by Valery Oisteanu
Charles Henri Ford, American surrealist poet, artist, photographer and editor passed away at New York Hospital at age 94 on the morning of September 27, 2002. His contribution to American arts and letters is invaluable, covering nearly a century of experimentation in magazine editing and poetry, novels, haiku, collage, film, photography and silkscreen printing.
At age 19 in Columbus, Miss., Ford started a literary magazine called Blues – A Magazine of New Rhythms. He traveled to Paris (1931), where he became friends with an ex-pat American avant-garde that included Man Ray, Kay Boyle, Gertrude Stein, Peggy Guggenheim, Natalie Barney, George Balanchine and others. In 1932 he went to Morocco, lured by Paul Bowles, and was joined there by Djuna Barnes, for whom he typed her just-completed novel Nightwood.
Soon after came a novel, YOUNG & EVIL, co-authored with his friend Parker Tyler and published in Paris (OBELISK Press 1933). Widely regarded as the first gay novel, it was so controversial it was banned in England and the United States until the late 1960s. At that time he befriended Tchelitchev, who became his lifelong companion (until his death in Rome in 1957). In a recently published book, Water From a Bucket: A Diary 1948-1957 (Turtle Point Press, 2001), Charles reveals their querulous and loving relationship.
In 1936-37, Ford’s first full-length books of poems were published: A Pamphlet of Sonnets (Caravel Press) and The Garden of Disorder, with an introduction by William Carlos Williams (New Directions). Two years later came ABC’s Poem with a collage cover by Joseph Cornell. All in all, Ford leaves behind 16 published books of poetry. "There are few poets whose work is at once so personal and so prophetic," wrote Herbert Read.
In 1940 he also started editing View magazine – the surrealist publication that advanced the work of European artists in New York, including Tanguy, Matta, Tchelichev, Ernst, Masson, Chagal, Mondrian, Leger and Cocteau. He
also published the first monograph on Duchamp and the first book-translation of Breton’s poems, Young Cherry Trees Secured Against Hares. View also published the first English translation of Albert Camus and Jean Genet. In 1941 Ford published The Overturned Lake, a book of poetry with Matta’s title page and frontispiece (The Little Man Press). Four years later, Poems for Painters also appeared in View Editions, with reproductions of the work of Duchamp, Fini, Tchelitchew and Tanguy.
For the next few years, Ford traveled around Europe, photographing Italy with the Exakta camera presented to him by the poet Edward Roditi. He embarked on a project to photograph street scenes, Roman ruins and surreal street theatre, all in black and white and revealing exotic multiculturalism. The locations varied from the Adriatic Coast to Frascati and the island of Ischia. This was an important step in Ford’s visual development, one that would later help him in his film ventures. In 1955 came the first exhibit of Ford’s photos (printed at the Bresson Lab in Paris) in the London Institute of Contemporary Art. A one-man show of paintings and drawings in Paris drew interest and a catalogue forward by Jean Cocteau in 1956.
After several years of living behind the Notre Dame at Isle de la Cite, he returned to New York and created a milieu around him that included pop artists and underground filmmakers. At one of his openings in 1965 of the poem posters at Cordier & Ekstrom gallery, a documentary was filmed for the Fourth International Avant-Garde Film Festival in Belgium. This film featured short vignettes of artists and writers at a gathering of the avant-glam, including Jane Mansfield, Andy Warhol, Jack Smith, William Burroughs, Ruth Ford (his sister), Brion Gysin, Robert Indiana, Roy Lichtenstein, Virgil Thompson, Parker Tyler, etc.
His cut-up words/collage-poetry technique lives on in the form of a book called Spare Parts, published in a New View edition in 1966. Two years later, another book of paste-up poems called Silver Flower Coo appeared in Kulchur Press. In 1971, the feature film Johnny Minotaur, conceived, directed and photographed by Ford on the island of Crete, was premiered at New York City’s Bleecker Street Cinema.
During his most prolific three decades and his final he met in Katmandu Indra Tamang, a photographer who became his collaborator and companion.
Together, they travel and collaborate on books such as: "Handshakes from Heaven I and II". Three of his books published by Cherry Valley Editions describe his lyrical Kathmandu experiences and his epiphanies of Nepal. One volume was illustrated with drawings by Isamu Noguchi. As the poet William Carlos Williams once wrote, the effect of Ford’s "particularly hard, generally dreamlike poetry is to revive the senses and force them to re-see, re-hear and re-smell and generally re-value all that it was believed had been seen, heard, smelled and generally valued."
Although Ford considered himself the Hermit of the Dakota, he was in touch not only with famous surrealists such as Dali, Calder and Tanning, but also Lynne Tillman, Charles Plymell & Gerard Malanga. He will be remembered as the main connection and poetical catalyst between European and American surrealists and avant-gardists. Indeed, in his long artful adventure, Ford lived in Nepal, Crete and Paris and made movies, photos, collages, poems, wood sculptures and prints all inspired by the dream-realm and Eastern religion. That’s why it was totally appropriate that after living in Nepal and adopted by a Nepalese family, his last rites and goodbye at the Greenwich funeral home was performed by a Tibetan Lama Rinpoche who blessed Charles on his last trip to Heaven.
An exhibit of Ford’s last art opened on Halloween at The Scene Gallery (42 Rivington St.), called, ironically, "Alive & Kicking: The Collages of Charles Henri Ford" and consisting of 410 "cut-outs," curated by Thomas Girst (the show runs through Dec.12). Apart from the collages on the wall, there are also papers with 10,000 haikus covering the floor of the gallery, all selected from a notebook of Ford’s filled with collected aphorisms and haikus. Here is an example:
Death comes to the
Surrealist poet – to him
Too we bid adieu
On a personal note, I considered Charles to be my poetical mentor. His poetry and his adventurous life inspired me to write about him in poems and essays. I met him at one of his Dakota tea parties, to which I was invited after sending him my poetry book Underwater Temples. At that time, Charles was a multimedia wizard, showing wood sculptures, wall hangings and prints created in Nepal. Our collaborations included a poetry reading at The Poetry Project called "International Flavor" (1980) at St. Marks Church. I also curated a show called: "Solid Silver Survivors" at the Robert Bucker gallery in Soho, with Charles as the elder of the avant-garde tribe. He published several of my poems in his magazine Blues, and I illustrated his poems in Night magazine with my photograph of him, on which he painted over his image spiky black hair. We also produced several collaborative collages for an art book. I also lent my voice for his puppet theater play filmed for a documentary, At Noon Upon Two, with music by Ned Rorem and puppets created by Kurt Seligman
Next year, in the spring, Arena Press is coming out with a photography book called:"Charles Henri Ford, Snapshooter" edited by Gerard Malanga. We haven’t heard the last of him, as he leaves behind several books-worth of fiction, haikus,memoirs and journals. The title of one of them is "I will be what I Am," and indeed he was; he will be remembered as The Surreal Saint of the Dakota.
