Among the Archives: July 2008 Archives

In the foreground, that's novelist Joy Williams, former Esquire fiction editor Rust Hills, past executive director Monica Haskell, and poet James Wilson Hall. They are gathered in front of Capt. Tony's bar, on Greene Street, one evening during the 1988 or '89 Seminar. Photograph by Doyle Bush.

That's Monica Haskell again, circa 1988, with daughter Elena Rose, outside a party at the Hemingway House. Happy Birthday, Monica!

"I have been drinking too much coffee – about five times in week – will cut that out and will try to keep myself so active physically during the day that I will sleep from sheer exhaustion – Now I feel quieter – I hear the birds chirping and a rooster – I would like to get a bicycle – maybe that would help – I guess I'd better do everything I possibly can to snap out of it."

Photographer unknown. The original appears to be a press photo issued in conjunction with the 1986 Seminar, which was dedicated to the work of Tennessee Williams. It is dated 1970. The quote, dated August 9, 1937, is from Williams's notebooks, as edited by Margaret Bradham Thornton and published by Yale University Press.

The 1993 Seminar, our eleventh annual, was dedicated to the work of Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979). Among the panelists were many who had known her well, including John Malcolm Brinnin, Mexican poet Octavio Paz, Bishop's editor Robert Giroux, and poets James Merrill and Richard Wilbur. In cooperation with the Seminar, the Key West Art & Historical Society put on the first-ever exhibition of Elizabeth Bishop's paintings. The show was held at the East Martello Museum and curated by William Benton, who at that time was working on Exchanging Hats (1996), his simply beautiful book devoted to Bishop's paintings. The painting reproduced on the cover of the exhibition catalog shown here depicts the Key West Armory building (home today to The Studios of Key West) two doors down from Bishop's Key West home. The exhibition also featured the photographs of Rollie McKenna, including several portraits of Bishop.

In conjunction with the Seminar, Bishop's former home at 624 White Street was added to the national register of Literary Landmarks on January 4. The photo below, taken by Richard Watherwax, shows James Merrill reading that day in front of the plaque which still adorns the gate at 624, inscribed with the concluding lines from Bishop's "Questions of Travel:"

    Should we have stayed at home,
    wherever that may be?