William Benton (writer)

Life

William Benton is an American poet and novelist. Born 1939, in Houston, Texas, he grew up in a small town on Galveston Bay. He received his early training in music and worked as a jazz piano player before becoming a writer. In the mid-1960s he moved to New York City, where he edited riverrun magazine and press. He is not associated with a specific school of poetry, although Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams, as well as the Black Mountain School, influence his work. In 1970 he was hired as assistant dean of Pacific Northwest College of Art (then The Museum Art School) in Portland, Oregon, where he remained as acting dean for three years. He has read and lectured at various universities. His poetry has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and other magazines. James Salter described his novel, Madly, as “Beautiful, intense, and utterly absorbing.” He lives in New York City.

Published Works

• The Bell Poems (poetry, 1970)
• Birds (poetry, 1972)
• Eye La View (poetry, 1975)
• L’Aprè-Midi D’un Faune (poetry, int. by Guy Davenport, limited edition, 1976)
• Normal Meanings (poetry, 1978)
• Marmalade (poetry, limited edition, with original prints by James McGarrell, 1993)
• Exchanging Hats: Elizabeth Bishop Paintings (art, 1996)
• Out of the Blue (play; music, lyrics and book, New York production, 1999)^[1]
• Deaf Elephants (children’s book, 2001)
• Birds (expanded edition, 2002)
• Gods of Tin (ed., 2004)
• Madly (novel, 2005)
• A Quatrain on Sleeping Beauty's Tomb (trans.,2011)
• The Mary Julia Paintings of Joan Brown (art, 2016)

References

External links

• Reading from Madly
• The Guardian, feature on Exchanging Hats
• The New Yorker, "Camera Obscura"
• The New Yorker, "Dinner"
• The Paris Review No. 155, Summer 2000, "Two Poems"
• The Paris Review No. 160, Winter 2001, "Two Poems"
• Reading, The American Poetry Archive, San Francisco State University, November 20, 1974
• Featured in documentary film "James Salter: A Sport and a Pastime"