James L. Weil: Master of Fine Poetry and Printing

Notes from the Exhibition Catalogue

Jim’s poems are notable for being short, thought-provoking and (maybe the cause of the provocation) full of the best sort of contradictions and complexities. I think he would fit Eliot’s definition of the chief qualities of the seventeenth-century Metaphysicals (the business of yoking contraries in a single thought or impression), so one could, if one wanted to, call Jim a twentieth-century metaphysical. And there is a strong element of whimsy in his poems, which could be developed into an argument for designating Jim a neo-whimsical-say, the founder (since he fostered the work of many other poets) of twentieth-century whimsicalism in American poetry. Both ideas are fanciful, of course, but either could be the basis of a serious talk about his poems.

Jack Stillinger, Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus of English
Center for Advanced Study
University of Illinois, Urbana–Champaign