A DOCUMENT, A RECORD, A PHOTOGRAPH

A DOCUMENT, A RECORD
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is holding a retrospective this month, in April 2000, on the photographical work of Walker Evans. I know nothing about Mr. Evans, but his photography was an interesting document on his times, a record of his days and years, the sentiments and styles in the first half century of American history and a personal autobiography. The brief summary I saw, perhaps ten minutes, on The News Hour with Tim Lehrer went by so quickly I did not catch it all. But it had something to say, indirectly, about my own autobiographical work.
-Ron Price with thanks to The News Hour with Tim Lehrer, 5:00-6:00 pm, 7 April 2000.

Showing my world as I see it:
a poet warrior, heavily armed
with the stuff of my life,
my world, my religion—
my playful and not-so-playful
energies, moods and desires--
a document over three epochs,
a record of my days,
not so plain and simple,
clear and visually straight from the shoulder
as Evan’s work. But, with Keats,
an almost instant transmutation of impressions,
thoughts, reading and ideas into poetry,
well, what some might call poetry, what
I might see as a study for poetry.1

1 See Robert Gittings, Selected Poems and Letters of Keats, Heinemann Books Ltd., London, 1981(1966), pp.8-11.
Ron Price
7 April 2000