Writers Writing Dying

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."

• | Author: C. K. Williams
• | Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
• | Publication Date: Nov 19, 2013
• | Number of Pages: 80 pages
• | Binding: Paperback or Softback
• | ISBN-10: 0374534128
• | ISBN-13: 9780374534127