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Poems
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
November 2012
On Sale: October 30, 2012
ISBN: 0374293325
EAN: 9780374293321
Hardcover
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Literature and Fiction
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.”
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