New book on Russell Atkins

Russell Atkins: On the Life & Work of an American Master

Click to order via Amazon

Edited by Kevin Prufer & Michael Dumanis

Paperback: 210 pages
Publisher: Pleiades Press (June 15, 2013)
ISBN-10: 0964145448
ISBN-13: 978-0964145443
Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 0.5 inches

Reviewed by Robert Fleming

This is an astounding tribute to one of the most innovative American artists, Russell Atkins, by a small, independent publisher, Pleiades Press. Prufer, a professor in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Houston , and Dumanis, a professor at Bennington College, put together this labor of love, paying homage to Atkins, this peerless yet largely unknown poet, composer, dramatist, theorist, and editor.
When I was a very young writer in Cleveland, I met Atkins at a performance at Karamu House, one of the oldest Black theatres in the nation. Along with renowned poet-playwright Annetta Jefferson, I learned from Atkins about the value of words and reading, the mechanics of composition and techniques, and which writers to study. Most Cleveland artists and writers respected Atkins for his uncompromising poetry, plays, music, and possibly the black-owned poetry magazine, Free Lance.
Now, Prufer and Dumanis are trying to revive interest in the enigmatic Atkins, who created some of the boldly original, courageous, important work as one of the most significant 20th century avant-garde innovators. Born in 1926 in Cleveland, Atkins studied music at seven and published poetry in leading journals and newspapers at an early age. His supporters of his poetry included Langston Hughes, Clarence Major, Marianne Moore, and others, noting his challenging concepts in form, meter, style, and content. He refused to pigeon-holed or submit to any ideology or movement. When he founded Free Lance, A Magazine of Poetry and Prose, in 1950, with his friend, Adelaide Simon, it attracted writers from all over the world, leading the now-defunct Black World to call it “the only Black literary magazine of national importance in existence.”
Supported by a generous collection of Atkins’ poems, there are a number of scholars and poets write about his unconventional, mathematical approach to verse and music, including Evie Shockey, Aldon Lynn Nielsen, Tyrone Williams, Sean Singer, and Tom Orange. They dissect his credo of total structural freedom, a tendency toward artistic mayhem and dissonance, varying images and rhythms between sound and silence, all designed to liberate the mind and imagination.

Now sweet Cathy
Is pouring beer here in a bar
Pouring beer in a bar
Where hard workers are.
Endure costs her; her dreams fewer,
Cathy with promoted bust is mature.
-from Now Sweet Cathy (1961)

Trained as a musician and visual artist, Atkins studied at Cleveland College, Cleveland Music School Settlement, Cleveland Institute of Music, Karamu Theatre, and Cleveland School of Art. In the 1955-1956 issue of Free Lance, he published his landmark article, “A Psychovisual Perspective for Musical Composition,” using the Gestalt theory of pattern formation to stress the importance of the brain rather than the ear as the critical element for composition. The music world took notice.
With his plays, The Abortionist and The Corpse debuting in 1954, Atkins seriously turned to poetry, producing several volumes including Phenomena (1961), Objects (1963), Heretofore (1968), The Nail (1970), Maleficium (1971), Here in The (1976), and Whichever (1978). All of his poetry, plays, and music collectively spoke as one of strongest avant-garde voices to appear in African American literature, and in our national world of letters, with some critics comparing him to the experimental work of jazz greats John Coltrane and Anthony Braxton.
When the editors approached Atkins about this project, the poet-composer said: “Why, who would want to read about me?” Well, meet Russell Atkins, an American original, whose works have been neglected and ignored. Learn about this unconventional elder and see why he turned the literary and music world upside down. This is a historic, intellectually challenging book to digest slowly and savor.