We’ve been talking lately about a program in which student writers and illustrators can feed off each other’s work in mutually beneficial ways. The obvious form of the collaboration in children’s literature is the illustration of a (mostly) pre-written text, resulting in a picture book or a story book. There are examples of books for older readers that work along these same lines, and some experimentation with other collaborative or self-collaborative works, like those of Brian Selznick and Clive Barker.

What has interested me for a very long time is that form of writing which results from contemplation of previously existing art of all kinds, particularly photography. Catalog copy is, say, the basic example of this, but there are huge variations in creativity among that large segment of writing, from a sort of photographic word-painting of the object to a kind of poetic riffing inspired by images. An example of the latter reaching high art is Remains of Elmet, with poems by Ted Hughes on an assortment of Fay Godwin’s photos of the north country.

I have just finished reading — if “reading” is the right word — Walker Evans’ photographs of Cuba from 1933. These were taken in assignment to illustrate a topical book about the injustices of contemporary Cuban politics by a fellow named Carlton Beals, a book all but forgotten except among historians. The photos survive as do all of Evans’ work because of the brilliance and depth of his vision. A handsome 2001 reissue of his photos by the Getty Museum, which holds many of the original prints, includes a new introductory essay by Andrei Codrescu. It’s the sort of creative text that I love that is all too rarely commissioned. Art critics I suppose get to do this thing all the time. A friend of mine, the poet Michael Coffey, was once paired with an installation artist and their collaboration produced a unique object, more than the art alone, more than the text alone. Something new.

There should be a path for writers to explore this kind of multi-art collaboration. I’ve just begun to look at the reissue of Evans’ American Photographs, the 75th anniversary edition of the catalog of his MOMA exhibition from 1938, a book that, if you knew it before, was often very expensive and hard to find. It carries, in nearly facsimile style, a very similar typography to the original publication, and Lincoln Kirstein’s essay on Walker’s place in the history of American photography. What’s lovely is that his text survives as an afterword the photographs; it’s been honored as an essay 75 years after its publication, too. So, just a roundabout way of saying that introductory essays, critical essays, poetic essays of art are so infrequently asked for but can allow for the creation of a beautiful, unique, and lasting text.