The Department of Literature and Language is running an exhibit called “Jubilant Thicket,” featuring archived materials from poets of the Black Mountain College. Black Mountain College is located in western North Carolina and is noted in the poetry community for being associated with the avant-garde movement, including figures like Robert Creeley, Robert Duncan, Denise Levertov and Charles Olson.
The exhibition was curated by literature and language professors Scott Honeycutt and Jesse Graves.
“We wanted to create the exhibit to highlight a really interesting group of artists that were working in Appalachia and creating art that wasn’t typical of the region,” Graves said. “The avant-garde in poetry generally avoids using traditional poetic forms and instead showcases experimental ways of expressing their ideas or images.”
The exhibit also focuses specifically on Jonathan Williams, an Appalachian native who founded the Jargone Society and publisher of the Jargon Press. Williams was also a figure in the avant-garde movement as a central figure in pushing underground and forgotten artists, while stylizing his works through found poetry.
“The language can sometimes feel very abstract or ethereal,” Graves said. “Found poetry is an example of an avant-garde approach and something Jonathan Williams loved to share.”
Found poetry is the art of taking existing texts and refashioning or reordering them to present them as poems. The exhibit is most recent in the partnership between the Reece Museum and the Department of Literature and Language.
“We love the Reece Museum,” Graves said. “It’s one of our favorite places on campus. We wanted to work Spenser Brenner at the Reece because he has such a great design style, and we knew he could create something in the gallery space that made viewers feel some of the creative energy of Black Mountain College, which I think of as one of the great Mid-Century American art-experiments.”
“Jubilant Thicket” will remain on display in the Reece Museum through April 8.
