Genius outsider artist Theodore Archer Pope, of Morganton, NC, is often cited as embodying both the avant-garde and Appalachian, the disruptive and down-to-earth.
His book Varve (part of Far From the Centers of Ambition, a two-volume celebration of Black Mountain College) emerged directly from his BMc installation, “The Black Mountains of Mars.”
Pope, doesn’t call himself a poet, he claims to be poetry, takes his readers to unexpected and often startling places. As reviewer Tim Peeler said, “One can’t always explain art and the attempt to do so might be an obstruction to the process, to the gift. This is especially true for an artist as stunningly prolific as Pope.”
About The Lazarus Taxa: a Two-Volume Collection of Poetry and Art
This distinctly packaged collection of art and poetry features two volumes.
One is a collection of Pope’s lavish paintings and handwritten poems. (Pope’s left-handed calligraphy is an art unto itself.) The full color panels that comprise I Almost Quit Writing were rediscovered during one of Ted’s readings, and later rescued after he sent some sailing into the audience.
The second, Someday You’ll Meet Poetry, showcases Pope’s piercingly wry insights on what and where poetry is. This volume includes some of the imagery that readers and viewers of Pope’s work have come to expect: buffalos, birds, ships, and abstract landscapes.