290
PARTISAN REVIEW
Int.:
I think you're doing fine, though, you know. Would you com–
ment on the intellectual conflict between J ews and Blacks?
Williams:
Stay clear of anything racist. I was talking to an Irish
journalist in Chicago at the Chicago Athletic
Cl~b
and they granted
me the free use of the pool. I was there for
Out Cry.
So, I said, "Oh,
you're Irish, aren't you?" I said, "Well , the Blacks and the Irish are
my two favorite people, " and it infuriated him because, I put Black
first. He gave me a bad write-up (hahaha). So, I've discovered now
that one must think no race. I am crazy about the Blacks. And I must
say I know people who ask, "Why don 't you write about the Blacks?"
I said because I would be presumptuous; you know, I don 't know the
Blacks that way.
I am terribly involved in the Black movement because I think it
is the most horrible thing (racism). I think that the White people in
America, southern and northern equally-even more northern–
have exercised the most dreadful injustices, historically, and even
now, discrimination, and not just in terms of jobs. No, that's not
where it's at. No, and I wouldn't blame any Black man for looking at
me and saying, "There's a red-neck honky," and that he hates me.
I can tell you, in my lifetime, I'm sixty-three, I have noticed a
great improvement on both sides, but more on the side of Blacks. I
think the Blacks, with great valiance, are fighting their way up and
out. But, it's taking too fucking long, isn't it? I mean, after all, one
wants it
now
and not in some remote future. It reached its most
terrible crisis in the prison riot, don 't you think?
Int.:
You have many parallels between your life and Han Crane's :
dominant father who disliked poetry; an overprotective mother;
tortured, gifted son-poet. ...
Williams:
Yes, I have a codicil in my will that when I die I am to be
pushed off a ship where Crane went down. (He takes the fan off
the wall) Hart Crane's mother sent me his fan .
Int.:
Is Hart Crane one of the better American poets?
Williams:
I think at least since Whitman and at his best I think he is
better than Whitman. I don 't know any American poet that is equal
to
him.
Int.:
What about Emily Dickinson, did she have some of his qualities?
Williams:
Oh, she was very constricted in form, don 't you think?
Obviously form. She's wonderful, but it's a pity that she was so
constricted in form; there's no variety in it.
Int.:
She didn 't seem to be a self-conscious poet where it seemed that
Hart Crane was dealing with some of the self-consciousness of his
own life and maybe the life that was forced upon him.
