Stars-in-the-eyes young poet meets literary and art world icons in the Hamptons. And re-meets and reconsiders. And admires. And continues to honor and to create his own work.
Sandy McIntosh graduated from Southampton College — then Long Island University — in 1970. And along the way to his degree he had a number of encounters with artists and writers. Driving on Springs-Fireplace Road he happened upon Willem de Kooning. Well, he didn’t exactly happen upon the artist. Mr. McIntosh was driving home after his job pumping gas when a bicyclist veered here and there then tumbled over. Mr. McIntosh stopped and ran over to see a rather dazed de Kooning lying in the grass. The artist asked for a ride home — his bicycle didn’t have a light.
He was living in a farmhouse opposite the Green River Cemetery, he said, but this was only temporary, until they finished building his new studio. “I don’t want them to finish the damn thing,” he said with some bitterness. I asked why not. “Because when it’s finished, I think I will be finished, too.”
In Latest Volcano, Tana Jean Welch reveals through poetry the gift and power of story. Each poem in this dense volume is lyrically defined by both narrative structure and holistic convergence of abstract and concrete. The presentation of characters, settings, and situations is as subtly beautiful as it is haunting, and leaves the reader inspired and in awe. These poems are gilt-lined, catching to the eye and the mind, and reminiscent of the broader circumstances found within everyday humanity.
