Word: poems
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...Could I have passed through my own golden age and not even known I was there?” What is more, Williams acknowledges the wide breadth of his literary knowledge, but also hints that such erudition is not necessarily satisfying or comforting. In the same poem, he writes, “It occurred to me I’ve read enough; at my age all I’m doing is confirming my sadness.” Reading, after all, brings him not only to the study of the poetic voices that influence him, but also to the confrontation...
Herbert, Hopkins, Goethe, and Dostoevsky are only a few of the voices that C.K. Williams conjures in his new collection, “Wait.” In one poem, he applies fertile Hopkins-like music to descriptions of dust and destruction, while in another he re-imagines a scene from “Crime and Punishment” in which Raskolnikov notices a “Jew on a Bridge.” But even as he takes on the styles or subjects of canonical writers such as these, Williams manages to consistently maintain the gentle, witty, and honest...
Williams’ politically motivated poems, which display his deep engagement and discouragement with contemporary affairs, are nevertheless not the most compelling ones in his collection. Rather, the most riveting moments in “Wait” come from Williams’ autobiographical ruminations, which give his reader glimpses of the past out of which this careful, quiet poetic personality has evolved. Though it is hard to imagine this wise voice as a wayward student, in one poem, Williams disparagingly describes the self of his school days: “I was an indifferent student; I fidgeted, / daydreamed, didn?...
...poem is the evolution of self-doubt more apparent than in “I,” in which Williams directly addresses the idea of lyric subjectivity. After referring to Goethe as “One of those ‘I’s who aren’t truly at one with themselves, / who in construing themselves betray the ‘I’ they could/should have been,” Williams implies that his own “I” is, like Goethe’s, not entirely trustworthy. However, although he casts doubt...
...title [“Beatrice & Virgil”] is an obvious reference to Dante’s “Divine Comedy.” What aspects of the poem inspired your new novel...