New comment on Basil King’s art and writing
Joshua A.W. Gardner in his review of Basil King’s latest book of poetry, History Now (New York: Marsh Hawk Press, 2017), “connects the dots” between King’s visual art and the poetry he has been writing since 1985. Gardner finds his “intellectual kinship with the poet Charles Olson” seminal and concludes that King has made himself “a living extension of the Black Mountain legacy” by freely intermingling historical facts, poetry, language, politics, and the capacity to have more than one voice.
The review is 7 pages including photographs, notes, a reproduction and a link to SPD for ordering the book.
Journal of Poetic Research, September 2017. Download it here:
http://poeticsresearch.com/article/joshua-a-w-gardner-reviews-basil-king/
This follows publication of Kimberly Ann Lyons’ essay “Here is Another Somewhere: The Visual Art of Basil King” which focuses on the influence of Robert Duncan and his aesthetics on Basil King’s art. She identifies Duncan’s concept of art involving the weaving and the unweaving of a figure…”the twist that permits emergence of mercurial genius”… as instrumental in King’s development. He was an art student at Black Mountain College when Duncan taught there in the 1950s.
The article is 14 pages and has six small reproductions of Basil King paintings.
Dispatches Poetry Wars, July 2017. Download it here:
http://dispatchespoetrywars.com/commentary/2017/07/another-somewhere-visual-art-basil-king/