John Tranter, who created the essential JACKET and published its first 40 issues is at it again! This new venture, JOURNAL OF POETICS RESEARCH is already up to issue #4, in which Basil’s prose poem, “A Pigeon in Delacroix’s Garden” has just been posted. Click for full text!
JPR is issued twice a year, online only, with new material added as seen fit. Further information at poeticsresearch.com/about/ In the meantime JACKET 2, is being produced by Al Filreis and his able colleagues at Kelly Writers House. Visit jacket2.org
Yes, the Whitney finally got it right. A museum with space designed for being with works of art, with a glorious lightness, so we see the work, not the housing. Only later realize the housing makes it so with its careful use of real light and the soft touch of wide-plank pine floors! I wanted to be barefoot. No clanking heels. No chill up the ankles. No harsh edges either (unless the art proposes them.)
Whitney on the water…
Many museums have flexible wall systems. High ceilings aren’t a surprise. But this one has a flexible boundary between inside and outside, with openings to the outside on every floor. For a half century New York has been altering its relation with the harbor and the docks—now the city’s shoreline no longer needed for the commerce of loading and unloading freight is public space. We’ve had Chelsea Piers, for sure, but the Whitney is the first building designed to employ the new nearness of river water and open sky.
There just are two flaws: First: elevators. Not enough of them. We were visiting on a non-holiday weekday and there were lines in the front lobby for elevator space. Except for the freight elevator, they were all small (if humorously decorated). Too bad.
The second isn’t a true flaw and can be remedied at lower cost than redoing elevators: No Basil King’s! Born in 1935. Working in New York from 1951 to the present. From a teenager steeped in Ab Ex ecstasy to the patient development of his still expanding personal vision.
But otherwise, HUZZAH for the Whitney having broken its long curse…from cramped Victorian 8th Street, to being MOMA’s cheap seats slapped onto its backside, to the brutal stone and cement home on Madison Avenue. Free at last. (Except for the pricey admission.)
“Dick T” from The Green Man series, mm/can, c Basil King“Green Birds” from “A Pigeon in Delacroix’s Garden” series. mm/can, c Basil King“Night in the City,” mm/can, c. Basil King
News, opinion, excerpts, and images from Martha King – of my work and Basil King’s. There are, as it happens, two of each of us: The "other Basil King" was a Canadian Christian minister and novelist (1859-1928) – see page above. And the "other Martha King" was Martha J. King, who died in 2011. She was an editor and translator of contemporary Italian writing, especially women’s. See my post of February 1, 2013. Neither of these are us!