Description

Since his first poetry collection, Lies, C. K. Williams has nurtured an incomparable reputation – as a deeply moral poet, a writer of profound emotion, and a teller of compelling stories. In Writers Writing Dying , he retains the essential parts of his poetic identity – his candor, the drama of his verses, the social conscience of his themes – while slyly reinventing himself, re-casting his voice, and in many poems examining the personal – sexual desire, the hubris of youth, the looming specter of death – more bluntly and bravely than ever. In Prose, he confronts his nineteen year-old self, who despairs of writing poetry, with the question How could anyone know this little? In a poem of meditation, The Day Continues Lovely, he radically expands the scale of his attention: Meanwhile cosmos roars on with so many voices we can t hear ourselves think. Galaxy on. Galaxy off. Universe on, but another just behind this one… Even the poet s own purpose is questioned; in Draft 23 he asks, Between scribble and slash – are we trying to change the world by changing the words? With this wildly vibrant collection – by turns funny, moving, and surprising – Williams proves once again that, he has, in Michael Hofmann s words, as much scope and truthfulness as any American poet since Lowell and Berryman .