Jonathan Williams
Jonathan Williams was an American poet and artist born on March 8, 1929, in Asheville, North Carolina. He spent his formative years in Washington, D.C., attending St. Albans School and later studying art history at Princeton University. Williams shifted his focus from traditional academic paths to practical art education, studying painting and engraving under prominent artists in Washington, New York, and Chicago. In 1951, he founded the Jargon Society, a unique press that combines poetry with visual art, allowing him to publish a rich collection of over one hundred volumes throughout his career.
Williams is particularly noted for his influential poetry collections, including "In England's Green & (A Garland and Clyster)" and "Mahler Becomes Politics... Beisbol." His work often reflects his diverse artistic influences and his dedication to merging the literary and visual arts. A respected educator, he shared his expertise through various teaching positions and received several prestigious awards, including a Guggenheim fellowship and multiple grants from the National Endowment for the Arts. His contributions to poetry and small press publishing have made him an important figure in the literary community.
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Jonathan Williams
- Born: March 8, 1929
- Birthplace: Asheville, North Carolina
- Died: March 16, 2008
- Place of death: Highlands, North Carolina
Biography
Jonathan Williams was born on March 8, 1929, in Asheville, North Carolina, the son of Thomas Benjamin Williams and Georgette Chamberlain Williams. Shortly after his birth, his family moved to Washington, D.C., where he attended St. Albans School from 1941 until 1947. He studied art history at Princeton University from 1947 until 1949. Williams left the university to pursue an education in art, first studying painting with Karl Knaths at Phillips Memorial Gallery in Washington, then etching and engraving with Stanley William Hayter at Atelier 17 in New York City. He also studied at the Chicago Institute of Design. In 1951, Williams returned to North Carolina, attending Black Mountain College sporadically between 1951 and 1956. While at Black Mountain, he became acquainted with the poet Charles Olsen, who greatly influenced his own poetry.
In 1951, Williams founded the Jargon Society, a press that combines poetry and visual art in order to create visually pleasing texts. He has served as publisher, editor, and designer of the press since its founding. The Jargon Society published Williams’s first two volumes of poetry in 1951: Garbage Litters the Iron Face of the Sun’s Child and Red/Gray. Williams has published more than one hundred volumes of poetry. He considers In England’s Green & (A Garland and Clyster), published in 1962, his first solid collection. One of his most distinguished collections is Mahler Becomes Politics. . . Beisbol (1967), a sequence of forty poems written after listening to the music of Gustav Mahler.
Williams has earned his living primarily through his readings and lectures and has supplemented his income by teaching. His teaching career began in the summer of 1962, when he served as poet-in-residence at the Aspen Institute for the Humanistic Studies. He returned to Aspen in 1967, serving as scholar-in- residence. He was poet-in-residence at the Maryland Institute College of Art from 1968 until 1969, the University of Kansas in 1971, and the University of Delaware in 1977. In 1973, he was a visiting poet at the North Carolina School of the Arts, Salem Academy, Wake Forest University, and Winston-Salem State University.
Williams has received numerous awards, including a Guggenheim fellowship for poetry in 1957 and a Longview Foundation grant for the editing of Jargon Society books in 1960. He received National Endowment for the Arts grants in 1968, 1972, 1974, 1978, and 1979. In 1969, the Maryland Institute College of Art awarded him an honorary doctorate, and he was named a member of the Order of Kentucky Colonels in 1974. He also won an award from the Coordinating Council of Literary Magazines in 1974 for essay writing. In 1977, he received a Publishers Weekly Carey- Thomas citation for creative small press publishing, and in 1977, he won a North Carolina Award in Fine Arts gold medal. Author of a prodigious number of books, Williams is recognized for his original style and the high quality of work produced by the Jargon Society.