Funds for Bookworm are provided in part by Lannin Foundation.

You are a human animal.

You are a very special breed.

Or you are the only animal.

Who can think, who can reason, who can read.

From KCRW, Santa Monica, I'm Michael Silverblad, and this is Bookworm. Today I'm very fortunate to have with me, Jonathan Williams, who is, for me, a legend. I was an undergraduate at the State University of New York at Buffalo, where Charles Olson taught.

The Maximus poems were published by Jonathan Williams' Press, the Jorgon Society,

I think then called Jorgon Books.

Over the years, they've been, well, they've remained legendary in part because under the

circumstances of American publishing

and American bookstores and American distribution, you hardly ever see them.

But I own some, and they are magnificent and beautiful books.

And so are the books by Jonathan Williams.

We're in this happy state of being able to anticipate in the fall,

a new and selected poems of Jonathan Williams published by Copper Canyon Press,

and there is a recent book of photographs, portraits of genius and solitude,

published by Goetian Press, called A palpable Elysium.

The book that most people who know him know, and Aaron Bartram's tree, is still in print from New Directions.

He is the subject of several essays by Guide to Aventport and by Hugh Kenner.

The quotes that might amuse you could take an entire show,

but I wanted to read because it's kind of typically beautifully worded Robert Creelie's quote,

how graced and unremitting his powers.

...