A founding member of Fluxus and the concrete poetry movement, Emmett Williams (1925-2007) made several performances and poems that stand today as defining gems of those genres. Among them is the book-length concrete poem Sweethearts, first published by Something Else Press (where Williams was editor in chief) in 1968, and back in print for the first time, still sporting its classic cover by Marcel Duchamp. Sweethearts is an anagrammatic erotic encounter between a "he" and a "she," whose entire vocabulary is derived from the word "sweethearts." The letters maintain the same spacing in every word on each page, lending the volume a flipbook dimension that Williams enhances by organizing the text to read backwards, so that the reader can flip the book with her or his left hand (thus the front cover is on the back, and vice versa). Richard Hamilton described Sweethearts as being "to concrete poetry as Wuthering Heights is to the English novel... compelling in its emotional scope, readable, a sweetly heartfelt, jokey, crying, laughing, tender expression of love."
STATUS: Out of stock
Temporarily out of stock pending additional inventory.
FORMAT: Pbk, 4.75 x 6.25 in. / 226 pgs. LIST PRICE: U.S. $29.95 LIST PRICE: CANADA $39.95 ISBN: 9783865608109 PUBLISHER: Walther König, Köln AVAILABLE: 3/31/2011 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Active AVAILABILITY: Out of stock TERRITORY: NA LA ASIA AU/NZ AFR
Published by Walther König, Köln. By Emmett Williams.
A founding member of Fluxus and the concrete poetry movement, Emmett Williams (1925-2007) made several performances and poems that stand today as defining gems of those genres. Among them is the book-length concrete poem Sweethearts, first published by Something Else Press (where Williams was editor in chief) in 1968, and back in print for the first time, still sporting its classic cover by Marcel Duchamp. Sweethearts is an anagrammatic erotic encounter between a "he" and a "she," whose entire vocabulary is derived from the word "sweethearts." The letters maintain the same spacing in every word on each page, lending the volume a flipbook dimension that Williams enhances by organizing the text to read backwards, so that the reader can flip the book with her or his left hand (thus the front cover is on the back, and vice versa). Richard Hamilton described Sweethearts as being "to concrete poetry as Wuthering Heights is to the English novel... compelling in its emotional scope, readable, a sweetly heartfelt, jokey, crying, laughing, tender expression of love."
