Requiescat in Pace
Dennis
Williamson
Essay
by
Eric Robert Nolan
I lost my best friend in the world of
writing, Dennis Williamson. You might have known him as Dennis Villelmi, the
pen name that he usually favored. And if you did know him, you know how
haunting and intricate his work was. Poets are often a despondent lot. I don't
think many of my peers would disagree with that statement. And I don't think
that Dennis would object to me saying that his writing projected a unique
darkness.
Also unique was his poetic voice. It was
baroque and arcane both. Dennis studied philosophy as a young man at Old
Dominion University in Virginia, but that was only the starting point for a
life of independent classical study. He grew to learn so much about antiquity
that he could pass for a university professor. He certainly loved all things
Roman. In my review of his superb 2014 book of poetry, "Fretensis: In the
Image of a Blind God," I wrote that he employed an "encyclopedic
knowledge of ancient history, myth and religion."
A poem by Dennis could begin along a
country road as familiar as one just beyond your yard at twilight. And you
could become so mesmerized by the scenery that he'd painted that you wouldn't
notice the road changing beneath you, until the moment you looked down to
realize you'd arrived along a midnight Appian Way -- or some darker
thoroughfare. Dennis was called a "horror poet," a term that never
sat well with me, as I thought it understated the depth of his work. He wrote
of unpredictable highways and infernal termini. Never were his visions for the
timid.
But the man stood in contrast with his
art. Dennis was a good and kind and unwavering friend, with whom it was easy to
laugh and pass the time. We’d become colleagues about a decade ago, when we
started submitting work to publishers at about the same time, and we’d supported
each other since as fellow scribblers. We later became co-editors of a
dystopian literature journal with a dear and mutual friend in Britain. We used
to joke that we were each the other's "wingman" -- referencing the
cheesy 1980's fighter pilot movie at which everyone in our generation looks
back and laughs.
We spoke to each other as men only can
when they trust each other entirely – about women, ambition, screwball
acquaintances, weird readers, the ghosts of our boyhoods. He put me at ease in
a way that no one else could. I told him shortly before he died that he was
"the only one who really gets me."
He was righteous -- in an age when the
distinctions between right and wrong often take a back seat to tribalism and
mudslinging. His sense of justice held a kind of ... revulsion at the unjust.
He abhorred a bully and despised a demagogue. You could hear it in his voice
when the subject of those men arose in conversation. He didn't suffer the
unkind kindly.
"Why is he always so dark?" A
reader once asked me about him. She was referring to the shadowy and
Lovecraftian vistas of “Fretensis” and all of his writing, along with the Stoic
philosophy and Gothic art that he found and shared online. Dennis explained it
to me once. (He'd fielded the question himself often enough.) I will probably
do a poor job of paraphrasing him here, but I will try.
His motifs were never meant to glorify
death. Like the memento mori that he loved, they were only meant to remind us
of our own mortality – and our existential need to live a life that was good
and purposeful. He was preoccupied with hardship and longing -- but only
because of how we might become better people despite their effects on us.
Dennis was sharp. There was wisdom to be
found along the complicated byways of his heart -- and an enduring goodness.
There is a funny thing about darkness -- a
portion of it is always your own. It is not the dim of the distant wood, but
the shadow that ever arranges, unannounced, faithfully at your feet. You
needn't fear it -- it is yours. After all, you are the one who made it. And its
position upon the ground will inform you of precisely where you are in the
world. You can think about how you got there. You can think about where you
would like to go next.
I don't know where Dennis is now. I think
of the other worlds, beyond this one, that he envisioned in his art. I do not
know if they exist, or if they are as lightless as he often imagined them.
I hope not. When I someday leave this
place for another, as he has now, I hope there is light enough where I arrive.
I hope it will not be too dark for me to
find my friend again.
[Originally published by The Piker Press, February 13, 2023] and again by the Eunoia Review in August, 2023.
Eric Robert Nolan’s writing has appeared throughout over 50 publications in 10 countries: the United States, Canada, Britain, Ireland, Germany, Romania, Turkey, India, Singapore and Australia. His work was also selected for 14 anthologies, two chapbooks and six mini-books. He was nominated for the Sundress Publications 2018 Best of the Net Anthology, and for Spillwords Press Awards in 2020, 2021 and 2022. His debut novel was The Dogs Don’t Bark in Brooklyn Any More, published in 2013 by Dagda Publishing in the United Kingdom. He is a past editor for the dystopian literature journal, The Bees Are Dead. He was entered in 2022 into the national Poets & Writers Directory.
Dennis Villelmi (Williamson)is the former co-editor of The Bees Are Dead webzine where he also interviewed authors and celebrities in the film industry. His poems have been featured in such publications as DEAD SNAKES, Peeking Cat Poetry, Duane’s Poe Tree, and Horror Sleaze Trash, to name a few. Mr. Villelmi lives in the state of Virginia.
Lothlorien Poetry Journal: Search results for Dennis Villelmi
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