘‘Waiting for Godot.’’ And according to his 1984 New York Times obituary, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts included his work in their collections. Another Romano work of note was a mural entitled The Circus displayed in the auditorium of the Klondike Building on Welfare Island. The building has since been demolished and Welfare Island has been renamed Roosevelt Island;5 however, Romano’s mural offers an illuminating point of contact with Jackson Pollock. Romano painted The Circus as part of the WPA’s Federal Art Project. As part of its Federal Art Project, Photographic Division Collection, 1935–42, the Smithsonian Institution has a photo of Romano working on the mural in

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1936. Romano, with brush in hand and painter’s smock, sits at the base of his mural applying touches to the talons of a parrot leaning over a fallen clown. The New York Times reported the dedication of this mural covering 500 square feet when it was first unveiled in September 1937 at the City Home for the aged and infirm.6 Jackson Pollock, too, worked in the mural division of the Federal Art project, entering in August 1935, but he eventually moved into the easel division in 1936 (Frank 1983, 23). There is no record of Romano making such a switch. B. H. Friedman’s biography of Pollock is helpful here. He offers a succinct overview of the differences between these two divisions. For the most part, Realistic painters sought work in the mural division while artists more inclined toward abstraction looked towards easel painting. The easel division, according to Friedman, allowed these artists ‘‘more freedom as to size and subject matter as well as to working hours and conditions’’ (1995, 35).7 Considering the stark stylistic contrasts in both painters, their choices at this time reflect their differing ideas about the direction of contemporary American painting. This stylistic difference obviously bears itself out in their later work. However, 1951 offers an intriguing convergence of their painterly interests. As previously noted, Romano was an accomplished portrait painter and in 1951, he sought Williams out to paint his portrait. This same year marked another shift in Pollock’s work. Throughout this period, he worked on a series of more figurative poured paintings primarily using the color black. His achievement in these paintings has been disputed. Frank O’Hara, for one, finds merit in the series: ‘‘Giving up all that he had conquered in the previous period, Pollock reconfronted himself with the crisis of figuration and achieved remarkable things’’ (35). Art historian Leonhard Emmerling describes it as a step backward ‘‘to formal inventions already tested in works like Gothic’’ (2003, 81). Elizabeth Frank admits that this work is ‘‘difficult, problematic, and at times aesthetically unsuccessful’’ (1983, 87). However, she convincingly argues that the merit in these paintings should be understood amid Pollock’s ‘‘dialectical’’ development, his alternation between abstraction and figuration.8 With this return to more figurative painting, Ellen Landau points out that 1951 started a period when Pollock became more preoccupied with portraiture—‘‘an examination of the run of the series shows that the human head was his most persistent image’’ (217). These paintings, though, could never be confused with Romano’s portraits. For instance, Portrait of William Carlos Williams (1951) situates the poet in an armchair resting his hand

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upon his cheek. Despite a facial angularity somewhat evocative of Picasso’s mask-like Portrait of Gertrude Stein (1905–6), Romano’s painting conveys a distinct reflection of the actual poet. Conversely Pollock’s Number 27, 1951, although containing a recognizable face in the lower right-hand corner, which Landau identifies as Lee Krasner (1989, 217), resists such realistic figuration. To the left of the distinct face and above it, Pollock’s lines offer greater abstraction and figural ambiguity. In further contrast to Romano, Pollock continued his pouring technique, even using a turkey baster (Landau 1989, 214). He also experimented with pouring paint directly from the tube, as Frank has noted in Number 28, 1951 (1983, 97).

More Than a Sitting The sitting for Romano’s painting of Williams took place in Rutherford from late September through October 1951. Concerning the sitting, Mike Weaver recognized the different perspectives each man brought to this moment of artistic contact. Romano brought, as Weaver keenly explains, ‘‘an undivided consciousness of the force of both ancient and modern traditions in art. Williams in this last phase of his life was in the process of lifting himself out of his own locality and crossing the Hudson . . . into a consciousness of world art’’ (1966, 20). Weaver’s assessment of these converging lines offers a key for understanding the influence these meetings had upon Williams’s thoughts about art during this final decade of his productivity. The sittings held their share of frustrations for both men. For instance, as Paul Mariani records, Williams ‘‘began to grow restless’’ about his inactivity (1981, 641). Romano, too, described some difficulty painting Williams: ‘‘The only thing disturbing me was the reflection of the light in his eye-glasses. Something maddening—the light was so strong I could not see Williams’ face’’ (Zigal 1985, 77). Despite these difficulties, Mariani points out that something beneficial did start to occur for the poet: ‘‘as Romano watched Williams, Williams was also watching Romano. And what fascinated Williams was the artistic process revealing itself five feet away from him, in this artist totally absorbed in realizing an elusive presence’’ (1981, 642). As Williams opens ‘‘The Portrait,’’ he describes the process that has been involved: ‘‘I have seen the picture grow in the mind of Emanuel Romano who is painting it. I have seen him struggle to realize what he

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wanted to put down to depict my face’’ (1978, 196). The nature of such a struggle has a productive result: ‘‘Together the artist and the sitter combine . . . to produce this miraculous image.’’ By standing apart and observing this process, Williams gained a clearer perspective of the artist and a greater understanding of the creative process, and it led him to a valuable insight about the painter. ‘‘If Romano was no great artist,’’ Mariani suggests, ‘‘he was nevertheless a real one, consumed with the need to make a statement on canvas as Williams had been equally consumed to make one on paper’’ (1981, 642). Based upon his diary entries, Romano clearly took a personal liking to Williams. In the previously mentioned diary entry, he describes Williams as having a ‘‘sensitive, but not very sharp, face,’’ which he contrasts with Pound and Eliot. Romano found himself drawn to this sensitivity and sought as an artist to ‘‘bring out the almost saintly simplicity of the man’’ (Zigal 1985, 77). In an October 12 entry, he describes a visit from McDowell, Williams, and Andy Morgan. Romano showed the men his work and Williams responded excitedly. According to Romano, ‘‘Williams was the only one who responded with childlike joy to my works. . . .—‘more, more, show me more!’ ’’ (Romano Papers).9 Four days later, Romano again wrote of Williams. This time he was visiting Williams to work on another of the portraits. ‘‘W. was waiting for me,’’ he writes. ‘‘He is one of the few men I love—in such a short time we have come to understand each other so perfectly. He has an open mind and clarity of thought.’’ Two days later Romano went with Williams and Flossie to the theater to watch ‘‘The River,’’ a film directed by Jean Renoir. At dinner that night, Williams informed Romano that he had finished his essay. He told the painter, ‘‘ ‘if you don’t like it, I shall write another one!’ His wife agreed!’’ Later that evening, as they walked down 5th Avenue, they saw a window display of Williams’s work at Scribner’s Bookstore. Romano enthusiastically captured Williams and Flossie’s response: ‘‘theirs was such a childlike joy—so natural a reaction! modesty is really a rare thing today.’’ These anecdotes capture what Romano appreciated in Williams—his generosity and enthusiasm, as well as his authenticity and open-mindedness. In the essay mentioned by Romano, ‘‘The Portrait,’’ Williams places the younger man amid the larger trends that were occurring in the arts. As part of the opening, Williams describes how in the past seventy-five years in painting as a ‘‘means of seeing and placing colors and shapes upon the canvas have been enormously expanded (, mainly

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by the French school). Every avenue open to human ingenuity has been explored. (Today there is no school that one need follow. There is no longer any closed circuit to painting. Today, knowing the resources, anyone can do anything . . .)’’ (1978, 197). For Williams, the modern effort to break from tradition opened a field of possibilities for innovative imaginative expressions. Besides providing such possibilities, though, this effort also challenged a younger generation of artists whether a painter like Romano or Pollock—‘‘There it is. Now see what you can do with it’’ (1978, 197). Romano’s portraits are Williams’s specific point for discussion. He asserts that ‘‘of all paintings the portrait is the most complex . . . and the most satisfying’’ (197). What becomes particularly crucial about this essay, given the backdrop of its composition, is the way that Williams situates Romano. As mentioned earlier, Williams wrote it while also preparing his address ‘‘The American Spirit in Art.’’ Now, that address functions as a defense of the abstractionists’ experimental efforts. However, at times in that talk, Williams offers qualified praise. Perhaps this is most evident toward his conclusion when he suggests the following: ‘‘May we not here improvise to say, of abstract painting, that there is one further step awaiting it before its extinction: when it is being done by the blind’’ (1978, 219). In his essay on Romano, he again offers a cutting assessment of these abstractionists. While explaining the nature of portrait painting, he asserts, ‘‘Modern painters have been baffled by it. They have been afraid of the horrible word ‘representational’; they have run screaming into the abstract, forgetting that all painting is representational, even the most abstract, the most subjective, the most distorted’’ (1978, 197). Williams’s description, conjuring up an image of Edvard Munch’s The Scream, suggests an extreme response to the modern artist’s challenge.

‘‘The Act of Scribbling’’ Soon after this depiction, Williams describes the subjective phase of painting in mocking terms: ‘‘Influenced by Freud they discovered the subconscious and represented it on their canvases. The scribblings of children five years old were discovered to be ‘revealing.’ But the time must come when such a lode is exhausted. Such a time has now arrived’’ (1978, 198). Now, it is important to point out that Williams was not opposed to the practice of ‘‘scribbling.’’ For instance, he re-

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peatedly uses the term in the ‘‘Foreword’’ of The Autobiography. In these few pages, he equates ‘‘thinking’’ with ‘‘scribbling’’: ‘‘It has always been during the act of scribbling that I have gotten most of my satisfactions’’ (1951a).10 He then describes how he would visit Alfred Stieglitz, attend the Marsden Hartley show, or go to see the Unicorn Tapestries at The Cloisters: ‘‘After that, I’d come home and think— that is to say, to scribble. I’d scribble for days, sometimes, after such a visit, . . . trying to discover how my mind had readjusted itself to its contacts.’’ Later, he describes visits to Kenneth Burke’s house in Andover: ‘‘Reactivated, I’d go home to the eternally rewarding game of scribbling.’’11 In attempting to explain his need to write amid his daily responsibilities as a physician, he remarks, ‘‘I couldn’t rest until I had freed my mind from the obsessions which had been tormenting me all day. Cleansed of that torment, having scribbled, I could rest.’’12 Clearly, as is evident by his use of this term in the ‘‘Foreword,’’ Williams found value in this creative process. Williams’s Freudian reference, though, suggests his continuing uncertainty about Abstract Expressionism, a movement that he sees rooted in French Surrealism. As Dickran Tashjian explains, ‘‘he was skeptical if not unsympathetic toward the usefulness of Freudian theory for the arts’’ (1996, 10). To understand his ‘‘scribbling’’ comment, it also seems worthwhile to recall ‘‘The American Spirit in Art,’’ which offers the abstractionist Robert Motherwell ‘‘a hearty welcome’’ (1978, 219). As Mary Ann Caws discusses in Robert Motherwell: What Art Holds, Motherwell practiced ‘‘sublime scribble’’ or what he called ‘‘doodling’’ (1996, 27). Along with Roberto Matta’s influence, Caws notes that Motherwell’s ideas about this automatic method were shaped by Anton Ehrenzweig. Using in part Ehrenzweig’s words, she writes, ‘‘the task of the artist is to ‘disintegrate the articulate and rational surface perception and to call up secondary processes in the public,’ calling on the secret life of the emotions, those techniques of scribbling that have their direct outcome in emotional power’’ (30). Through this method of scribbling, the artist therefore releases unconscious thoughts with the desire to produce an imaginative expression. Now O’Hara, like Williams, experimented with automatic writing, as evident in the poem Second Avenue, a long poem written in the studio of Larry Rivers (1995, 529). Close friend John Ashbery describes reading it as ‘‘a difficult pleasure’’ (1995, ix). ‘‘You see how it makes it seem very jumbled,’’ O’Hara explains, ‘‘while actually everything in it

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either happened to me or I felt happening (saw, imagined) on Second Avenue’’ (1983, 39–40). Despite the difficulty of constructing a reading for this poem, the painter Grace Hartigan asserts, ‘‘It has everything art should have. It has imagery, emotional content, leaps of imagination, displacements of time and place going back and forth, flashings of modern life and inner feelings. Name it, name anything, and it’s got it’’ (Perloff 1998, 70). Brad Gooch also has aligned it with painting; he has described it as ‘‘the culmination of his accelerating desire to use a kind of automatic writing to match the epic scale and grandeur built up by accident and subconscious connections in Abstract Expressionist painting, aleatory music, and French Surrealist catalogue poems’’ (1993, 233). The poem itself moves back and forth with references to all sorts of people and things: Kenneth Koch, Larry Rivers, Marilyn Monroe, and a de Kooning WOMAN. Like Williams’s Kora in Hell, O’Hara felt the need to try to interpret but not explicate the passages. ‘‘I now feel my attitude was toward the material,’’ he writes, ‘‘not explanatory of the meaning which I don’t think can be paraphrased (or at least I hope it can’t)’’ (1983, 37). It is difficult to understand O’Hara’s poem. There is a steady flow of varied references, ideas, images, and voices. There is no real linear progression (unless one counts the chronologically numbered sections). It is difficult to argue with Perloff or Vendler that there is ‘‘too little design.’’ Yet Perloff has noted that it is ‘‘a real stylistic advance’’ (1998, 73). In part, she points out O’Hara’s reference to friends by name, his ‘‘sense of presence,’’ and his catalogs of ‘‘everyday things in his life.’’ Like Williams, this experimentation with improvisatory writing facilitated his continuing poetic development. For Williams, measure is eventually needed in writing to progress beyond total subjectivity and an absence of objective reality. In The Culture of Spontaneity: Improvisation and the Arts in Postwar America, Daniel Belgrad offers a compelling argument about how the ‘‘aesthetics of spontaneity’’ provided a poet like Williams, who fashioned himself a ‘‘cultural outsider,’’ with ‘‘access to cultural authority’’ (1998, 40). He asserts that for Williams (as well as Charles Olson) ‘‘it seemed imperative to integrate the free play of the unconscious with an empirical ‘reality principle’ in order to arrive at truth’’ (37). He, in fact, cites a 1944 Motherwell commentary: ‘‘All my works [consist] of a dialectic between the conscious (straight lines, designed shapes, weighed color, abstract language) and the unconscious (soft lines, obscured shapes, automatism) resolved into a synthesis.’’ Williams, too, shares that de-

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sire for balance between free play and artistic control to create that truth, that authenticity of artistic creation. Without such a balance, the method itself becomes reductive and aesthetically empty. For him, therefore, scribbling is an important act, just as this abstractionist phase is important in the progression of the art history, but it cannot be the end in itself. Such a belief, in Williams’s eyes, borders on absurdity. Given the context of this term in his ‘‘Foreword,’’ as well as his reference to ‘‘cerebral exercises’’ in his essay on Henry Niese, Williams’s mockery of the abstractionists in ‘‘The Portrait’’ becomes clearer. For him, scribbling is an important act, just as abstraction is important in the progression of the arts, but its time has now passed. In short, the sustained practice of abstraction must ultimately give way to something ‘‘new.’’ Surprisingly Pollock seemed to share such a belief, suggested in part by his production of more figurative paintings in 1951. Elizabeth Frank contends, ‘‘Pollock’s sensing a need for aesthetic change emerges as the most salient of the motives for the black paintings’’ (1983, 88–89). In the context of reading Williams’s ‘‘The Portrait,’’ rather than interpreting these painting as some sort of regression or retreat, they can be seen as a continuing effort to explore the possibilities of both his medium and technique. The fact that this figuration included the increasing depiction of human forms and heads suggests further parallels to Williams’s assertions about the nature of portrait painting. For him, portrait painting presented artists with the ‘‘greatest challenge,’’ as well as the promise of a ‘‘new field into which the next phase of the art will extend. The portrait is the new field’’ (1978, 197). Despite his seeming distance from the younger generation of avant-garde artists, he perceptively understood the crossroads contemporary artists like Pollock faced: ‘‘Painters are asking themselves,’’ Williams writes, ‘‘Shall I return to realism—the public at least would be happier? There is nothing else left for me—I’m sick of my own guts’’ (198). Pollock would never return to such realism, but his series of black paintings from this period reflect his own effort to answer Williams’s question.

Authenticity and ‘‘The Spirit’’ Considering the fact that ‘‘The Portrait’’ is about Romano, one might expect that Williams would herald the Italian as the artist to

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show us the way into this new phase of art. Yet in looking at his essay in its totality, which includes the several draft variations included by Bram Dijkstra in A Recognizable Image, Williams avoids asserting such a bold thesis. Rather he goes out of his way to explain that this is not what this essay is about. For example, at the start of section 5 he writes, ‘‘I do not intend to make any categorical statements regarding my friend Emanuel Romano’s worth as a painter. I know him only as an inheritor of the immediate past. I have seen no more than perhaps a hundred of his paintings. He is struggling to express something, something which I am trying to identify’’ (1978, 202). Williams himself struggles to articulate what Romano is actually expressing. As the section concludes, he tries yet again to express what he sees and does not see in Romano’s work: ‘‘Here is a blossoming of the spirit. I refuse to try to evaluate its achievements. I am not capable of it. I insist only on the authentic identity of the dedication. I believe in that—and where have I acquired it but from the paintings themselves? They are full of honesty, they are often moving, they are always painted with a painter’s eye for the materials—a light of deep feeling grows out of them’’ (204–5). Such comments, ultimately deleted from the Passedoit Gallery catalog (December 3–22, 1951) and the Gotham Book Mart Gallery publication (1968), reflect Williams’s perception of ‘‘the spirit’’ in Romano’s work. He acknowledges an ‘‘authentic’’ artistic intent, as well as an ‘‘honest’’ painterly expression. Those words are crucial in the Williams lexicon. However, Williams refuses to offer a final verdict about their ultimate artistic value. This same type of ambiguity parallels his defense of Abstract Expressionists (at least as evident in ‘‘The American Spirit in Art’’). Not surprisingly, Romano was disappointed with Williams’s initial draft of the essay. In an undated entry in his diary, he claims, ‘‘The man is not sure about painting, and about me. He turns around and around, afraid to commit himself—I would have been happy if he had said that he hated my painting, that he could not stand it, that he found it / me ?? obnoxious etc., etc. . . . . At least it would have been something of a standing—but this is stand-offish situation. I don’t know whether McD. will be able to use it’’ (Romano Papers). Romano clearly perceives Williams’s uncertainty. In fact, Williams’s full essay reads as polite yet qualified praise. He truly enjoyed Romano’s work, but with clear limitations. He certainly did not esteem him in the way that he did the earlier modern masters like Ce´zanne. Yet in Romano’s reaction to Williams’s draft, the painter touches upon the bigger ques-

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tion for Williams at the time—what is one to make of contemporary art, particularly Abstract Expressionism? As previously discussed, throughout the 1950s, Williams maintains this uncertain and oftentimes skeptical attitude toward artists as different as Romano and Pollock, yet he also refuses to dismiss the value of their work. It reflects an exceptional capacity on Williams’s part to withhold judgment of something that leaves him uncertain. We can see from their correspondence that Romano took an active role reviewing ‘‘The Portrait’’ and suggesting changes. In a letter dated November 7, 1951, Williams explains, ‘‘I have gone over the statements about Chirico. Much of it cut, at your request. But what I have left I want to stay, it is part of the total argument’’ (1951c, Williams Collection, Delaware).13 Despite his initial disappointment, Romano eventually did appreciate the final draft. In a letter simply dated Thursday, he wrote thanking Williams: ‘‘The last chapters of the ‘essay’ are like a poem—a poem of an artist for an artist—a brother in spirit, in ideals, in aims. I shall translate it in Italian for the catalog of my forthcoming exhibition in Milan’’ (Williams Papers). Williams responded favorably to Romano’s suggestion in a letter dated November 16, 1951: ‘‘it will be interesting to hear what the boys over there think of it. Maybe we can learn something from them. There are never enough chances to learn’’ (1951d, Williams Collection, Delaware). Such a remark is noteworthy. Despite some of his strong rhetoric regarding the cultivation of an American idiom and an American poetry, Williams sought to learn from all sources—he never squandered such opportunities. As Dijkstra points out, many are ‘‘misled into believing that he was an American chauvinist in matters of art. The contrary was clearly the case’’ (1978, 9). ‘‘[I]t was not the nationality of the artist,’’ Dijkstra argues, ‘‘but the force of the image he had created which counted for him’’ (10). The most intense period of Williams and Romano’s relationship occurred in 1951 as Williams was preparing his essay on contemporary art for the National Institute of Arts and Letters. Based again upon Romano’s diaries, we can identify some threads from that address that emerged in conversations between the two men. For instance, in a diary entry for November 28, 1951, Romano writes about a dinner with Bill and Flossie. In this conversation, he recalls Williams referencing ‘‘Toynbee’s idea of the equality . . . of the first settlers in these shores. For there was space and real freedom’’ (Romano Papers). As previously mentioned, Williams cited Tonybee’s ideas in order to

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persuade his audience to tolerate the new. Their dinner conversation also touched upon the notion of the American spirit, as Romano records ‘‘lighted buildings seen from the plains of New Jersey’’ embodied ‘‘perhaps the spirit of America.’’ Romano’s exhibition at the Passedoit Gallery occurred from December 3 through 22; Williams’s address to the National Institute of Arts and Letters occurred on December 18. Soon after his address Williams corresponded with Romano (January 11, 1952). While there was no mention of his talk, Williams does contrast Romano’s work with the prevailing mode of painting. Specifically he references Romano’s reproduction of his father’s work: ‘‘To me it is all feeling, making the materials speak. That is the outstanding thing. It is not the mood of today which is concerned more with the materials than the human, the directly human approach.’’ In such a comment, Williams significantly touts the humanistic element in Glicenstein and Romano’s work. Later in the letter, he discusses Romano’s early self-portrait, presumably Self-Portrait, 1934 (Nice, France). This realistic style painting portrays the intense fixed gaze of the painter staring directly at the spectator with neither a sense of despondency or elation—just unflinching resoluteness. ‘‘I somehow call to kind that self portrait you made as a young man,’’ Williams writes, ‘‘the one I told you resembled the work of Clouet. It is less turbulent than your later work, more controlled, cooler in color. I must confess that something in me more admires that stillness. Perhaps it is a fault—or old age.’’ That notion of stillness is interesting to consider, especially because it seems antithetical to what Williams admires about the poetry of the era. His comment about age also seems indicative of his understanding that he may be behind the curve on what younger artists are thinking and doing in art.

A Trip to Rutherford There is roughly a six-year period between Williams’s two Romano essays. Throughout this time, however, Romano and Williams were in periodic contact. One of the most telling encounters occurs on June 9, 1952. Romano records in his diary a phone call when Williams answered in a ‘‘broken voice,’’ ‘‘I am not well—I want to die—I don’t want to see anybody’’ (Romano Papers). Romano felt at a loss to help. A few hours after hanging up the phone, Williams called back. He was crying and apologized ‘‘for being sissy, for being weak.’’ Romano im-

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mediately decided to leave New York and travel to Rutherford. When he got there, he described Williams as ‘‘gaunt, more bent’’ with the look of an ‘‘obsessed man.’’ The two men embraced and eventually Williams asked him upstairs. He ‘‘sank’’ into his chair, according to Romano, and said that ‘‘he wanted to cry to relieve himself of a load in his chest—But he could not he felt closed up.’’ To break-up the silence, Romano started talking. He then observed the following: ‘‘he took his head in his hands, and covered his face with his long fingers. I saw only his strong nose sticking out. He reminded me of Van Gogh’s painting, ‘At the Threshold of Eternity.’ Then he got up and went down into his back yard. The flower beds were full of roses, which were bloom, the rosebushes were all around the fences—red of a deep velvety red, pink of a tender shade we sat on chairs, and the wet grass and flowers and the trees all around us were a wonderful setting—I told Williams to enjoy what he had created. He felt like a sinner, he wanted to clean himself up’’ (Romano Papers). Beneath this entry, Ro-

Untitled Sketch of William Carlos Williams by Emanuel Romano, journal entry dated June 9, 1952. Emanuel Glicen Romano Papers, 1922–1967. Archives of American Art. Smithsonian Institution. Permission to print granted by Julie Dreyfuss Tatum.

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mano includes a rough sketch of a man (presumably Williams) much in the spirit of Van Gogh’s painting. Although it is unfair to compare Romano’s journal sketch with a finished work like Van Gogh’s painting, it is clear that both painters capture the broken spirit of their subjects. The angularity of Romano’s sketch—both in terms of head profile and body—evokes the sharpness of Williams’s pain and despair at this time. Rather than having the seated man leaning forward, head in hands as in Van Gogh’s painting, Romano’s figure sits on the floor with his head back, eyes closed, knees up, and hands stretched out. Although both bodies almost fold in on themselves, the open hands in Romano’s sketch suggest a figure open and desirous of some form of relief outside himself. He appears exhausted, but not defeated. The incident and image recorded by Romano reveal a highly vulnerable moment in Williams’s life; however, it also reveals the degree of intimacy shared between these men. Clearly Romano was not just another devotee looking for something from the established poet. Later in July, he received a call from Williams thanking him for a package— ‘‘Again he felt good,’’ Romano writes, ‘‘and moved—A poet is back!’’ (Romano Papers).

‘‘The Broken Vase’’ Williams’s second Romano essay, entitled ‘‘The Broken Vase,’’ appeared after Romano’s return to America in 1956. He had left in 1953 for an extended stay in Safad, Israel, to open and direct the Glicenstein Museum, named in honor of his revered father.14 Upon his return, Romano wrote congratulating Williams on his poetry prize award: ‘‘Enjoy your creation, and with it, your life’’ (Williams Papers).15 In his December 1956 letter, he also describes the pleasure of reading Williams’s poetry while in the south of France: ‘‘Your words sound rich and meaningful and deep—alive and pregnant—under that southern firmament!’’ In this essay, Williams again attempts to situate the painter amid the art trends of the time. He opens with the following assertion: ‘‘The fragments of passion are to be valued as much as passion itself’’ (1978, 206). For Williams, the fragmentation found in the works of the Surrealists and Modernist painters have gained global acceptance to ‘‘everyone in Europe, America, and South America.’’ He distinguishes this work, however, from the more recent work of ‘‘the Ultramod-

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erns,’’ a group that he claims could ‘‘bring on a paroxysm of schizophrenia—the Sigmund Freud disease—calling to mind the disturbed face of a Pollock or a Michaux or an Artaud’’ (206). He uses the popular and controversial Pollock as the American artist representative of this fragmentary expression of modernity. Yet his reference to Michaux and Artaud suggests a belief that this trend crosses cultural boundaries. For Williams, ‘‘such work[s] are not a whole. They are a [part] of an impossible whole, a fragment, which has surpassed the artist’s conception.’’ It is the artist’s effort to reformulate ‘‘in the face of a universal schizophrenia’’ what Williams describes as a ‘‘fractured personality.’’ Eventually Williams narrows his focus to Romano’s work. He argues that Romano is not ‘‘the first’’ to do what he does. ‘‘[B]ut,’’ as he asserts, ‘‘the twist he gave to the imagination has a very direct and simple and convincing appeal to it’’ (1978 207). He discusses how Romano’s experience in Paris following the war informed his art. ‘‘And suddenly he was conscious of a vase,’’ Williams writes, ‘‘the tragic Paris of his youth, broken into a thousand pieces’’ (207). The broken vase image informs his interpretation of Romano’s work, particularly his sense of its fragmentation. He references canvases that contain ‘‘an effigy of a fish,’’ an upright homunculus, as well as a homunculus lying on his side. Yet the focal point of his essay is the image of the vase on canvas—‘‘always with the philosophic pyramids at the back, [it] consists of various fragments of the same vase, or the derivatives (sometimes difficult to recognize), always a foursquare arrangement simply arranged’’ (208). The background pyramids, for Williams, ‘‘completes the composition, giving the philosophic thought of the whole its validity—yet it retains its pictorial validity’’ (208). In closing, Williams returns to his opening notion of passion. He describes Romano as a man ‘‘whom passion has worn, a silent man who has no voice but the paint which he sobs alone.’’ Without the opportunity to view Romano’s paintings directly, there is some difficulty assessing his work from this period. From my review of microfilmed images, though, Romano clearly trends toward greater abstraction during the 1950s, as evident in paintings like Abstract Forms, 1951 or Abstraction, 1956. Yet, even in these paintings, there is a deliberateness of design that rejects the projection of spontaneity. The transformation in style also may be evident in his two self-portraits. As previously noted, Self-Portrait, 1934 (Nice, France) reflects Romano in a Realist tradition. Self-Portrait, 1956, included in Mike

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Weaver’s 1966 article, reflects a less realistic and more surreal depiction of the artist. Rather than a close-up focus on the speaker’s head, Romano frames a faceless full body in a semi-reclined pose. The figure holds a mask resembling the facial expression of the earlier self-portrait against his thigh. ‘‘With Self-Portrait,’’ Mike Weaver writes, ‘‘the modern conception of the portrait describes itself in relation to Romano’s other works. As the map is to the landscape, so the painter’s detached mask is to himself’’ (1966, 21). The stylistic transformation in self-portraits reflects Romano’s own continuing artistic development. It certainly does not possess the dramatic intensity or avantgarde nature of Pollock’s achievement; however, it does reflect an artist continuing to explore various modes of expression on his canvas. Romano, as evident in his later Self-Portrait, never rejects figurative art. He certainly would not be confused with the more prominent New York School artists. This distinction becomes more explicitly stated in his later exhibitions. Alfred Werner, a contributing editor for Arts Magazine, attempted to mark this difference in his statement for the Sigmund Rothschild Gallery exhibition of Romano’s work (September 29–October 23, 1961). He writes, ‘‘At a time when many nonthinkers mistake anarchy for freedom, and regard discipline as a hindrance rather than as the self-willed firmness of conviction it actually

Self-Portrait (1956), oil and collage, 20 X 30 by Emanuel Romano. Permission to print granted by Julie Dreyfuss Tatum.

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is, ROMANO, ignoring the flux of isms and fashions, keeps on painting with the deep-rooted faith of a Ce´zanne or a Piero della Francesca.’’ Werner’s references to non-thinkers, anarchy, and ‘‘isms’’ seem a direct attack on a movement inspired by Pollock’s all-over style. To further emphasize this contrast, Werner describes Romano as an artist who, unlike these other artists, projects more than just feeling. He ‘‘thinks as well as feels,’’ Werner argues, and painting functions for him as a means ‘‘to transmit an emotional and intellectual message’’ that ultimately ‘‘encompasses in classically firm, yet expressionistically simplified . . . scaffolds of design.’’ He lauds Romano’s realism, his ability for ‘‘reproducing recognizable shapes and colors.’’ Romano himself reveals through his correspondence a steadfast devotion to figurative art. In an August 28, 1957, letter from a beach on Montauk Long Island, he describes to Williams his desire to create ‘‘new pictures’’ inspired by the sea. While aspiring to convey the sea in all its totality—‘‘its moving motion . . . its ominous sound’’—he envisions ‘‘putting figures on its foreground’’ who stand some distance from one another and suggest ‘‘the inherent loneliness of men’’ (1957b Williams Papers). At the bottom of the letter, he includes a preliminary sketch of these figures. Later, he paints Communion of the Isolated, 1960, a poignant portrayal of those men he saw loosely gathered together on a beach during that memorable sunset. From Romano’s viewpoint, Williams’s essay on his later work missed the mark. In a letter dated April 1957, a spirited Romano tells Williams about his eagerness to read the essay, stopping at a corner in Rutherford after leaving the poet’s home. He writes, ‘‘I must confess to you that my expectations were shattered.’’ He then goes on to explain, ‘‘I did not find enough relationship between your written word and my painted picture. It seems to me that your essay is a little too generalized and touches too fleetingly my own work’’ (1957a, Williams Collection, Delaware). Although it is unclear at this point exactly what paintings Williams viewed, Romano’s critique does have validity. Too often in the essay Williams deals with generalities and makes broad artistic associations. Later in his letter, Romano rebukes Williams for failing to ‘‘see’’ his paintings. Furthermore, he charges Williams with imposing himself on the work: ‘‘You look at my pictures and seek an explanation and you may find your own. You have discovered the ‘schizophrenic’ one.’’ Mike Weaver, who corresponded with Romano and gained familiarity with his oeuvre, offers the following assessment of Williams’s shortcoming: ‘‘It did not occur to him that

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one could draw ruins and remain intact oneself, the American concept of demolition not allowing ruins except as archaeology. This is not the feeling Romano’s Resurrection conveys. Nor are Romano’s Forms broken to represent our fractured personalities. On the contrary, their organisation within the painting implies the wholeness of the painter’’ (1966, 21). In an effort to explain himself to Williams, Romano draws upon the importance of the modern locale in shaping his art, clearly a point that Williams would understand and share. He powerfully asks, But what have I seen?—I and men of our own generation who had the good or bad luck to have been born in Europe? Wars, upheavals, revolutions, depressions, hunger, cruelty, death and destruction. The glorious victories, lasting a short season, were crowned by disasters. Men had become mere shadows of themselves. Beautiful, richness of culture and noble Humanism trampled by so called Supermen—tyrants—the world had not seen their equals before. What have I to paint if not the mirror of these defeats—or should I shut myself in my own garden and paint flowers? Sing not the Ninth symphony but a dirge over our shattered dreams. . . . So there my men, my vases lie on the bare, desolate earth—helplessly! (1957a Williams Collection, Delaware)

Clearly, for Romano, Williams failed to contextualize his artistry. In fact, Romano’s point corresponds to Williams’s ideas about representing an actual locale rather than focusing on ‘‘things’’ more aesthetically pleasing. The painter’s words evidently affected Williams. He subsequently wrote back to Romano on June 25, 1957, and acknowledged his shortcomings: ‘‘Your words, eloquent and true, applied not only to painting but to the situation of all ort [art] in the modern age. I regret that my own statement about your paintings did not satisfy you. I confess that I was looking at a technical aspect as it appealed to a non painter interested in painting instead of you yourself and the pictures you had brought out to show me’’ (1957a, Williams Collection, Delaware). Besides the ‘‘confession,’’ though, Williams suggests that both men ‘‘were talking of the same thing’’; it is just that he failed to articulate it adequately in relation to Romano’s work. He concludes by saying, ‘‘If I was stupid in speaking of the pictures you had shown me it was not because of lack of appreciation of what you had, which I always admire and sometimes even love, but from my own inadequacy.’’ In the end, Romano chose not to use Williams’s essay. Williams’s reply admits his shortcomings as a commentator of Ro-

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mano’s work. His two Romano essays suggest that he felt comfortable enough with Romano’s art to want to write about it. In contrast to the other artists out there who left him somewhat confused, Romano appeared to be an artist Williams understood. Romano’s strong reaction to ‘‘The Broken Vase,’’ however, called that into question. Considering his somewhat ambiguous commentary concerning other visual artists of the 1950s, particularly those of the New York School, one wonders whether it shook his confidence about publicly commenting on this contemporary art scene—after all, if he was off about a more conventional painter like Romano, one that he felt he understood, then what would that mean about his criticism of others like Pollock or Motherwell? Notably Williams never wrote a sustained essay about another younger contemporary artist throughout the remainder of his life. Instead, he continued moving toward the work of older artists like Pieter Brueghel—artists that he clearly respected and understood. Yvon Bizardel, honorary director of the Museums and Libraries of Paris, praised Romano’s work because it ‘‘departs from the formal rules and strict geometry of the ancient masters. . . . [H]e is a man of today [who has] escaped the rigid constraints of the past to freely enjoy his materials; either to liberate the line or make it bend to his will’’ (qtd. in Zigal 1985, 83). Rightly, I think, Thomas Zigal links these words to Williams’s poetry. Perhaps, Williams understood that connection. The two certainly came together through the imaginative process of creating the portraits. In section 2 of ‘‘The Portrait,’’ Williams himself notes how the ‘‘oldest field of all’’ is open to the artist— ‘‘the imagination’’ (199). For Williams, the preference for technique had overshadowed the imagination. In portrait painting, as he points out, it is ‘‘the imagination working subtly with the flesh , representing extraordinary cominglings between two images: the painter and the sitter. It is a world of unrealized proportions’’ (200). Through their correspondence, Romano’s diary, and Williams’s essays, it becomes clear that both men gained more from their initial collaboration than they expected. They came together artistically, imaginatively, and personally. And although Williams refrained from a clear estimation of Romano’s actual accomplishment, much as he did the more prominent Abstract Expressionists Pollock and Motherwell, at the very least he saw Romano as an artist of ‘‘today,’’ an artist who offered in his paintings a dedication to the authentic expression of the imagination.

5 Efficiency in Form: Artistry and Authenticity in the Works of Williams, O’Hara, and Smith IN HIS INTRODUCTORY ESSAY TO DAVID SMITH: A CENTENNIAL, CARMEN Gime´nez cites Michael Brenson’s claim that Smith ‘‘ ‘Almost singlehandedly . . . changed the nature of sculpture in America’’ (2006, 3). Gime´nez then adds, ‘‘He did so because he embodied, as no one else did, the new American artistic spirit.’’ Without invoking Williams or his controversial 1951 address, Gime´nez’s comment crystallizes another important link between the poet and New York School artists. Considering the visual artists discussed so far, Smith appears to be the most distant from the life and writings of Williams. As discussed earlier, Williams corresponded with Motherwell, notably referenced Pollock, and befriended Romano. From my research to date, he never mentioned Smith. For his own part, Smith never directly referenced Williams in his writings. Both men do share some general associations—most notably the painter Stuart Davis and the sculptor Constantin Brancusi. The only concrete connection between the two, though, is Frank O’Hara’s reference to Smith’s enjoyment of Williams’s poetry. Despite such limited concrete connections, Smith seems closely aligned with Williams’s ideas about art, the United States, and the creative process. Such an alignment gains greater clarity through Frank O’Hara’s appreciation and promotion of each man’s work. Like Williams, Smith chose to work away from New York City. He spent some of his most productive years close to Lake George at Bolton’s Landing, New York. Williams would no doubt appreciate the rise of this American sculptor. Born in 1906 in Decatur, Indiana, from what he often described as pioneer stock, Smith’s father worked for an independent phone company; however, Smith remembered him as an inventor. In fact, according to Smith, inventors populated the whole town, most evident in the assortment of homemade automobiles: ‘‘In118

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vention was the fertile thing then’’ (Wilkin 1984, 11).1 This early immersion in mechanical inventiveness no doubt fostered Smith’s later imaginative explorations.

The Artist as Workman Smith’s early working life further shaped his artistry. In 1925, he worked the summer at a Studebaker factory in South Bend. ‘‘The assembly line had not yet been introduced and each worker was expected to perform a wide variety of tasks,’’ notes Stanley E. Marcus, ‘‘including riveting, drilling, lathe work, milling, and spot welding’’ (1983, 23). At various points, Smith spent time at Ohio University, Notre Dame, and George Washington University, but he never completed his degree. He mostly sought to enroll in art classes at these institutions; however, he did take poetry for a semester at George Washington. As he once remarked, ‘‘Always been interested in poetry’’ (Smith 1968, 24). It turns out that academia did not suit Smith. In 1926, he moved to New York and subsequently started attending the Art Students’ League. As the practice of welding became more difficult and dangerous to accomplish in his Brooklyn Heights apartment, Dorothy Dehner, his then wife and fellow artist, suggested the Terminal Iron Works on the Brooklyn waterfront. Smith described his initial meeting with the proprietors this way: ‘‘ ‘I’m an artist, I have a welding outfit. I’d like to work here.’ ‘Hell! Yes—move in.’ . . . I learned a lot from those guys and from the machinist that worked for them named Robert Henry. . . . Those guys were fine down there—never made fun of my work—took it as a matter of course’’ (1968, 25.) It is at this ferry terminal that Smith refined his technique. According to Marcus, ‘‘Smith did not finally learn to weld with the oxyacetylene torch . . . until his association with the workers at the Terminal Iron Works’’ (1983, 23). When Smith eventually moved to Bolton Landing in 1942, he named his new studio the Terminal Iron Works. He did this, as he says, because his ‘‘particular type of sculpture required a factory more than an ‘Atelier’ ’’ (1968, 31). Unbeknownst to Smith, his workmanlike approach to art fulfilled Williams’s own conception of the modern artist. In The Embodiment of Knowledge, Williams remarked that an artist ‘‘is to be a kind of laborer—a workman—a maker in a very plain sense—nothing vague or transcendental about it: that is the artist—at base’’ (1974, 23).

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Smith’s production methods at Bolton Landing are legendary. Photos of him at work by Dan Budnik or Ugo Mulas suggest less the artist at work and more a modern American workingman appareled in boots, jeans, and a cap. ‘‘By choice,’’ he stated, ‘‘I identify myself with working men and still belong to Local 2054 United Steelworkers of America. I belong by craft—yet my subject of aesthetics introduces a breach. I suppose that is because I believe in a working man’s society in the future and in that society I hope to find a place’’ (Smith 1968, 61). Like Williams and O’Hara, the idea of work for Smith complemented the creative process and production of art. Despite this common man exterior, Smith’s sculptures were anything but common. The critic Hilton Kramer notes the uniqueness of Smith’s locale and artistry. ‘‘Smith’s workshop in the mountains . . . brings together two old fashioned ideas of American life: the proud individualism and keen workmanship of the man who lives on his own land. Both are ideals of freedom out of the American past’’ (Gray 1968, 15). Kramer’s notion of these American roots offers a critical conduit to Williams’s own artistic choices. Without any specific references by Williams to Smith or vice-versa, some shared associations between these men need examination to illuminate their aesthetic connections. Most prominent among these relations appear to be the work of Stuart Davis, the artistry of Constantin Brancusi, and the art criticism and poetry of Frank O’Hara.

Points of Contact: Davis, Brancusi, and O’Hara Of the three, Stuart Davis was the only one of these men who had a personal relationship with both Smith and Williams. Williams sought Davis’s drawing Gloucester Terraces (1916) for the frontispiece of Kora in Hell. He believed it represented what he was trying to do in his Improvisations: ‘‘It was, graphically, exactly what I was trying to do in words, put the Improvisations down as a unit on the page. You must remember I had a strong inclination all my life to be a painter. . . . Anyhow, Floss and I went to Gloucester and got permission from Stuart Davis to use his art—an impressionistic view of the simultaneous’’ (1958a, 29). This early contact, one might even say collaboration, identified Williams’s literary experimentation with a visual equivalent. It also garnered respect for Williams from Davis, an important American precursor to the New York School artists. ‘‘I see in it a fluidity as

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opposed to stagnation of presentation,’’ Davis remarked to Williams after receiving a copy of the book, ‘‘It opens a field of possibilities’’ (Hills 1996, 62). Davis’s mention of ‘‘a field of possibilities’’ takes on greater significance when placed in relation to two men who consciously thought about ideas of creativity in the context of literal and metaphoric fields—most noticeably in Williams’s description of the poem as a field of action and Smith’s placement of sculptures in the fields surrounding his home at Bolton Landing. For a younger generation of American artists, Davis proved to be an important mentor and source of encouragement (Smith 1968, 27). In the ‘‘windy openness’’ of the 1930s, Smith described the New York art scene as one where artists sought the ‘‘new’’ but lacked a sense of their own ‘‘identities’’ (35). Smith added, though, that this was not true for an artist like Davis whom he described as ‘‘a solid citizen for a group of [us].’’ The two even belonged to a short-lived group, including de Kooning and Gorky, known as the ‘‘abstractionists.’’ Davis’s early involvement with Williams, according to art historian Patricia Hills, reinforced Davis’s experimental ‘‘resolve’’ (1996, 57). It also foreshadowed the later encouragement Davis would offer Smith for artistic experimentation. Smith credits conversations with established artists like Davis, Arshile Gorky, and John Graham as vital contributions to the younger artists of this time (de Kooning 1994, 166). In a somewhat poetic response entitled ‘‘The Question—what are your influences—,’’ Smith even singles out conversations with Davis at pubs like McSorleys for his development as an artist (1968, 146). Clearly, from Smith’s perspective, Davis influenced his early ideas about art and about the business that always seems to threaten its integrity. Besides Davis, another compelling association shared by Williams and Smith is the sculptor Constantin Brancusi. Smith held Brancusi’s work in high regard (Tucker 2006, 71). Paul Hayes Tucker has identified several Smith sculptures influenced by the Romanian sculptor. Most noted among these are the head portion of Agricola I (1951–52), the top of Tanktotem IX (1960), and the base of Sentinel (1961) (2006, 82, 89). Williams also thought highly of Brancusi. In fact, in 1924 on his trip abroad with Flossie, he met Brancusi whom he described as ‘‘a short compact peasant of a man, with his long gray hair, like a sheep dog’’ (188). On a subsequent visit, he enjoyed a beefsteak dinner with the shepherd-like Brancusi. While there, they ‘‘talked, surrounded by his creations in wood and stone, like the sheep, one might say, crop-

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ping out of the chaos of unorganized masses (later to be worked upon), the rocks and trees of a shepherd’s world in the flickering half-light about us’’ (196). Many years later in 1955, Arts (formerly Art Digest) commissioned Williams to write a review of the Guggenheim Museum’s exhibition of Brancusi’s work. It is what Paul Mariani describes as ‘‘one of the strongest pieces of art criticism he wrote during the entire decade’’ (1981, 690). Williams’s article praises the body of work currently on display in New York City (inclusive of works shown at the Museum of Modern Art). ‘‘It is not to be described as abstract art,’’ Williams writes, ‘‘the figures are presented without distortion, in a natural relationship of their anatomic parts reduced to the essentials’’ (1978, 247). This essentiality in Brancusi’s work garnered Williams’s attention. He notes it in The New Born, as well as Fish (polished, green mottled marble). Bram Dijkstra argues that Brancusi’s essentiality actually informed the poet’s verse: ‘‘Williams had first learned how to eliminate the inessential in his work, more than forty years earlier’’ (1978, 42). For this study, though, the most important and vital presence linking Williams to Smith is Frank O’Hara. Through his responsibilities at MoMA, O’Hara held a congenial professional and ultimately a close personal friendship with Smith. Smith’s death in an automobile accident in 1965 greatly saddened O’Hara. Erje Ayden, a Turkish writer, recalled spending an evening with O’Hara when a discussion abruptly shifted to David Smith: ‘‘And when Frank cried at the death of David Smith, self-consciously letting his tears drop into the cognac, I did much the same thing. That was the first and last time that I saw Frank unable to walk from too much liquor’’ (1988, 172). As an associate curator of the Museum of Modern Art, O’Hara put together a Smith retrospective. In his introduction to this retrospective, O’Hara compared the sculptor’s accidental death with Pollock’s: ‘‘A great and vital force, who like Pollock had given inspiration and esthetic confidence to many other artists, was suddenly gratuitously removed from American art’’ (1975, 53). Besides this introduction, O’Hara also wrote a 1961 article for Art News entitled ‘‘David Smith: The Color of Steel.’’ O’Hara based his article on a visit he took to Smith’s workshop/studio in Bolton Landing. Later, in 1964, he also conducted an interview of Smith for the television series Art New York: The Continuity of Vision. O’Hara wrote the poem ‘‘Mozart Chemisier’’ shortly after his 1961 visit to Bolton Landing. According to O’Hara, ‘‘the Mozart comes in because he was his favorite composer’’ (Collected Poems 1995, 552). Be-

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sides a passion for classical music—he tuned into the New York classical radio station WQXR while working—Smith loved gourmet food and fine wine. Early in O’Hara’s catalog introduction to Smith’s retrospective exhibition, he offers contrasting portraits of the sculptor in and out of the city: At a part or a vernissage in New York he appeared a great, hulking, plainspoken art worker out of Whitman or Dreiser, neither impressed nor particularly amused by metropolitan ‘‘light weight’’ manners, somewhat of a bull in a china shop; at his home in Bolton Landing, with the same ‘‘plain’’ manner, he prepared delicious meals himself, offered excellent wines and cigars, and spoke of his love of Renaissance music (particularly Giovanni Gabrieli) and Mozart and the writings of James Joyce, of his interest in the musical ideas of John Cage, in the dancing and choreography of Merce Cunningham, in the poetry of Dylan Thomas and William Carlos Williams, in the worker of younger artists . . . . On walks he might discuss Egyptian and Sumerian art (his ‘‘Zig’’ series was inspired by the latter and, I believe, also the ‘‘Cubi’’ series), local politics (he had run for public office in Bolton Landing, but not been elected), the cult of Marilyn Monroe (with which he was in complete and enthusiastic sympathy), what you yourself had been working on recently and the difficulties involved. (1975, 55)

Clearly O’Hara’s sketch reveals Smith as a renaissance man. Such an eclectic background caused his close friend Robert Motherwell to say, ‘‘Oh David you are as delicate as Vivaldi, and as strong as a Mack truck.’’ (Gray 1968, 8). Motherwell’s oft quoted description captures the strength and elegance of this man and his art. Of particular note, though, is O’Hara’s reference to the sculptor’s interest in Williams’s poetry. I have yet to come across Smith referencing Williams in his writings. It also remains unclear to what extent Smith read Williams’s verse.2 One must, therefore, depend upon O’Hara’s description of Smith’s interest. The fact that O’Hara even mentions Williams among the other names suggests Smith’s high regard for a poet often associated with the American avant-garde. To develop O’Hara’s view of Smith more fully, it may help to first turn to the aforementioned ‘‘Mozart Chemisier.’’ In the poem, O’Hara presents a speaker struggling to find some degree of satisfaction amid his natural setting. The poem begins with this speaker mocking his companion’s feelings of connectedness: ‘‘For instance you walk in and faint / you are being one with Africa’’ (1995, 428). The

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speaker has a different experience. He describes seeing a ‘‘foaming’’ soda with ‘‘a head on it,’’ and his consumption of a ‘‘double carbonated bourbon.’’ These bubbling images suggest his increasing frustration. Alcohol may offer a substitute for what he desires here: in the moonlight the poplars look like aspidistra over the unexperienced lake wait, wait a while it all kept murmuring but I know that always makes me so sad there was a lot of tinselly sky out which irritated me too

From these lines, he clearly can see assorted parts of nature; however, he fails to experience any wholeness or achieve any Emersonian gladness from it. He lacks patience and remains antagonistic to this natural world and frustrated and annoyed by its sights and sounds. He subsequently states, ‘‘my anger is strictly European,’’ perhaps suggestive of a desire to impose his will upon this locale—the ‘‘plan plan’’—rather than accepting it for what it is and simply experiencing it. The bubbling image returns in later lines and somehow links the speaker with what seems a polluted natural scene: ‘‘suds in the lake, suds in my heart.’’ He remains antagonistic to the temptations he perceives manifested in ‘‘the lake the tree’’—‘‘I didn’t have any white toreador pants.’’ With the promise of ‘‘bubbly gin,’’ he then heads down the trail to the ranch. At one telling point in the poem, the speaker redirects his address from his companion to the world: oh world why are you so easy to figure out beneath the ground there is something beautiful I’ve had enough of sky it’s so obvious everyone thinks they’re going up in these here America (428)

The speaker’s dismissive comment masks a failure to connect, not only to the surrounding natural world but also to his companion. He asserts a preference for the physical, ‘‘the ground,’’ rather than the mystical, ‘‘the sky.’’ This preference separates him from the majority of those who seek something beyond this place. The key to the speaker’s anger and flippancy seems to be in the re-

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mark quoted earlier: ‘‘that always makes me sad.’’ His isolation in nature leads him to contemplate who and what he is—yet he does not seem comfortable with that type of reflection. An artist like Smith who lives and works in such a lonely place, must not only negotiate that sadness and solitude, but he must learn how to work within it to create great art. The poem concludes, ‘‘I don’t care how small the house they live in is / you don’t have any earrings / I don’t have a ticket.’’ The repetition of ‘‘don’t’’ in these final three lines points to the lack of control the speaker and his companion have here. For better or worse, they appear stuck in this place—both literally and figuratively.

Smith’s Fields O’Hara’s visit to Smith’s home also resulted in an article for Art News entitled ‘‘David Smith: The Color of Steel’’ (1961). Famously Smith displayed his sculptures around the fields surrounding his home. O’Hara memorably describes them as ‘‘people who are awaiting admittance to a formal reception and, while they wait, are thinking about their roles when they join the rest of the guests already in the meadow’’ (1983, 121). The presence of these sculptures in the field offers an intriguing way of understanding Smith’s oeuvre as an artist, particularly in light of what has been discussed already in regard to Williams’s ‘‘The Poem as a Field of Action.’’ Some, like Patricia Johanson, an environmental artist, have described the presence of these sculptures in the fields as a work of art itself: ‘‘It was like the whole fields of David Smith was the work of art. It wasn’t one sculpture. It was that work in relation to the landscape that was so powerful, so important’’ (Brenson 2006, 39). Smith began placing his sculptures in the fields as a necessity because he was running out of places to put them. Their placement here, however, stimulated him. ‘‘Putting pieces together,’’ recalled photographer Dan Budnik, ‘‘he suddenly saw their relation to one another, like pieces in the shop. He got flipped out of his mind excited’’ (Brenson 2006, 45). Smith’s excitement engendered his desire to keep the sculptures together within his fields. As Michael Brenson explains, this desire made Smith’s fields an imaginative and active place for the creation of sculpture. For Smith, they functioned as Brenson claims, as ‘‘storage space, showroom, laboratory, project, poem, and dream. In them, his sculptures performed for him, guided him, pushed him, and

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supported him. There, he could dissolve boundaries, release his extraordinary energy, and meet the demands of his equally extraordinary ambition’’ (46). Brenson’s description itself dissolves the boundaries that may limit a true grasp of the fields’ importance for Smith beyond just being ample ground. In essence, the fields functioned as a medium for Smith. He worked the fields, not cultivating a staple crop, but creating a greater understanding of the sculptures that he was making. Patricia Johanson speaks about the active nature of this process: ‘‘He used to sit there and look at it and move them around. He so clearly was working in relation to that piece of land’’ (Brenson 2006, 50). There is almost something Emersonian in Smith’s placement of his welded sculptures in the surrounding natural landscape. In ‘‘The Poet,’’ Emerson describes his ideal poet as one ‘‘who re-attaches things to nature and the Whole,—re-attaching even artificial things, and violations of nature, to nature, by a deeper insight,—disposes very easily of the most disagreeable facts. Readers of poetry see the factory-village, and the railway, and fancy that the poetry of the landscape is broken up by these; for these works of art are not yet consecrated in their reading; but the poet sees them fall within the great Order not less than the beehive, or the spider’s geometrical web. Nature adopts them very fast into her vital circles, and the gliding train of cars she loves like her own’’ (2001, 189). Williams accomplishes what Emerson calls for in a poem like Paterson—he literally draws upon the Great Falls and the city of Paterson, Hamilton’s idealized factory village, to forge his own unique long poem. Reading Emerson’s lines, though, also reveal the power of Smith’s artistic accomplishment. His sculptures, rooted in the materials and techniques of American industry, seem to emerge from the very fields they inhabit. The Cubis, a series of twenty-eight sculptures created from 1961 through 1965, offer one of the most direct expressions of how the fields complemented Smith’s artistry. According to Brenson, the Cubis are ‘‘the clearest declarations of Smith’s desire to make sculpture that interacted with nature’’ (52). This series of massive stainless steel sculptures use various geometric shapes in seeming defiance of the laws of physics. For instance, Cubi XIX, 1964 balances two tipped boxes, two rectangular blocks, and a pill-like circle on its t-shaped underpinning. Cubi X, 1963, with its ascending squares and projected rectangular planes, offers a human-like form seemingly in mid-step. Of course, their gravity defying appearance depends upon the artist’s

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skill. Yet the Cubis are more than the assemblage of these shapes. Smith’s burnished stainless steel reflects light in such a way as to offer continual optical transformation. Smith desired such an effect: ‘‘I like outdoor sculpture and the most practical thing for outdoor sculpture is stainless steel, and I make them and I polish them in such a way that on a dull day, they take on the dull blue, or the color of the sky in the late afternoon sun, the glow, golden like the rays, the colors of nature. And in a particular sense, I have used atmosphere in a reflective way on the surfaces’’ (Smith 1968, 123). David Heald’s full color photo of Cubi XXI, 1964, with its converging shapes, offers a stunning example. The shimmering Cubi occupies a central place in a tree-lined gap of the field. Much like the tree branches framing its placement, the top stainless steel box stretches toward a brilliant sky. In such a gesture, the man-made object interacts with its natural setting in such a stimulating modern expression. Candida Smith, David Smith and Jean Freas’s daughter, claims, ‘‘the fields were truly born’’ with the placement of the famed Australia in the meadow (Brenson 2006, 58). Australia represents an important transition in Smith’s body of work. As noted by Edward Fry, curator of a 1969 Guggenheim retrospective, it ‘‘stands as a dividing line between two phases of his career’’ (58). The sculpture is magnificent and seemingly courses through the air in mid-flight; its curved steel lines suggest the swift movement of some unique creature—part bird, part insect. Pointed rods atop its head and tail project something forceful, almost menacing in its design. Yet its sleek composition and energetic expression projects gracefulness as well. It’s easy to understand how its active presence in the field could open-up for Smith an important turn in his artistic thinking about what sculpture could be situated and created in such a landscape. For O’Hara, this natural backdrop heightened the unique aesthetic power of Smith’s sculptures. ‘‘Smith’s works in galleries have often looked rugged and in-the-American-grain,’’ O’Hara writes, ‘‘which indeed they are in some respects, but at Bolton Landing the sophistication of vision and means comes to the fore strongly’’ (1983, 121). Contrary to the speaker in O’Hara’s ‘‘Mozart Chemisier,’’ these sculptures do not seem intimidated or ‘‘saddened’’ by an immersion in nature. Rather they project a palpable strength. No wonder at the close of his article, O’Hara declares, ‘‘The best of the current sculptures didn’t make me feel I wanted to have one, they made me feel I wanted to be one’’ (125).

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Throughout the piece, O’Hara praises Smith’s genius. He portrays an artist who, like Pollock, never rests in his experimentation: ‘‘Smith has always been known for his esthetic curiosity and inventiveness, for rapid and drastic changes in style whenever the new interest seized him’’ (124). He also touts a ‘‘unification’’ in Smith’s sculptures, which is achieved as he explains, ‘‘by inviting the eye to travel over the complicated surface exhaustively, rather than inviting it to settle on the whole first and then explore the details. It is the esthetic of culmination rather than examination’’ (1983, 123). In a1964 television interview with Smith for Art New York, O’Hara sums up Smith’s sculptures as ‘‘very attentive to your presence. They have no boring views; circle them as you may, they are never napping. They present a total attention and they are telling you that that is the way to be. On guard. In a sense they are benign, because they offer themselves for your pleasure. But beneath that kindness is a warning: don’t be bored, don’t be lazy, don’t be trivial and don’t be proud. The slightest loss of attention leads to death’’ (1964, 13).3 Marjorie Perloff takes O’Hara’s point onestep further in aligning them to O’Hara’s own poetry. She argues that ‘‘the reader’s eye and ear must ‘travel over the complicated surface exhaustively,’ participating in the process of discovery and continually revising his sense of what the poem is ‘saying.’ The observer can no longer be detached’’ (1998, 24). This active perceptivity results in the reader/viewer’s participation in the work. Smith achieves this connectedness through his sculpture, but it is also what O’Hara and Williams accomplish through the very best of their lyric poems. If you skim or trivialize the language or the line, you risk losing the connection and therefore the possibility for discovery and revelation. O’Hara’s opening for the Art New York script is as noteworthy as its closing. He purposefully places Smith in an American literary context: ‘‘In a way David Smith’s career is like ‘The American Tragedy’ in reverse. He is the sensitive Dreiser hero who abandons commerce but becomes thereby world-famous. He is the Thomas Wolfe hero who stops yearning for the sound of locomotives and proceeds to make his own versions of them . . . the Henry James hero who dominates and influences Europe instead of being corrupted by it’’ (O’Hara 1964, 1).4 By making these comparisons and then revising them, O’Hara projects the sense that what we have with Smith is a sculptor who emerges from the American grain to forge his own unique artistic identity. He weathers forces that seem to consume the literary characters refer-

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enced by O’Hara, and he emerges as a powerful creative force— ‘‘Undaunted by our excessively materialistic society Smith has added to the traditional techniques of sculpture a whole new repertoire of inventions, combinations and techniques, many of the latter taken from the methods of heavy industry’’ (1964, 2).5 Instead of the modern American industrial world beating him down, Smith embraces it and creates from it. This attitude to modernity seems congruent with O’Hara who memorably admits in ‘‘Meditations in an Emergency’’ his preference for modern city living over time spent in the country. Likewise it applies to Williams who chose to stay in industrialized northern New Jersey to work as a physician, but also to draw from this locale in the creation of his verse. In this way, all three artists embrace American modernity.

Smith and Williams in ‘‘Biotherm’’ O’Hara never references Smith directly in his verse, yet he does allude to Smith’s sculpture in his poem ‘‘Biotherm (For Bill Berkson).’’ Like ‘‘Poem Read at Joan Mitchell’s,’’ this occasional poem started in August 1961 but was not finished until January 23, 1962 (Collected Poems 1995, 553). The poem appears loosely assembled with numerous inside jokes and obscure references. Perloff, however, describes it as ‘‘his last great poem and one of the important poems of the sixties’’ (1998, 178). The reference to Smith’s sculptures appears early in the poem: . . . extended vibrations ziggurats ZIG I to IV stars of the Tigris-Euphrates basin leading ultimates such as kickapoo joyjuice halvah Canton cheese in thimbles (1995, 437)

For O’Hara, Smith’s ‘‘Zig’’ series marked the sculptor’s greatest accomplishment. In his piece for Art News, he finds particular ‘‘wonder’’ with the Ziggurats with their immensity and design (1983, 124). The Zigs are a series of three-dimensional painted sculptures that Smith created during the 1960s. Zig IV, 1961, one of the works O’Hara ref-

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erences, projects force and energy through a series of projectiles extending out from a slanted square plane; its much smaller wheel base somehow supports and balances this immense power. The entire work is covered in a P-70 Pri-Met primer coat (Marcus 1983, 158). O’Hara’s reference to the ‘‘stars of the Tigris-Euphrates basin’’ invokes the ancient roots of the term, one seemingly rooted in Sir Leonard Woolley’s translation of ziggurat as ‘‘hill of heaven’’ or ‘‘mountain of god’’ (Doczi 1994, 45). These ancient tiered structures enabled priests to estimate ‘‘the movements of planets, the sun, and the moon’’ that resulted in ‘‘a lunar calendar for predicting seasonal changes, floods, sowing and harvesting times’’ (45). O’Hara’s poetic reference thus associates Smith’s modern works with their more ancient namesakes. Almost a year after Smith’s death, O’Hara arrived in Holland for a showing of Smith’s works where he ‘‘carefully and melancholically touched up those Zigs that had been chipped en route’’ (Gooch 1993, 449). He wrote to Vincent Warren that he used ‘‘the very paint he prepared for such an exigency (sob) and which I brought with me’’ (449). In his introduction to the Smith exhibition, he praises these sculptures: ‘‘They are among his most unique accomplishments, majestic in their scale and authority, revelatory in the aspects of plane, line, and volume, which the colors enforce, outspoken in the originality and virility which they proclaim as prime values in art, yet unpretentious in the simplicity and eagerness of their expression’’ (1975, 64). O’Hara’s adulation here is noteworthy, particularly for the ‘‘leading’’ notion of their revelatory capacity and artistic originality. In addition to Smith, O’Hara references Williams in ‘‘Biotherm.’’6 He parodies the closing lines in Paterson Book V when the aged poet says, The measure intervenes, to measure is all we know, a choice among the measures the measured dance ‘‘unless the scent of a rose startle us anew’’ (1992, 235)

Here is O’Hara’s revision of the lines in ‘‘Biotherm (For Bill Berkson)’’:

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‘‘measure shmeasure know shknew unless the material rattle us around pretty rose preserved in biotherm and yet the y bothers us when we dance the pussy pout’’ (1995, 439)

Clearly O’Hara pokes fun at Williams’s well-known emphasis on ‘‘measure.’’ Mutlu Konuk Blasing contends that O’Hara’s parody functions as a rejection of Williams: ‘‘his ‘measure shmeasure’ must be rejected nonetheless, for measure surfaces the fragile, fluctuating center of life, the biological depth of words, by abstracting speech into a pattern’’ (1990, 313). Yet O’Hara’s play on measure with ‘‘shmeasure,’’ according to Blasing, actually ‘‘affirms his faith in word magic, which remains the basis of poetry.’’ Unlike Williams, O’Hara did not write extended essays about poetry. He humorously wrote in ‘‘Personism: A Manifesto,’’ ‘‘I don’t believe in god, so I don’t have to make elaborately sounded structures. . . . I don’t even like rhythm, assonance, all that stuff. You just go on your nerve’’ (1995, 498). Rather he projects the image of a more spontaneous, less predictable poet. As he claims, ‘‘You just go on your nerve. If somebody’s chasing you down the street with a knife you just run, you don’t turn around and shout, ‘Give it up! I was a track star for Mineola Prep’ ’’ (498). That notion of ‘‘going’’ and ‘‘running,’’ although intentionally comical, speaks to the active impetus behind O’Hara’s versification, something he clearly valued over an overly rigid expression of a subject. What O’Hara does embrace in Williams’s poem is that the rose can ‘‘startle us anew’’ and that the poet must be attentive to such a moment. This line originally occurs in ‘‘Shadows,’’ a poem that appeared in Williams’s Journey to Love. In its original context, the rose references attentiveness to the moment: The instant trivial as it is is all we have unless—unless things the imagination feeds upon, the scent of the rose, startle us anew. (1988, 310)

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Attentiveness to the moment prepares one for those ‘‘things’’ that may energize the imagination and create not only a fresh experience, but also a fresh expression of the experience. For O’Hara, this rose becomes ‘‘preserved in biotherm,’’ in essence his own form for preserving what can ‘‘startle us anew.’’ This remains the only reference to the poem’s title. In a letter dated September 20, 1961, to Donald Allen he defines ‘‘biotherm’’ as ‘‘a marvelous sunburn preparation full of attar of roses, lanolin and plankton ($12 the tube) which Bill’s mother fortunately left around and it hurts terribly when gotten into one’s eyes. Plankton it says on it is practically the most health-giving substance ever rubbed into one’s skin’’ (1961a Allen Collection). In Perloff’s reading, this ‘‘magic potion’’ is ‘‘interchangeable with ‘kickapoo joyjuice halvah Canton cheese / in thimbles’’ (1998, 178); it’s the same combination O’Hara references after his allusion to Smith’s Zigs. O’Hara included his parody of Williams’s lines in his letter to Donald Allen. His correspondence conveys enthusiasm for his poem, primarily because as he suggests, ‘‘I seem to have been able to keep it ‘open’ and so there are lots of possibilities, air and such’’ (1961a Allen Collection). O’Hara’s pleasure at the poem’s openness and possibilities parallels what Paterson V, in part, accomplishes—as it reopens a poem originally intended in four parts. The final line of O’Hara’s revision perhaps proves the most difficult to interpret—‘‘yet the y bothers us when we dance / the pussy pout’’ (1995, 439). According to O’Hara’s letter to Allen, ‘‘pussy pout’’ is ‘‘a slang term for the mons veneris, discovered through the researches of John Button’’ (1961a Allen Collection). The credit to his good friend Button aside, O’Hara’s crude female reference further evokes Williams’s closing section of Paterson V that describes ‘‘an old woman’’ who must ‘‘wear a china door-knob / in her vagina to hold her womb up’’ (1992, 234). Ultimately, in O’Hara’s poem, the ‘‘y’’ behind the dance creates its friction. It marks a separation from Williams and ultimately a splitting from him. This notion becomes clearer later on when he writes, ‘‘I am sitting on top of Mauna Loa seeing thinking feeling / the breeze rustles through the mountain gently trusts me / I am guarding it from mess and measure’’ (1995, 444). Marjorie Perloff describes these lines as expressing O’Hara’s effort to guard his poem both ‘‘from total formlessness on one hand, and from a more traditional rhetorical and prosodic organization on the other’’ (1998, 178). His use of the word ‘‘measure’’ here echoes his Williams parody. For O’Hara, Williams’s

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emphasis on measure has the potential to disrupt the spontaneous and fluid nature of the dance that he hopes to create.

Challenging Tradition Over the past few pages, I have attempted to demonstrate the depth of O’Hara’s regard for Smith as an American artist. My intention is not to argue that O’Hara influenced Smith or vice versa. However, despite their obvious differences in mediums, their shared aesthetic sensibilities offer us a clearer way of understanding the ways that Williams’s notions about artistry permeate the later works of America’s avant-garde poets and artists. To further elaborate, it may help to identify some basic parallels between Smith and Williams. For instance, in Spring and All Williams sought to break free through the stultifying grip of literary tradition—what he terms ‘‘the traditionalists of plagiarism’’ (1986, 185)—to release the original power of the imagination. He seeks to break free from the type of writing that searches ‘‘about in the daily experience for apt similes and pretty thoughts and images’’ (207). To locate the imagination’s true power, one must move beyond static comparisons, dig deep, and tap into the creative potential inherent in nature. Williams terms it this way—imaginative writing is ‘‘not ‘like’ anything but transfused with the same forces which transfuse the earth’’ (207). To create in such a way, as Williams believes, results in originality—‘‘It is NEW! Let us go forward!’’ (185). Smith shared Williams’s attitude about the ways tradition could hinder the artist and diminish innovation and original expression. As he remarks, ‘‘I have spoken against tradition, but only the tradition of others who would hold art from moving forward. . . . Tradition comes wrapped up in word pictures, these are traps which lead laymen into cliche´ thinking. This leads to analogy and comparative evaluation and conclusion (1968, 137). Smith does not dismiss the importance of tradition outright, but he points out how its invocation could be detrimental to artists seeking to explore the new. Like Williams’s desire to break free from ‘‘apt similes,’’ Smith sees the danger of ‘‘cliche´ thinking’’ and analogies that ultimately limit creative expression. As evident in the aforementioned Zigs, Smith wants to move beyond a static sense of tradition to express his unique artistic vision. Furthermore, like Williams, Smith associates such a view of tradi-

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tion with his cultural background. In The Great American Novel, Williams claims Americans ‘‘will learn what we will’’ without instruction from Europe or China. He memorably describes America as ‘‘a mass of pulp, a jelly, a sensitive plate ready to take whatever print you want to put on it—We have no art, no manners, no intellect—we have nothing’’ (1970, 175). Smith appears to share such a sentiment in the following self-description: ‘‘I know what the challenge is, and I challenge everything and everybody. And I think that is what every artist has to do. The minute you show a work, you challenge every other artist. And you have to work very hard, especially here. We don’t have the introduction that European artists have. We’re challenging the world . . . I’m going to work to the best of my ability to the day I die, challenging what’s given to me’’ (1968, 172). Smith’s words express his strength and self-assurance as a sculptor. His repetition of the word ‘‘challenge’’ underscores the avant-garde nature of his artistry. Yet this statement also reveals Smith’s perception of an American background that shaped his challenging stance. His directness about this cultural influence separates Smith from some of the Abstract Expressionists. Pollock talked about creating art in America; however, he never spoke out as directly about the way this background informed his art. As suggested from their views on tradition, both men refused to create work that merely copied what previously existed in their world. Returning to Spring and All, Williams came to understand the flawed nature of merely mirroring modernity. He contends that Shakespeare’s ‘‘aphorism about holding the mirror up to nature has done more harm in stabilizing the copyist tendency of the arts among us’’ (1986, 208). Through this poetic development, he has come to understand that Shakespeare ‘‘holds no mirror up to nature but with his imagination rivals nature’s composition with his own. He himself becomes ‘nature’—continuing ‘its’ marvels—if you will’’ (208). For Williams, Shakespeare’s timeless artistry proves that he is no mere copyist. He again touches upon this artistic act of mirroring in his Autobiography: ‘‘It is NOT to hold the mirror up to nature that the artist performs his work. It is to make, out of the imagination, something not at all a copy of nature, but something quite different, a new thing, unlike any thing else in nature, a thing advanced and apart from it. . . . by imitation we enlarge nature itself, we become nature or we discover in ourselves nature’s active part. This is enticing to our minds, it enlarges the concept of art, dignifies it to a place not yet fully realized’’

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(1951, 241). Williams’s differentiation between copying and imitating nature provides an intriguing distinction to consider. In the context of this study, that notion of enlarging nature, becoming nature, or activating that part of nature within cannot help but to evoke Pollock’s famous drip paintings. Lee Krasner, artist and wife of Pollock, recalls an exchange between Pollock and Hans Hoffman about this subject. According to Krasner, after Hoffman looked at Pollock’s work, he remarked, ‘‘You do not work from nature’’ (Karmel 1999, 28). Pollock’s memorable and revealing response—‘‘I am nature.’’ In light of Williams’s idea about the artist’s need to imitate nature, Pollock’s claim becomes less egotistical and more understandable. Krasner’s commentary about Pollock’s response is also telling, particularly in regard to this study’s exploration of the American qualities shared by these artists. She tells the interviewer Bruce Glaser: ‘‘I think this statement articulates an important difference between French painting and what followed. It breaks once and for all the concept that was still more or less present in Cubist derived painting, that one sits and observes nature that is out there. Rather, it claims a oneness’’ (28). Ultimately Emerson himself called upon artists to achieve such oneness. Pollock’s reintroduction into this discussion is also intriguing in consideration of Williams’s Autobiography. No doubt, ‘‘The American Spirit in Art’’ was not far from Williams’s mind. In fact, in this chapter he tells an anecdote about Alanson Hartpence and a female customer’s inquiry of ‘‘paint,’’ which he also shares in his address. Preceding the lines quoted above from his Autobiography, Williams actually discusses his ideas about copying and imitation within the context of abstract painting: ‘‘The objective is not to copy nature and never was, but to imitate nature, which involved active invention, the active work of the imagination . . . A man makes a picture, it is made of paint upon canvas stretched on a frame. . . . One doesn’t paint an ‘‘abstract painting.’’ One makes a painting. If it is a dull painting, an unimaginative painting, if the elements of paint are emptily used, the painting would prove empty even though it represented some powerful dictator or a thesis of Sartre’’ (1951a, 241). Although Williams cites Virginia Woolf as an example of the ‘‘active work of the imagination,’’ it’s possible to envision Pollock’s presence behind these lines, particularly in terms of the artist’s ‘‘active invention.’’ Pollock understood the sensitive nature of creation: ‘‘I have no fears about making changes, destroying the image, etc., because the painting has a life of its own. I try to let it come through. It is only when I lose contact with the painting that the

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result is a mess’’ (Karmel 1999, 18). That notion of contact would no doubt appeal to Williams who believed that such contact—whether in art or human relations—engendered a sense of authenticity. Concerning David Smith’s views of imitation and reflection, there initially seems to be a distinction from Williams: ‘‘We do not imitate nature’’ (1968, 169). Yet as Smith continues, it seems that what he has in mind concerns not so much imitation as Williams and Pollock suggest, but the notion of static copying: ‘‘We are not the mirror of the external world / that is the camera / We are not even the illusionistic mirror’’ (169). Through a series of negations, Smith clears space for the artist away from a programmatic expression of nature. He declares, ‘‘if we mirror at all it is our own personal vision / with a statement that the artist is unique and individual—/ dedicated and growing.’’ Like Williams and Pollock, Smith concentrates the reflective power within the individuality of the artist. That belief in the artist’s unique vision is what ultimately enables growth and the progression of a unique imaginative expression.

Smith as Poet Unlike Pollock, Smith articulated a stronger relationship between art and poetry. He conceived of his own sculpture in relation to poetry. He wrote that his imaginative creations begin in a variety of ways, from found objects, to no objects to happenstance: ‘‘I want to be like a poet, in a sense’’ (78). Smith’s happened-on creativity parallels certain aspects of Williams’s own creation of poems rooted in the conversation and images of his daily doctoring. Smith also wrote poetry. It certainly does not rival Williams or O’Hara’s verse, but it reveals the scope of Smith’s artistic interests. Here is a provocative untitled poem. There is something rather noble about junk—selected junk— junk which has in one era performed nobly in function for common man—

He then observes that such junk has yet to achieve the status of ‘‘relic or antique,’’ but it has been ‘‘left for me—/ to be found as the cracks in the sidewalks’’ (1968, 152). Such lines seem to echo Williams’s ‘‘Pastoral’’ (1917), a poem where the speaker walks back streets ‘‘ad-

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miring the houses / of the very poor’’ (1986, 64). Of particular note to Williams’s speaker is what many would perceive as ‘‘junk’’—‘‘the yards cluttered / with old chicken wire’’ and the ‘‘furniture gone wrong.’’ Williams also mentions . . . parts of boxes, all, if I am fortunate, smeared a bluish green (1986, 64)

Like Smith, the speaker continues to see something useful in these discarded objects and to perceive beauty in the crudity of his dilapidated modern locale. For Williams’s speaker, however, there is a solitary feeling that comes with such perception: No one will believe this of vast import to the nation. (65)

Smith understood the importance of such ‘‘junk’’ to the artist. He told Thomas Hess in an interview, ‘‘I don’t know what useless things are’’ (Hess 1964, 2).7 His own poem concludes by comparing his discovery of this ‘‘junk’’ with more natural discoveries, such as those found in ‘‘the grain of wood,’’ ‘‘drops in grass,’’ and even floating clouds. His discovery of this junk is now to be arranged to be now perceived by new ownership (1968, 152)

As his comparison suggests, Smith sees a natural process in the transformation of once useful objects into junk and eventually into art. This process depends upon the artist’s perception to see the intrinsic beauty in junk and reintegrate it into a new creative expression. In Williams’s poem, the perception of these materials creates its own form of poetic value—the overlooked, dismissed materials of the back streets now garner extraordinary power. Although the uneven line breaks in Smith’s poem fail to achieve the same rhythm as Williams’s poem, his

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use of the shorter line seems an exploration of form much in the style of Williams.

The Making of an American Art Smith’s poem also expresses his artistic beliefs about found objects. Smith saw transformative potential inherent in such things: ‘‘Forms in function are often not appreciated in their context except for their mechanical performance. With time and the passing of these functions and a separation of their parts, a metaphoric change can take place permitting a new unity, one that is strictly visual’’ (1968, 74). Smith cites his Agricola series, which incorporates old farming implements in its designs, as displaying this idea. The series consists of seventeen sculptures made between the years 1951 to 1959 (Tucker 2006, 69). Like Williams’s Spring and All, the numbering of sculptures does not follow a chronological order; for instance, Agricola XII appeared before XI (70). The series draws heavily from America’s agrarian past. ‘‘By incorporating found iron and steel parts from farm implements,’’ O’Hara writes, ‘‘and factory-ordered steel parts such as I-beams and concave discs in his work, Smith utilized his American milieu’’ (1975, 61). The use of these historicized American materials demonstrates Smith’s engagement rather than repulsion of his artistic origins. For Williams, it is the backstreets of the poor or the broken glass behind the wings of the hospital. For O’Hara, it is the malt shop and hard hats on Manhattan streets. Smith does the same in his medium to produce dynamic works of art. For instance, Agricola IX, 1952 consists of a series of seven open-ended loops, differing in size and placement along a horizontal base. Each of these loops extends from separate curved rods; the rods of only two loops join at a common point on the spine along with a t-shaped extension. As you move around Agricola IX, occasionally peering through its varying loops, you see beyond discarded parts and comprehend a new whole that reshapes the space it contains. Smith’s sculpture asks the viewer to move around it, experience it from different vantage points and explore the nuances of its varying angles. By doing this, one discovers and gains a new perspective on the sculpture at each movement. Beyond the nonsequential numbering of works, Smith’s Agricola series offers an intriguing connection to several poems from Williams’s Spring and All, ‘‘The Farmer’’ and ‘‘The Red Wheelbarrow.’’ In both

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Agricola IX, 1952 photo by David Smith  Estate of David Smith / Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY.

poems Williams makes use of elements found in an agrarian locale to offer an imaginative release. In ‘‘The Farmer,’’ he portrays the figure of a farmer amid ‘‘his blank fields’’ that on the surface appear inhospitable. Along with a ‘‘cold wind,’’ there are ‘‘browned weeds’’ and ‘‘March clouds’’ (1986, 186). Despite this dreariness, the farmer does not seem paralyzed or immobilized in this setting. Quite the contrast, he is ‘‘in deep thought’’ and ‘‘pacing through the rain.’’ He remains both intellectually and physically active in his fields. Like the earlier poem ‘‘Spring and All,’’ this harsh external appearance masks the imaginative potential residing in this place. The farmer knows this. All of this seeming darkness, as Williams writes, ‘‘leaving room for thought.’’ The poem closes by recasting the farmer’s image: Down past the brushwood bristling by the rainsluiced wagonroad looms the artist figure of

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the farmer—composing —antagonist

In describing the farmer as artist, Williams reinforces the notion of the poet as one who walks his fields, knows his fields, and through imaginative contact can compose something new from them. Williams values both the process and product of such artistic cultivation. Considering his selection of the word agricola, the Latin term for farmer, Smith’s own sculptural series represents a similar contact with materials rooted in the fields of Bolton Landing that resulted in new and imaginative works. ‘‘The Red Wheelbarrow’’ moves beyond just a conceptual link with Smith’s Agricola series and actually makes use of an agrarian implement. In the context of Smith’s words, Williams demonstrates how the poet can take a common object like a wheelbarrow and move it beyond a static function or singular meaning. He describes a red wheel barrow in relation to other common things—‘‘rain / water’’ and ‘‘white / chickens’’ (1986, 224). In a series of four brief, carefully crafted stanzas he reveals how ‘‘so much’’ truly does depend upon the capacity to see the interrelationship between these common things. This deceptively simple poem, with its unique design and vivid images, creates an effect on the reader similar to the way a viewer sees Smith’s Agricola IX. With each pass, one gains some new perspective. The poem tends not to limit meaning but rather fosters active engagement and possibilities. After all, what does that abstract phrase ‘‘so much depends / upon’’ actually mean in regard to these specific objects? Williams provides no concrete answer. As evident in the ample critical discourse surrounding the poem, this ambiguity only encourages readers to engage imaginatively with the words, to shape their own vision of the images, and to construct their own reading of the poem’s meaning. Closely following ‘‘The Red Wheelbarrow,’’ in the prose portion of Spring and All, Williams writes, ‘‘The same things exist, but in a different condition when energized by the imagination’’ (224). This energized process is, in fact, what occurs when poets like Williams and artists like Smith take the ordinary and seemingly useless things surrounding them and create their unique works of art. Besides the ordinary, Williams and Smith embraced in their artistry the crudity of American culture. ‘‘One of the good things about American art’’ Smith writes, ‘‘is that it doesn’t have the spit and polish that some foreign art has. It is coarse. One of its virtues is coarseness’’

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(1968, 77). In his biting cultural critique The Great American Novel, Williams persistently references the lack of ‘‘culture’’ in America. ‘‘I am an American. A United Stateser,’’ he declares at one point. ‘‘Yes, it’s ugly, there is no word to say it better’’ (1970, 175). Despite such an admission, Williams refuses to turn away from this ugliness. In association with America’s coarse cultural identity, Smith, like Williams, seems to see its potential for beauty. Again, I turn to his words to clarify: ‘‘it may be society’s vulgarity, but it is my beauty. . . . Despite the subject of brutality, the appreciation must show love. The rape of man by war machine will show the poetic use of form in its making. The beauties of nature do not conceal destruction and degeneration’’ (1968, 77). Here Smith transforms the vulgarity to his ‘‘beauty.’’ The key to this transformation is the artist’s attention and sensitivity to the stated ‘‘vulgarity’’ and brutality. Smith’s words call to mind Williams’s repeated references to the ‘‘Beautiful Thing.’’ In Williams’s In the American Grain, Columbus describes the New World as ‘‘the most beautiful thing which I had ever seen’’ (1925, 26). Later, in the 1937 poem ‘‘Paterson: Episode 17,’’ the ‘‘Beautiful Thing’’ refers to an African-American woman brutalized by local men. The guys from Newark gang rape her; the guys from Paterson rescue her and then ‘‘socked’’ her ‘‘across the nose’’ (1986, 441–42). She has been ‘‘made’’ by these men, just as the poet attempts to make her through the ‘‘beat’’ of his lines. Yet her resistance to a limited, fixed representation pushes him beyond poetic conventions to discover a form that expresses her true nature. The ‘‘Beautiful Thing’’ reappears in Paterson, Book III. He juxtaposes lines from ‘‘Paterson: Episode 17’’ with lines related to Catholina Lambert’s drive to break a workers’ strike.8 Dr. Paterson then seems to give voice to the same brutality, as he looks to ‘‘make’’ her. . . . TAKE OFF YOUR CLOTHES! I didn’t ask you to take off your skin . I said your clothes, your clothes. You smell like a whore. I ask you to bathe in my opinions, the astonishing virtue of your lost body . . . (1992, 105–6)

These lines, according to James Breslin, reveal ‘‘how Paterson, in his demands for a pure beauty, is himself implicated in the maiming and

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violating of natural beauty’’ (1970, 193). Later on, in section 2 of Book Three, Dr. Paterson descends to the basement where she recovers from the rape. This time he treats her differently—he is ‘‘shaken’’ by the beaten woman’s beauty (1992, 126). She shows him the childhood scars on her legs. ‘‘Instead of trying to force his righteous opinions upon her ‘lost body,’ ’’ Breslin asserts, ‘‘he lets her physical being speak silently to him’’ (1970, 194). He therefore takes a more sensitive approach to her and moves beyond a desire to control her representation. By the close of the section, Peter Schmidt believes that he demonstrates a ‘‘new willingness to find beauty in this world, not an ideal one of his own making’’ (1988, 185). Like Williams, Smith clearly understood the inherent complexity of the materials that he used in making his sculptures. In discussing his use of steel, he wrote, ‘‘It is structure, movement, progress, suspension, cantilever and at times destruction and beauty’’ (1968, 54). In another elaboration about steel, he again keys in on its movement, power, and brutality: ‘‘Possibly steel is so beautiful because of all the movement associated with it . . . Yet it is also brutal: the rapist, the murderer and death-dealing giants are also its offspring’’ (Anfam 1990, 40). No doubt if Smith read Williams to any extent, he also found a poet who shared similar ideas about the ways machinery could influence modern artistic creation. Now, as discussed in chapter 1, Williams famously declared in The Wedge that ‘‘A poem is a small (or large) machine made of words’’ (1988, 54). His unique description related to his belief ‘‘that there can be no part, as in any other machine, that is redundant.’’ O’Hara appears to echo this dictum in ‘‘Memorial Day, 1950’’ when he exclaims, ‘‘Poetry is as useful as a machine!’’ (1995, 18). For Williams, the correlation of poetry and machinery resides in a desire for efficiency in the poetic line. He strove for such essentiality within his own verse, as evident in a poem like ‘‘A Sort of a Song.’’ For him, poetry distinguishes itself from prose when ‘‘pruned to a perfect economy’’ (1988, 54). Without such economy, the poem’s inherent rhythm becomes compromised: ‘‘As in all machines its movement is intrinsic, undulant, a physical more than a literary character. In a poem this movement is distinguished in each case by the character of the speech from which it arises’’ (54). For Williams, this movement directly connects to the materials from which the poem derives—the language. Because American speech patterns are unique, as Williams

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has repeatedly asserted, American poetry would be distinct from English poetry. For Williams, the same seems to be true for sculpture. In his later essay on Brancusi, he emphasizes a comparable goal. When commenting on Fish (polished, green mottled marble), he claims, ‘‘Here Brancusi has been at his greatest, eliminating all that is inessential until the pure form comes out in all its simple dignity and conviction as we veritably gasp to witness it’’ (1978, 254). For Williams, such efficiency and essentiality result in a work of such clear intensity. David Smith appears to share Williams’s desire for such essentiality and even uses his own machine analogy: ‘‘My aim in material function is the same as in locomotive building: to arrive at a given functional form in the most efficient manner. The locomotive method bows to no accepted theory of fabrication. It utilizes the respective merits of castings, forging, riveting, arc and gas welding, brazing, silver solder, bolts, screws, shrink fits, all because of their efficiency in arriving at an object or form in function’’ (1968, 52). Smith’s analogy clearly draws upon the factory experience that shaped his way of thinking about materials, creativity and design. He parallels Williams’s ideas about functionality and form. In fact, his preference for iron seems connected to its elemental properties: ‘‘What it can do in arriving at form economically—no other element can do’’ (50). Along with the familiar materials used by both men, each stresses the importance of ‘‘making’’ in the creation of their respective works. Williams, one may recall from my earlier discussion of O’Hara’s ‘‘Memorial Day, 1950,’’ stresses this concept of making throughout his preface to The Wedge. He explains that the poet ‘‘makes a poem’’ by taking those words surrounding him and composing them ‘‘into an intense expression of his perceptions and ardors that they may constitute a revelation in the speech that he uses’’ (1988, 54). For Williams, a poem that is true to the character of the speech from which it derives ultimately leads to beauty. He writes, ‘‘One doesn’t seek beauty. All that an artist or a Sperry can do is to drive toward his purpose, in the nature of his materials, not to take gold where Babbitt metal is called for; to make: make clear the complexity of his perceptions in the medium given to him by inheritance, chance, accident or whatever it may be to work with according to his talents and the will that drives them’’ (1988, 54) As discussed earlier in relation to O’Hara’s ‘‘Memorial Day, 1950,’’ such a process results in poems that achieve authenticity, originality, and revelatory power. Despite the differences in artistic voca-

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tions, the parallel to Smith is again intriguing. He, too, emphasizes this notion of making in his sculptures: ‘‘I want to make one image, I want to have controlled every make in it’’ (1968, 58). He foregoes what some may deign the ‘‘gold’’ material in his sculptures and ultimately discovers the inherent complexities and beauty within more common materials. For Smith, this process includes the possibility for what chance or accident may yield: ‘‘The conflict for realization is what makes art not its certainty, nor its technique or material’’ (56). One final parallel between Smith and Williams—a further emphasis upon movement—ties both men to O’Hara and Pollock. For Smith, this aesthetic quality manifests itself most visibly in his wheeled sculptures. Sentinel III (1957) is the first of these sculptures; however, the wheels seem to serve a utilitarian, rather than aesthetic purpose. Karen Wilkin explains that Smith’s first use of wheels ‘‘may have originated in his having placed work on a wheeled dolly to make it easier to move’’ (1984, 77). Thus functionality may have stimulated ‘‘aesthetic choice.’’ The wheels, although, do matter within an understanding of a sculpture’s composition. In a May 1960 lecture, Smith explained, ‘‘the wheels have meaning, they are no more functional than wheels on an Indian stone temple. It is playful idea projecting movement’’ (Ajac and Trotman 2006, 413). It was not until the incredibly productive time he spent in 1962 at Voltri that Smith turned greater attention to the way wheels could work within the overall composition of his sculptures. Voltri VI, 1962 and Voltri VII, 1962 reflect this direction. They both utilize two wheels opposed by a singular steel leg. Stanley Marcus contends that the Voltri experience caused Smith to view wheels in ‘‘nearly reverential’’ terms (1983, 156). It also resulted in his increased awareness of the totality of his sculptures. According to Marcus, ‘‘He resolved to permit no ‘dead’ areas. Forms that previously had only a functional purpose of supporting his images now came to function as images themselves. . . . Smith came to use wheels, like musical instruments, to convey a variety of otherwise inexpressible feelings’’ (1983, 157). Later Smith featured wheels in his Wagon series. According to Wilkin, ‘‘Unlike the elongated, slightly flaccid Voltri chariots, the Wagons are energetic, self-contained structures’’ (1984, 79). Wagon II offers an impressive example of this series. The seemingly sagging spine of the work rests on four opposing wheels. One wheel dwarfs the other three, yet the entire work appears level. Wilkin argues that ‘‘[t]he uneven sizes of the wheels adds to the sense of erratic energy.’’ On the center

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of its spine the sculptural wagon carries a totemic presence; Marcus suggests this ‘‘fanciful’’ image could be ‘‘a rider in a carriage’’ (1983, 155). Walking around this massive piece, one senses the ‘‘tension’’ and energy Wilkin describes. It contains imaginative potential for powerful motion. The work’s title itself, evocative of Smith’s own pioneer stock, projects a sense of such forceful movement. In this context, these modern Wagons epitomize that American spirit to push ahead into the unknown to either forge a new life or create a new art. In the end, a study of David Smith offers a compelling touchstone for Williams’s relevance to New York School artists. The sculptor’s work and words parallel several of Williams’s ideas about artistry, modernity, and America. By identifying these parallels, we see that a wider variety of American artists shared Williams’s aesthetic goals by mid-century. Frank O’Hara provides a vital link between these men. Like Williams, he is arguably one of the most knowledgeable poets of his generation concerning the trends occurring in the visual arts. Of particular value, though, is not simply O’Hara’s reference to the sculptor’s interest in Williams, but in O’Hara’s perception of the originality and authenticity of their respective works. All three of these men have an ability to take the ordinary and reveal through their artistry its extraordinary properties. They also consistently push toward new forms of expression in their particular mediums. In this way, the work of all three ultimately point to ‘‘the new American artistic spirit.’’

Conclusion AS DEMONSTRATED THROUGH THIS STUDY, WILLIAM CARLOS WILliams’s ties to the New York avant-garde did not end in the 1920s. He continued to offer something to the changing members of this scene throughout the 1950s and 1960s, as evident in Frank O’Hara’s avid interest and appreciation of his verse. He also appeared to matter to a range of visual artists. For the little known Romano, he provided support and friendship. For more renowned artists like Motherwell and Smith, he shared a desire to challenge traditional forms and to discover new possibilities for modern artistic expression. For Williams’s part, although uncertain about the trajectory of Abstract Expressionism, he recognized its cultural and artistic significance as evident in repeated references to Pollock and Motherwell in his work. Toward the end of his life, Williams continued to wrestle with the meaning of abstract art. For instance, he wrote a three-stanza poem entitled ‘‘The Art’’ (1961), which expresses the indefiniteness he associated with abstraction. The speaker matter-of-factly describes the process of observing and interpreting abstract work. He points out how it can be called ‘‘anything’’—from ‘‘a / crocus clump’’ to ‘‘a new laid breast’’ that is ‘‘hatched / by Modigliani’’ (1988, 378). The brevity of the poem precludes any sustained description of a particular painting. The poem instead celebrates the speaker’s imaginative response and participation in the painting’s meaning. After all, the speaker looks at this work in the spring, a time Williams often associates with newness and creativity. The fact that the literal painting cannot be defined and evades easy categorization also would seem appealing to Williams. On one hand, it could be that ‘‘crocus clump’’—art that imitates, but does not copy nature. On the other hand, it could be something with more artistic origins ‘‘by Modigliani,’’ an artist whose style itself resists easy categorization. Yet, as this study proves, as much as Williams entertained such uncertainty, he struggled to embrace the ongoing presence of abstract 146

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art. In a December 24, 1959, letter to Donald Allen, he concludes by saying, ‘‘Well, the turn of the painters against abstraction has come not a moment too soon for me’’ (1959c, Donald Allen Collection). After this movement toward abstraction, what would come next? His writing about Emanuel Romano’s painting, in part, reveals this concern over contemporary art. He never satisfactorily answered this question and through the course of the 1950s eventually turned toward something more familiar—the works of a painter like Brueghel. Originally his Brueghel poems were published in the Hudson Review, the same magazine where Joseph Bennett once ‘‘hammered’’ his experimental poetics. Later on, these poems became Pictures from Brueghel (1962), garnering Williams the 1963 Pulitzer Prize for poetry. According to Mike Weaver, ‘‘In returning to this visual mode in the very late Fifties he was turning away from the Subjectivism implicit in the Projectivist version of Measure, which had discovered what was for him an all-too-apt analogy for itself in Action painting. When reflection gives way to action the tradition of the new finally subverts the tradition of the old. Williams would not go so far; his return to realism in the Brueghel poems marks a newly acquired sense of personality in the work of art’’ (1966, 21). After the debacle with his second commentary on Romano and his continued uncertainty over the Abstract Expressionists, the work of Brueghel presented Williams with more secure footing from which to comment and create. Yet it is not just Brueghel where Williams returned. He dedicated Paterson V (1958) to the painter Henri Toulouse Lautrec. When asked by Walter Sutton about Toulouse-Lautrec’s importance, Williams described him as ‘‘a man that respected the truth of the design’’ (1976, 54). For Williams, he made no judgment regarding a woman: ‘‘what the hell difference is it to him that she’s a whore? He was indifferent to it, and the poet is also indifferent to it.’’ Paterson V also focuses upon the famous Unicorn Tapestries at the Cloisters Museum. In section 2, he identifies what he perceives as the make-up of the true artist: . . . you cannot be an artist by mere ineptitude The dream is in the pursuit! (1992, 219)

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This ‘‘pursuit’’ of imaginative creations informs the approach of such an artist. Immediately following this description he references the work of an early abstractionist: The neat figures of Paul Klee fill the canvas but that is not the work of a child . the cure began, perhaps with the abstraction of Arabic art (1992, 219–20)

Williams’s choice of Paul Klee as such an artist is noteworthy. Klee was a member of the Blaue Reiter group that also included an early Williams favorite—Wassily Kandinsky. The assertion that Klee’s painting is ‘‘not the work / of a child’’ marks an important distinction, especially considering Williams’s fear that the later trend toward abstraction might lead to the belief that ‘‘the scribblings’’ of five-yearolds were art. Klee’s early form of abstraction seems ‘‘neat’’ and in control—one can assume, from Williams’s perspective, informed by ‘‘blessed’’ design. These ‘‘neat figures’’ also seem an outgrowth of ‘‘the cure.’’ Such a notion again seems to allude to Kandinsky, particularly the curative properties that he associated with art. He also mentions other artists who shared such an artistic pursuit. He references Du¨rer’s Melancholy, Leonardo’s La Gioconda, and Bosch’s ‘‘congeries of tortured souls and devils / who prey on them’’ (220). The list reveals both the old and the new, particularly when he references Freud, Picasso, and Juan Gris (one of Williams’s favorites). Yet it should be noted the list does not include newer artists like Motherwell or Pollock. Williams’s regard for these two never reached the levels it did for painters like Gris, Matisse, or Picasso. The appearance of this tribute to the painters, though, reveals that Williams could never stop thinking about the relationship between word and image. In these references, he clearly sought a way to both honor and continue to create from influential figures that he both respected and understood. For his part, Frank O’Hara continued to explore and promote avant-garde poets and artists throughout his life. As this study argues, Williams played an influential role in O’Hara’s poetic development.

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However, as pointed out early on, Williams’s influence on O’Hara was not exclusive. He had a passionate interest in so many different early modernists—James Joyce, Gertrude Stein, Hart Crane, Guillaume Apollinaire, and Arthur Rimbaud, among others. He also had interest, and in some cases close friendships, with a range of different contemporary poets—John Ashbery, Charles Olson, Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, and Leroi Jones, again to name but a few. Further research in relation to any one of these writers would no doubt result in an even greater understanding and appreciation of the depth and richness of O’Hara’s verse. Just as O’Hara cannot be limited to the influence of one poet, it is a mistake to see his interest in painting beginning and ending solely in Abstract Expressionism. His work as an art critic and curator reflects a continuing effort to promote painters he admired. This seems especially true in the work of painters who come to prominence following the first generation of New York School artists like Larry Rivers. In ‘‘Larry Rivers: A Memoir,’’ O’Hara praises Rivers as ‘‘one of the best draftsmen in contemporary art and one of the most subtle and particular colorists’’ (1983, 173). He collaborated with Rivers on a variety of projects, including the aforementioned play Kenneth Koch: A Tragedy. They also collaborated on Stones, a series of lithographs created from 1957–60. O’Hara even posed for Rivers in O’Hara Nude with Boots, 1954. Jasper Johns, an artist also evading easy codification, became quite close to O’Hara. He eventually painted In Memory of My Feelings—Frank O’Hara (1961), a work inspired by O’Hara’s poem, and he later created Memory Piece (Frank O’Hara), 1961–70, a work that uses a plaster cast of O’Hara’s foot that presses into a box of sand. In 1962 for Kulchur, he described Johns as ‘‘a very misunderstood artist, whose art presents to many something easily assimilable and understood, but Johns is one of the most mysterious artists of our time’’ (1983, 131). Rivers and Johns are just two of the many visual artists who shared close relationships with O’Hara. As evident in the scope of these friendships, O’Hara refused to align himself rigidly with one movement or one artist. In response to Edward Lucie Smith’s question about what most excites him in modern American art, he explained, ‘‘Well, they’re all individual qualities. I would really just have to name a lot of artists. I don’t find that one year I’m excited by abstract expressionism, the next year by pop art, the next year by op art, and then this coming year by spatial sculpture, or something. . . . It all is in the same environment which I live in’’ (1983, 6). Such a response

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gets at the heart of what makes O’Hara such a fascinating figure in art and poetry. He evinces an openness to experience and explore a range of styles and work. In closing, both O’Hara’s and Williams’s engagement with Abstract Expressionism is telling. Williams eventually saw its importance in both cultural terms, as evident in ‘‘The American Spirit in Art,’’ and artistic terms, the challenging and progressive nature of the avantgarde. Although in the 1950s he could not wholeheartedly commit himself to it, Frank O’Hara did. O’Hara’s work with these artists and his own verse reflect his capacity to not only revere and admire the older Williams, but to move beyond him in the development and expression of his own poetic voice. Ultimately, though, both poets share with the visual artists discussed a desire for the new, a search for the authentic, and a determination to draw the reader into the moment of artistic creation. It is in this way that Williams, O’Hara, and the Abstract Expressionists offer us a way of not merely reliving a past moment, but of challenging our attentiveness to the details and design inherent in the act of creating something new.

Notes Chapter 1. ‘‘Better Than the Movies’’ 1. The list here is extensive and filled with so many accomplished scholars— Christopher MacGowan, Peter Schmidt, and Terrence Diggory, among others, have provided in-depth studies that persuasively demonstrate the need to understand Williams’s relationship with the painters to better understand his experimentations and artistry. 2. I have had this observation validated in a variety of ways through the years. Perhaps the most memorable time occurred during a talk I gave in 2003 at the Cultural Arts Center in Brick, New Jersey, in 2003. A member of the audience spoke up when I made a similar comment and told the audience I was right. He said he had been a patient of Dr. Williams when he was a child and they only knew him as a physician. 3. It also should be mentioned that there have to be moments of let down in regard to artistic productivity—it is difficult (nearly impossible) to maintain such a creative pace. 4. This letter originally looks to be dated Tuesday, January 19, 1953; however, this date is crossed out and the following appears atop the letter: ‘‘To Jane Frelicher, from Southampton 19 January 1954?’’ 5. Here are the titles: ‘‘Chez Jane,’’ ‘‘For James Dean,’’ ‘‘Ode,’’ ‘‘Why I am not a Painter,’’ ‘‘In Memory of My Feelings,’’ ‘‘Ode to Joy,’’ ‘‘To Hell With It,’’ ‘‘Ode: Salute to the French Negro Poets,’’ ‘‘Ode to Michael Goldberg,’’ ‘‘The Day Lady Died,’’ ‘‘You are Gorgeous and I’m Coming,’’ ‘‘Poem (Hate . . . ),’’ ‘‘Poem (Khrushchev),’’ ‘‘In Favor of One’s Time,’’ and ‘‘Hotel Transylvanie.’’ 6. Bob Arnold, Cid Corman’s literary executor, pointed out to me that Cid Corman might not say the same about O’Hara if he was alive today. 7. Although I have been unable to locate Williams referencing O’Hara in correspondence I have reviewed, I will not be shocked if a letter referencing O’Hara turns up in subsequent research.

Chapter 2. ‘‘American Spirit in Art’’ 1. In email correspondence dated August 1, 2006, with Richard Geldard, senior advisor to RWE.org and renowned Emerson scholar, I was notified that Emerson never wrote the following lines. According to the professor ‘‘There is no record in the Complete Works of Emerson making such a statement. . . . And he only used the

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verb ‘consummate’ twice in all his works and not in that usage. . . . So, one has to suppose that Williams was wrong in his attribution. Emerson is wrongfully attributed often, whenever a passage has a certain ring to it.’’ 2. All excerpts of Robert Motherwell text appearing in this book  Dedalus Foundation/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY. 3. Apparently, as evident ‘‘The Profession of Poetry and M. Maritain,’’ Williams’s work inspired Rosenberg to enter the foray. In this essay, he makes a strong case for Poe’s influence on modern poetry.

Chapter 3. ‘‘Blobs of Paint’’ 1. An earlier and briefer version of this chapter appears in Ian Copestake’s collection of essays entitled The Legacy of William Carlos Williams: Points of Contact (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2007). 2. The letter is dated January 16, 1951. However, based upon Porter’s reply, it appears the year is actually 1952. 3. According to Gooch’s biography City Poet, the poem was composed the day after Pollock’s funeral (1993, 290). 4. It should be noted that Williams and O’Hara appeared together in another issue of Evergreen Review (1957 vol. 2, no. 7). Williams contributed ‘‘E.E. Cummings’’; O’Hara contributed ‘‘About Zhivago and His Poems.’’ 5. Several critics note that Ralph Manheim most likely provided the painting with its title; however, as noted by B. H. Friedman, ‘‘Pollock had final approval of the titles, and they clearly convey a sense of his artistic ambitions and concerns’’ (Firestone 2005, 402). 6. For a discussion of Joyce and Pollock see Landau 173–74, as well as Evan R. Firestone’s essay ‘‘James Joyce and the First Generation New York School’’ (2005). For a brief discussion of O’Hara’s interest in Joyce, consult Brad Gooch’s City Poet, specifically pages 48–49, 107–8. Apparently O’Hara brought Ulysses on his tour of duty during World War II (79). For a preliminary discussion of Williams and Joyce consult Paul Mariani’s William Carlos Williams: A New World Naked. Mariani notes that Ulysses was being published in The Little Review at the same time Williams’s experimental improvisations appeared (149). 7. According to the library catalog provided in Francis O’Connor’s Jackson Pollock: A Catalogue Raisonne of Paintings, Drawings, and Other Works (1978), Pollock did not own any of Williams’s books. However, he did have the only issue of the magazine Now (August 1941), which contains ‘‘Midas: A Proposal for a Magazine’’ (O’Connor 1978, 197). In that essay, Williams addresses the manifestation of the ‘‘revolutionary element’’: ‘‘If the concern be painting, to celebrate what new thrusts will stand upon the shoulders of surrealism and to discern a new horizon beyond that’’ (1969, 241). Pollock also had a copy of Contact (vol. 1, no. 2, 1932), which Williams edited. Two Williams poems appear here: ‘‘The Cod Head’’ and ‘‘The Canada Lily.’’ In his ‘‘Comment,’’ Williams commemorates Hart Crane’s death and talks about embracing American culture—‘‘This primitive and actual America must sober us’’ (Mariani 1981, 327).

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8. My reading of this poem opened up tremendously after a lengthy discussion held at the 2007 William Carlos Williams Conference held in Frankfurt, Germany. 9. Most notably, B. H. Friedman offered this observation (1995, 121) and Elizabeth Frank (1983, 66). Frank also refers to the painting as Number 1A, 1948. It is my understanding that the painting is referenced by both titles. O’Hara’s monograph on Pollock is actually listed as a bibliographic reference under catalogue number 186, number 1A, 1948, in the O’Connor Catalogue Raisonne. It appears that the letter ‘‘A’’ designation occurred as an effort by Betty Parsons to clarify unsold 1948 paintings from 1949 works appearing in her gallery (1). 10. Although O’Hara goes on to relate this comment to Number 1, 1949, it is important to note that he is addressing this particular period of Pollock’s artistry. It also appears to pick-up on his emphasis of ‘‘seeing’’ emphasized in his ‘‘Digression.’’ 11. Besides this word, Williams also uses an unclear phrase earlier in the first stanza ‘‘animadvertent / cissiform.’’ It is unclear exactly what may be the meaning of this phrase. Animadvert means ‘‘to pass criticism or censure’’; the more obsolete meaning ‘‘to notice’’ seems more likely yet the word does not appear as a verb. ‘‘Cissiform’’ also lacks definitional clarity. Williams could be playing with the base of the word as cissy or cissus, a genus of the grape family. It also may relate to cissing, a process for preparing wood for graining. With uncertainty over the actual words used, the phrase resists a lucid reading. Clearly, though, he uses the phrase as a further descriptor of the trees. 12. Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. This handwritten addition appears on page 10 in folder 3 labeled ‘‘Paterson V Notes and Rough Draft.’’ 13. Ibid. This change appears on page 8 in folder 2 labeled ‘‘Paterson V Early Draft.’’ 14. Owned by the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution: Charles Sheeler Papers, 1938–1965, [Microfilm reel 1811]. 15. Coincidentally the poem first appeared in Yugen 5 (1959) alongside Williams’s ‘‘A Formal Design’’ (Magee 2004, 47). Williams’s poem depicts the ‘‘The Unicorn in Captivity’’ tapestry from the ‘‘Hunt of the Unicorn’’ series featured so prominently in Paterson V (Williams 1988, 509). The placement of these poems in Yugen offers yet another intriguing pairing of the poets, one suggestive of their distinct interests in past and present artistic expressions.

Chapter 4. ‘‘A Blossoming of the Spirit’’ 1. An earlier version of this chapter appears in the William Carlos Williams Review guest edited by Ian Copestake. 2. The first announcement appeared December 3, 1951, entitled ‘‘Museum to Show Sculpture of U.S.; Metropolitan Exhibition Friday to Have Work by Americans Using Many Techniques’’ (37); the second announcement printed December 9, 1951, ‘‘Diverse One-Man Shows; Sculpture at Metropolitan a Victorian Favorite’’ (135). 3. Prior to those late 1951 notices, it should be noted that Romano did garner public attention in the Times for his artistry. From May 1937 up until the end of 1951, Romano was mentioned thirty-one times in the paper, including a notice for a radio

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appearance on WQXR on May 15, 1951. In the same period, Pollock was mentioned in forty-six entries and Robert Motherwell forty times. 4. Adlow’s article ‘‘Emanuel Romano, Painter’’ appears under the Press Clippings portion of Romano’s papers. The brief essay is undated and comes from an unknown source. As Adlow references Romano as thirty-six years old, one can assume that it was written around 1933. Reel 69–60. 5. According to Judith Berdy, president and historian of the Roosevelt Island Historical Society, the building was demolished in the 1960s. 6. The article appeared on page 26 September 15, 1937; it also included a photo of the mural with several spectators looking on. 7. Friedman does admit that ‘‘there was much overlapping’’ between the divisions and that behind it all was a genuine ‘‘need for economic help’’ (1995, 35). 8. Through the course of her own argument, Frank offers a clear, succinct overview of the critical arguments regarding the artistic value of these paintings (1983, 87–95). Her study has been particularly helpful in my own understanding of the artistic merit in Pollock’s later work. 9. Emanuel Romano’s diary can be found among his papers held by the Archives of American Art. In transcribing portions of the journal, I attempted to offer the most accurate reading of his handwriting, which at times is difficult to decipher. I did not include commentary that I found unclear and too difficult to accurately quote. 10. The Autobiography edition I am citing does not have a paginated foreword. This quote appears on the second page of the foreword. 11. This quote and the previous one appear on the third page of the foreword. 12. This quote comes from the fourth and final page of the foreword. 13. Unless otherwise noted, the letters from Williams to Romano come from the William Carlos Williams Collection at the University of Delaware. The letters from Romano to Williams come from the William Carlos Williams Papers at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. 14. The museum has since changed its name to the ‘‘Israel Bible Museum.’’ Also, I should note that it has been somewhat difficult to track down a lot of specific details regarding Romano’s travels during this period of time. Early on in my research Charlotte Snyder Sholod was very helpful in providing useful information about Romano; she was working on a comprehensive project related to Glicenstein and Romano prior to her untimely death. 15. At first, it was unclear about the specific award Romano references. The Bollingen Prize had been awarded to Williams in January of 1953 (Mariani 1981, 658). However, upon further research, it appears that Romano is referencing the $5,000.00 fellowship from the Academy of American Poets. In an article entitled ‘‘William Carlos Williams Wins Poets’ Academy Prize of $5,000,’’ the New York Times announced this award on December 28, 1956 (two days before Romano’s letter to Williams).

Chapter 5. Efficiency in Form 1. David Smith text appearing in this book  Estate of David Smith/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY. 2. In email correspondence with Susan Cooke, associate director of the David

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Smith Estate, it is unknown whether Smith owned any of Williams’s poetry. To date, Smith’s library does not contain any books by Williams or O’Hara. However, there is no way to know for sure if he owned copies during his lifetime. 3. This quote appears on page thirteen of the typescript sent to David Smith. 4. This quote appears on page one of the typescript. 5. This quote appears on page two of the typescript. 6. He also references Pound and Stevens. The Stevens reference conveys the aloofness the speaker feels for the great modernist: (1995, 439). Later he playfully distances his poem from Pound’s warnings against usury. (466). 7. This quote appears on page two of the typescript interview. 8. In my previous book, William Carlos Williams’ Poetic Response to the 1913 Paterson Silk Strike, I offer background on Lambert’s role in the strike (2002, 165–69). I also should acknowledge this book for its reading of the ‘‘Beautiful Thing,’’ which has been reworked into this current study.

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David Smith: A Centennial, ed. Carmen Gime´nez, 69–89. New York: The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Ward, Geoff. 2001. Statues of Liberty: The New York School of Poets. 2nd edition. New York: Palgrave. Weaver, Mike. 1966. ‘‘Introduction to a Modern Portrait.’’ Form 2: 20–21. ———. 1971. William Carlos Williams: The American Background. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Werner, Alfred. 1961. ‘‘Emanuel Romano.’’ Exibition Catalog: September 29– October 23, 1961. Sigmund Rothschild Gallery. Emanuel Glicen Romano Papers, 1922–67. Archives of American Art. Smithsonian Institution. Wilkin, Karen. 1984. Modern Masters: David Smith. New York: Abbeville. Williams, William Carlos. 1951a. The Autobiography of William Carlos Williams. New York: New Directions. ———. 1951b. Letter to Edward Dahlberg. 11 July 1951. Edward Dahlberg Collection. Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin. ———. 1951c. Letter to Emanuel Romano. 7 November 1951. William Carlos Williams Collection. Special Collections, University of Delaware Library. ———. 1951d. Letter to Emanuel Romano. 16 November 1951. William Carlos Williams Collection. Special Collections, University of Delaware Library. ———. 1952. Letter to Emanuel Romano. 11 January 1952. William Carlos Williams Collection. Special Collections, University of Delaware Library. ———. 1956. In the American Grain. New York: New Directions. ———. 1957a. Letter to Emanuel Romano. 25 June 1957. William Carlos Williams Collection. Special Collections, University of Delaware Library. ———. 1957b. The Selected Letters of William Carlos Williams. Ed. John C. Thirwall. New York: New Directions. ———. 1958a. I Wanted to Write a Poem: The Autobiography of the Works of a Poet. New York: New Directions. ———. 1958b. Letter to Edward Dahlberg. 19 February 1958. Edward Dahlberg Collection. Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, The University of Texas at Austin. ———. 1959a. Letter to Charles Sheeler. 29 January 1959. Charles Sheeler Papers, 1938–65. Archives of American Art. Smithsonian Institution. ———. 1959b. Letter to Charles Sheeler. 8 June 1959. Charles Sheeler Papers, 1938– 65. Archives of American Art. Smithsonian Institution. ———. 1959c. Letter to Donald Allen. 24 December 1959. Donald Allen Papers, Mandeville Special Collections Library, University of California, San Diego. ———. 1969. Selected Essays of William Carlos Williams. New York: New Directions. ———. 1970. Imaginations. Ed. Webster Schott. New York: New Directions. ———. 1974. The Embodiment of Knowledge. New York: New Directions, ———. 1976. Interviews with William Carlos Williams: Speaking Straight Ahead. Ed. Linda Wagner-Martin. New York: New Directions.

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———. 1978. A Recognizable Image: William Carlos Williams on Art and Artists. Ed. Bram Dijkstra. New York: New Directions. ———. 1985. Something to Say: William Carlos Williams on Younger Poets. Ed. James B. Breslin. New York: New Directions. ———. 1986. The Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams Volume I: 1909–1939. Ed. A. Walton Litz and Christopher MacGowan. New York: New Directions. ———. 1988. The Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams Volume II: 1939–1962. Ed. Christopher MacGowan. New York: New Directions. ———. 1992. Paterson. Ed. Christopher MacGowan. New York: New Directions. ———. 1998. The Letters of Denise Levertov and William Carlos Williams. Ed. Christopher MacGowan. New York: New Directions. ———. 2003. The Correspondence of William Carlos Williams and Louis Zukofsky. Ed. Barry Ahearn. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press. ———. [n.d.] Paterson V Notes and Early Drafts, ts. William Carlos Williams Manuscripts. Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. Young, David. 2006. Six Modernist Moments in Poetry. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press. Zigal, Thomas. 1985. ‘‘An Emanuel Romano Portrait of William Carlos Williams.’’ In WCW and Others: William Carlos Williams and his Association with Ezra Pound, Hilda Doolittle, Marcel Duchamp, Marianne Moore, Emanuel Romano, Wallace Stevens, and Louis Zukofsky, ed. Dave Oliphant and Thomas Zigal, 75–83. Austin: Harry Ransom Research Center, University of Texas.

Index Abstract Expressionism, 16, 19–20, 25, 30–31, 49–51, 53, 64–66, 68, 71–73, 77, 92–93, 99, 105, 109, 146, 149–50 Adlow, Dorothy, 100, 154 n. 4 Allen, Donald, 30, 47–49, 77, 132, 147. See also New American Poetry, The Altieri, Charles, 18–19 Apollinaire, Guillaume, 149 Art New York, 122, 128–29 Artaud, Antonin, 113 Ashbery, John, 15, 28–29, 44, 46, 49, 74, 79, 82, 105, 149 Ayden, Erje, 122 Baraka, Amiri, 48. See also Jones, LeRoi Beck, Julian, 25 Beckett, Samuel, 100 Bennett, Joseph, 40–42, 147 Benton, Thomas Hart, 69 Berkson, Bill, 67, 69, 129–30 Bishop, Elizabeth, 48 Bizardel, Yvon, 117 Bolton Landing, 119–23, 127, 140 Bosch, Hieronymous, 148 Brancusi, Constantin, 118, 120–22, 143 Breton, Andre´, 61–62 Brueghel, Pieter, 91, 117, 147 Budnik, Dan, 120, 125 Burke, Kenneth, 52, 105 Bushnell, Horace, 55 Button, John, 132 Calas, Nicholas, 61 Ce´zanne, Paul, 108, 115 Clouet, 110 Club, the, 25–26, 43, 91 Coles, Robert, 14 Collins, Billy, 15

Copestake, Ian, 14, 55, 152 n. 1, 153 n. 1 Corman, Cid, 48–49, 151 n. 6 Corso, Gregory, 49, 149 Crane, Hart, 149, 152 n. 7 Creeley, Robert, 14, 36, 48, 49 Dahlberg, Edward, 52, 71 Davis, Stuart, 118, 120–21 de Kooning, Willem, 17, 74, 92, 93, 106, 121 Demuth, Charles, 25, 50 Dewey, John, 36–37 Di Prima, Diane, 46 Dickinson, Emily, 13 Doolittle, Hilda, 49 Doty, Mark , 15 Dreiser, Theodore, 123, 128 Duncan, Robert, 36–37, 50 Du¨rer, Albrecht, 148 Edison, Thomas, 14 Ehrenzweig, Anton, 105 Eliot, T. S., 41–42, 100, 103 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 19, 29–31, 34– 35, 52–59, 68–71, 87–88, 90, 126, 135, 151–52 n. 1; ‘‘The American Scholar,’’ 55, 68, 88; ‘‘Circles,’’ 34, 57, 90; Nature, 57; ‘‘The Poet,’’ 54–58, 126 ‘‘Self-Reliance,’’ 87 Evergreen Review, 19, 49, 75–76, 97, 152 n. 4 Federal Art Project, 100–101 Feldman, Morton, 42 Ferlinghetti, Lawrence, 49 Freilicher, Jane, 27, 42, 44–45 Freud, Sigmund, 49, 89, 104, 105, 113, 148 Frost, Robert, 13

164

INDEX

Gide, Andre´, 100 Ginsberg, Allen, 48–50, 149 Glicentstein, Enrico, 20, 98, 100, 110, 112, 154 n. 14 Goldberg, Mike, 46, 76–77, 151 n. 5 Gooch, Brad, 27, 28, 30, 66, 79, 106, 152 nn. 3 and 6 Goodman, Nelson, 17, 18, Gorky, Arshile, 121 Graham, John, 121 Greenberg, Clement, 96 Gris, Juan, 148 Guest, Barbara, 15, 77 Halpert, Edith, 93 Hamilton, Alexander, 126 Hartigan, Grace, 38, 40, 106 Hartley, Marsden, 25, 69–70, 105 Hartpence, Alanson, 135 Harvard University, 30, 57, 61, 65, 68 Hoffman, Hans, 89, 135 Holiday, Billie, 86 Hopkins, Gerard Manley, 60 James, Henry, 58, 61, 128 James, William, 69 Johanson, Patricia, 125–26 Johns, Jasper, 44, 46, 149; In Memory of My Feelings—Frank O’Hara (1961), 149; Memory Piece (Frank O’Hara), 1961–1970, 149 Jones, LeRoi, 46, 48, 149 Joyce, James, 30, 60, 78, 123, 149, 152 n. 6 Kandinsky, Wassily, 25, 29, 148 Klee, Paul, 148, Kline, Franz, 17, 27, 74–75, 93, 98 Koch, Kenneth, 48, 49, 74, 78, 79, 106 Krasner, Lee, 102, 135 Lambert, Catholina, 141, 155 n. 8 Lang, Violet, 74 Levertov, Denise, 48–49, 94 Living Theatre, the, 14, 25 Lowell, Robert, 14

165

MacGowan, Christopher, 13, 14, 89, 151 n. 1 Malina, Judith, 14, 25 Mariani, Paul, 14, 20, 31, 51, 52, 54, 57, 60, 95, 102, 103, 122, 152 n. 6 Matisse, Henri, 27, 59, 64, 99, 148 Matta, Roberto, 61, 105 McClure, Michael, 49 McCullers, Carson, 100 McDarrah, Fred, 25–26 McDowell, David, 103 Melville, Herman, 60, 96 Michaux, Henri, 113 Mitchell, Joan, 17, 25 Mitchell, W. J. T., 17–18 Modigliani, Amedeo, 146 Monroe, Marilyn, 106, 123 Montgomery, George, 35 Motherwell, Robert, 16, 17, 19, 20, 50, 52, 53, 59–66, 79, 89, 98, 105–6, 117, 118, 123, 146, 148, 152 n. 2, 153–54 n. 3; At Five in the Afternoon, 64; The Little Spanish Prison, 64; ‘‘The New York School,’’ 64; Pancho Villa Dead and Alive, 64; ‘‘The Rise and Continuity of Abstract Art,’’ 65; ‘‘What Abstract Art Means to Me,’’ 65 Munch, Edvard, 104 Museum of Modern Art, 15, 19, 27, 28, 65, 99, 122 Mussolini, Benito, 100 Namuth, Hans, 75–76 Neu, Rene´e, 27 New American Poetry, The, 47–49 New York City, 16, 20, 21, 25–26, 34, 41, 47, 49, 51, 61, 62, 72–75, 93, 98, 111, 118, 119, 121–23, 146 New York School, 16, 19, 25, 47, 60, 64, 98, 114, 117, 118, 120, 145, 149 New York Times, 99, 100–101, 154 n. 15 Newman, Barnett, 69 Niese, Henry, 93–94, 107 O’Hara, Frank, 13, 14, 20, 25, 29, 49, 101, 118, 120, 122, 145, 146, 148, 150; friendship withMotherwell, 65–66; interest in Pollock’s painting, 74–79, 82–

166

INDEX

84, 96–97; interview with Smith, 122, 128–29; purchase of Williams’s poetry, 30; references to Williams’s poetry, 40–47, 130–33; visit to Bolton Landing, 122–23, 125, 127; Williams’s influence on, 31–40; work at MoMA, 19, 27–28, 65, 99, 122. ———. Writings of: ‘‘Autobiographia Literaria,’’ 31–32; ‘‘Biotherm (For Bill Berkson),’’129–33; ‘‘Christmas Card to Grace Hartigan,’’ 38–40; ‘‘David Smith,’’ 122, 123, 130, 138; ‘‘David Smith: The Color of Steel’’ 125, 127; ‘‘The Day Lady Died,’’ 85–86, 151 n. 5; ‘‘Digression on ‘Number 1,’ 1948,’’ 82–84, 153 n. 10; ‘‘The Grand Manner of Motherwell,’’ 65–66; ‘‘Heroic Sculpture,’’ 44; ‘‘Jackson Pollock,’’ 78, 83–84, 95, 96; Kenneth Koch, a tragedy, 74–75, 79, 149; ‘‘Meditations in an Emergency,’’ 129; ‘‘Memorial Day, 1950,’’ 32–34, 142, 143; ‘‘Mozart Chemisier,’’ 122–25, 127; ‘‘Ode on Causality,’’ 96–97; ‘‘On Rachmaninoff’s Birthday,’’ 76–78; ‘‘Oranges: 12 Pastorals,’’ 77; ‘‘Personism: A Manifesto’’ 14, 15, 36, 44, 131; ‘‘Poem Read at Joan Mitchell’s’’ 42–43, 129; ‘‘Robert Motherwell’’ 65; Second Avenue, 105–6; ‘‘Statement for Paterson Society,’’ 17; ‘‘A Step Away from Them,’’ 75–76, 94; ‘‘To a Poet,’’ 43; ‘‘Today,’’ 37–38; ‘‘A Walk on Sunday Afternoon,’’ 34–35; ‘‘What Sledgehammer? Or W. C. Williams’s Been Attacked!’’ 40–42; ‘‘Why I am not a Painter,’’ 76– 77, 82, 151 n. 5 Olson, Charles, 48, 49, 106, 149 Oppenheimer, Joel, 46

122, 128, 134–36, 144, 146, 148, 152 nn. 3, 5, 6, and 7, 153 nn. 9 and 10, 154 nn. 3 and 8; Blue Poles, 96; Convergence: Number 10, 1952,90; The Deep, 60, 96; Full Fathom Five, 78, 88; Number 1, 1948, 83–84, 153 n. 9; Number 27, 1951, 102; Number 28, 1951, 90, 102; (Scent), 96; Summertime, Number 9A, 1948, 76, 78 Pop Art, 149 Porter, 74, 152 n. 2 Pound, Ezra, 45–46, 48, 49, 103, 155 n. 6

Perloff, Marjorie, 15, 25, 30, 31, 33, 41, 43, 44, 65, 106 Picasso, Pablo, 32, 34, 83, 102, 148 Pious XI (pope), 100 Poe, Edgar Allan, 67 Pollock, Jackson, 16, 17, 19, 20, 27, 33, 50, 60, 68, 69, 72–79, 82–84, 87–102, 104, 107, 109, 113, 114, 115, 117, 118,

Schubert, David, 46 Schuyler, James, 27, 48 Shahn, Ben, 93 Shakespeare, William, 57, 78, 134, Sheeler, Charles, 25, 92–93, 153 n. 14 Sholod, Charlotte Snyder, 100, 154 n. 14 Smith, David, 17, 19, 20, 25, 27, 50, 68, 90, 98, 118–23, 125–30, 132–34, 136–

Rasmussen, Waldo, 28, 44, 96 Rechy, John, 82 Renoir, Jean, 103 Reverdy, Pierre, 46 Rimbaud, Arthur, 149 Rivers, Larry, 25, 44, 46, 66, 74–75, 105, 106, 149 Rodin, Auguste, 100 Romano, Emanuel, 20, 98–104, 107–17, 118, 146, 147, 153 n. 3, 154 nn. 4, 8, 9, 13, 14, and 15; Abstract Forms, 1951, 113; Abstraction, 1956, 113; Communion of the Isolated, 1960, 115; Portrait of William Carlos Williams (1951), 101–2; Resurrection, 116; Self Portrait, 1934, 110, 113; Self-Portrait, 1956, 113–14 Roosevelt, Franklin Delano, 100 Rosenberg, Harold, 52, 63, 66–70, 79, 80–81, 95, 152 n. 3; ‘‘The American Action Painters,’’ 66–67, 80–81; Trance Above the Streets, 67–68 Russia, 70 Rutherford, NJ, 14, 19, 26, 93, 102, 110– 12, 115

INDEX

45, 146, 154 n. 1, 155 n. 2 and 3; Agricola IX, 1952, 138–40, Agricola XII, 138; Australia, 127; Cubi X, 1963, 126–27; Cubi XIX, 1964, 126; Cubi XXI, 1964, 127; Sentinel III (1957), 144; Voltri VI, 1962, 144; Voltri VII, 1962, 144; Wagon II, 144–45; Zig IV, 1961, 129–30 Snyder, Gary, 49 Springsteen, Bruce, 14 Stein, Gertrude, 102, 149 Stevens, Wallace, 28, 43, 51, 60, 62, 65, 155 n. 6 Stieglitz, Alfred, 51, 55, 105 Still, Clifford, 69 Surrealism, 60, 61, 62, 64, 105, 152, n. 7 Toulouse-Lautrec, Henri, 147 Toynbee, Arnold, 59, 109–110 Unicorn Tapestries, 91, 105, 147, 153 n. 15, Van Gogh, Vincent, 111–12 VVV, 61, 63 Weaver, Mike, 62, 102, 114–16, 147 Werner, Alfred, 114–15 Whalen, Philip, 49 Whitman, Walt, 13, 38, 57, 69, 123 William Carlos Williams Society, 14 Williams, Elena Hoheb (mother), 63, 87, 99 Williams, Florence Herman (Floss) (wife), 92, 103, 109, 120, 121 Williams, Tennessee, 100 Williams, William Carlos, 13, 25, 44, 46, 48, 51, 67, 72, 98, 123, 146; contact with Brancusi, 121–22; contact with Davis, 120–21; contact with Motherwell, 60–65; correspondence about O’Hara, 48–49; friendship with Romano, 102–3, 109–12, 116–17; influence on O’Hara, 31–40; influence on Rosenberg, 66–68; references to Pollock, 90–95, 113; work as physician, 16, 19, 26–28, 105, 136, 151 n. 2

167

———. Writings of: ‘‘Against the Weather,’’ 88; ‘‘The American Spirit in Art,’’ 16, 19, 52, 54–60, 63–64, 70– 71, 98, 104, 105, 108, 135, 150; ‘‘The Art,’’ 146; ‘‘Asphodel, that Greeny Flower,’’ 13, 47, 56; Autobiography, 26– 27, 46, 105, 134, 135, 154 n. 10; ‘‘Brancusi,’’ 122; ‘‘The Broken Vase,’’ 98, 99, 112–17; ‘‘Burning the Christmas Greens,’’ 38–40; ‘‘Catastrophic Birth,’’ 63; ‘‘The Catholic Bells,’’ 31; ‘‘The Cod Head,’’ 152; ‘‘Complaint,’’ 26, ‘‘The Desert Music’’ 48, 95; The Embodiment of Knowledge, 62, 91, 119; ‘‘The Farmer,’’ 138–40; The Great American Novel, 13, 29, 32, 134, 141; In the American Grain, 67, 141; ‘‘January Morning: Suite,’’ 84–87; ‘‘Jersey Lyric,’’ 94; Journey to Love, 47, 48, 131; Kora in Hell, 36, 37, 44, 49, 86, 106, 120; ‘‘The Last Words of my English Grandmother,’’ 31; Many Loves, 25–26; ‘‘The Non-Entity,’’ 88–89, ‘‘Pastoral (When I was younger),’’ 31– 32, 34, 81, 136–37; Paterson, 13, 16, 29, 41, 44–48, 90–98, 126, 130–132, 141–42, 147, 153 nn. 12, 13, and 15; ‘‘Paterson: Episode 17,’’ 141; Pictures from Brueghel, 147; ‘‘A Place (Any Place) To Transcend All Places,’’ 51; ‘‘The Poem as a Field of Action,’’ 53, 67, 80, 89, 92, 125; ‘‘The Portrait,’’ 20, 98, 102–4, 107–9, 117; ‘‘The Red Wheelbarrow’’ 13, 37, 138, 140; ‘‘Revelation,’’ 82; ‘‘The Right of Way,’’ 34, 81–82; ‘‘Shadows,’’ 131–32, ‘‘A Sort of a Song,’’ 38, 142; Spring and All, 13, 31, 32, 51, 61, 70, 86, 133, 134, 138, 140; ‘‘View of a Lake,’’ 35; ‘‘View of a Woman at Her Bath,’’ 77; ‘‘The Wanderer,’’ 43; The Wedge, 33–34, 38, 142, 143 Wolfe, Thomas, 128 Woolf, Virginia, 135 World War II, 16, 30, 152 n. 6 Zukofsky, Louis, 14, 53