Poetry. The poet and painter Basil King takes the medieval genre of the beastiary, a collection of short writings about exotic animal species, and reconceives it as a way of engaging with a particularly fascinating human species, creating verbal and pictorial portraits of painters, from Winslow Homer to Edward Hopper. Introducer Andrew Crozier explains, "This is more a matter of affinity than of scale: an aardvark will be of more interest to another aardvark, a zebra of more interest to another zebra, than either is to me. The painter Basil King finds other painters interesting, also peculiar and exotic, not to mention obsessive, grandiose, even foolish. He pursues and collects them and the works for which they're known." Also check out King's other two recent works, Mirage: a Poem in 22 Sections and Learning to Draw/a History: Twin Towers.

Author Hometown: BROOKLYN, NY USA



About the author: Basil King, a prolific, widely collected painter and a writer, first went to Black Mountain at 16. His paintings are in many public and private collections, including Yale University and the New York Public Library. His books of poetry include 77 BEASTS: BASIL KING'S BEASTIARY and MIRAGE: A POEM IN 22 SECTIONS.