“‘If I should dream before I wake, may I dream of William Blake.’
“Nancy Willard’s Caldecott Honor picture book A Visit to William Blake’s Inn: Poems for Innocent and Experienced Travelers (1981) is a profound imagining of the afterlife as a safe stopping-off place run by Romantic poet and artist William Blake. Alice and Martin Provensen illustrate Blake and his inn — full of visitors — from ‘patient angels’ and the dragons who bake the bread, to Blake’s ‘Tyger’ and the King of Cats. Willard’s rhyming text and the Provensens’ 1981 artwork were, of course, a tribute to William Blake. In turn, my portrait of Mr. Blake and the King of Cats is a kind of literary fan art in the style of their gorgeous and philosophical forty-two-year-old picture book.”
