Fiction
Non-Fiction
Poetry
MEB
|
 Warp
Spasm
by Basil King
ISBN
1-881471-54-3 $14.95 US | $19.95 CAN
100 pages
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This
is an extremely individual
book, a book where the writer puts us through
an experience whereby we
can see paintings differently, read a story differently,
seemingly from
the writer's/painter's point of view… This is not a book to borrow,
it
must always be available for re-reading. As time passes my perception
alters
and so I must refer to Warp Spasm to help me put a few
words to
my perceptions,
or better still, to help me watch the images change in
my mind's eye. Now that is a joy.
Hubert
Selby, Jr.
  
  
Basil
King
Basil King was
born in the East End of London in 1935
and came
to the U.S. in 1947. At 16, he entered
Black
Mountain College, where he studied painting and
writing. In
1958 he
married Martha and settled in New York to paint.
During
this
time he made art for Yugen and Kultur
magazines, and
for books
by LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka), Allen
Ginsberg,
and others. In the early 1970s, with
two partners, he founded Mulch magazine; Mulch
Press subsequently published six
books,
including Paul Blackburn’s Piere Vidal
and Allen Ginsberg’s Visions
of
the Great Rememberer both with art by
King.
In the 1980s King painted images from playing cards, baseball, trees,
and portraits of artists
and poets and began writing regularly.
In 1992, he began his long documentary prose/poem/media work, Mirage. Mirage
paintings, watercolors, and pastels were exhibited for the first time
at Gotham Book Mart in
1994, where King also read from his texts.
Since that time, King combined reading with
showing slides of his own art and others. King’s visual
art is in the collections of the New
York Public Library, Yale University, the
late Morton & Lita Hornick, Wadsworth
Athenaeum, Grand Valley State College, University
of Kansas Museum of Art, David and
Becky Starobin, State University of New York at
Buffalo, the Gladstone Museum of Baseball Art,
and Tom Seaver.
Mirage performances have been presented in Prague, Ljubljana
(Slovenia), Groznjan (Croatia),
Duino (Italy), Dartington College
(U.K.), and
Cody’s Bookstore, Berkeley, California. Text
from Mirage has been published in Otis Rush (Australia), Boxkite
(Australia),
House Organ, and First
Intensity. The Spring 2001 issue of Poetry/New
York features a cover, portfolio of art, and a section
from Warp Spasm, “Karla Faye”. Another
section from Warp Spasm, “Identity”, will appear
next fall in First Intensity. King’s
other
Mirage books include The Complete Miniatures and Devotions
(Stop Press, London). Both combine text and
art.
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