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".
- ISBN10 0374293325
- ISBN13 9780374293321
- Publish Date 30 October 2012
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 10 July 2014
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Farrar, Straus & Giroux Inc
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 96
- Language English