Post by dacetli38 on May 21, 2012 22:36:02 GMT -5
Good evening everyone. I’m here to introduce the great American contemporary poet C.K. Williams. Born and raised in Newark, New Jersey during the Great Depression to a business man and homemaker, Williams was never very interested in poetry, although his father always encouraged him to read and memorize poems. William’s passion was actually for basketball, which he played at Bucknell University after graduating high school. However, he grew tired of basketball eventually and transferred to the University of Pennsylvania where he discovered his passion for poetry while taking a required English class. William’s admitted that, “poetry didn’t find me, in the cradle, or anywhere near it: I found it.”
Williams finally graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1959 with a B.A. He married Sarah Jones in 1966, divorced her in 1975, and then met Catherine Mauger while waiting at an airport and they later married and had a son Jed, who is the subject of many of William’s poems.
The war in Vietnam greatly affected Williams, and with the urging of his close friends, he published his first poem “A Day for Anne Frank,” which connected the civil rights movement to the holocaust. Shortly after, he included it in his first volume of published poetry titled Lies in 1969. This anti-war and protest themed poetry continued in his second volume titled I am the Bitter Name in 1972 which was his most influential work about anti-war.
His early career in poetry was focused mainly on an acidic anti-war theme, however, as he aged the content and style of his poetry changed to long lines of controversial poems that reflected love, intimacy, aging, and the natural world. In 1977, he came out with his third book With Ignorance was the first time that Williams incorporated his new style, and from then on his poetry has often been compared to that of Walt Whitman. Williams then became a writing professor at Columbia University and a literature professor at George Mason University, and also continued to write poetry mostly on politics.
Williams was then nominated for his first Pulitzer Prize for his book Flesh and Blood in 1987, and although his didn’t win that prize, he did win the prestigious National Book Critics Award. His work The Vigil in 1997 was also nominated for the Pulitzer Prize but he didn’t win this time either. Williams later received the PEN/Voelcker Career Achievement Award and was elected to the American Academy of the Arts and Letters in 2003.
Finally, after two other Pulitzer Prize nominations, Williams won the Pulitzer Prize in 2000 for his work called Repair. Some poems in Repair make use of short lines, contrary to William’s trademark long lines. The subject of Repair was the healing and forgiving process, and Williams successfully blended his style with new subject matter and the reviews for this book were all solid. Then just to add another buckle to his belt, he won the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize in 2005, which is given to a poet “whose lifetime accomplishments warrant extraordinary recognition.”
Williams has provided his view of how poetry is created by saying that “the most interesting thing about a poem is that it doesn't exist until it has its music. Every poem has music. And until it has that, it's not a poem. It's just information or data that's floating around in your head or on your desk.” Williams has been teaching a creative writing program at Princeton University since 1996 and divides his time between Paris, France and the United States. Williams is considered to be one of the best American poets of the 20th century and certainly has accomplished a tremendous amount in his long career.
With all this being said, lets give a warm welcome to the marvelous poet we have heard all about, C.K Williams.
Williams finally graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1959 with a B.A. He married Sarah Jones in 1966, divorced her in 1975, and then met Catherine Mauger while waiting at an airport and they later married and had a son Jed, who is the subject of many of William’s poems.
The war in Vietnam greatly affected Williams, and with the urging of his close friends, he published his first poem “A Day for Anne Frank,” which connected the civil rights movement to the holocaust. Shortly after, he included it in his first volume of published poetry titled Lies in 1969. This anti-war and protest themed poetry continued in his second volume titled I am the Bitter Name in 1972 which was his most influential work about anti-war.
His early career in poetry was focused mainly on an acidic anti-war theme, however, as he aged the content and style of his poetry changed to long lines of controversial poems that reflected love, intimacy, aging, and the natural world. In 1977, he came out with his third book With Ignorance was the first time that Williams incorporated his new style, and from then on his poetry has often been compared to that of Walt Whitman. Williams then became a writing professor at Columbia University and a literature professor at George Mason University, and also continued to write poetry mostly on politics.
Williams was then nominated for his first Pulitzer Prize for his book Flesh and Blood in 1987, and although his didn’t win that prize, he did win the prestigious National Book Critics Award. His work The Vigil in 1997 was also nominated for the Pulitzer Prize but he didn’t win this time either. Williams later received the PEN/Voelcker Career Achievement Award and was elected to the American Academy of the Arts and Letters in 2003.
Finally, after two other Pulitzer Prize nominations, Williams won the Pulitzer Prize in 2000 for his work called Repair. Some poems in Repair make use of short lines, contrary to William’s trademark long lines. The subject of Repair was the healing and forgiving process, and Williams successfully blended his style with new subject matter and the reviews for this book were all solid. Then just to add another buckle to his belt, he won the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize in 2005, which is given to a poet “whose lifetime accomplishments warrant extraordinary recognition.”
Williams has provided his view of how poetry is created by saying that “the most interesting thing about a poem is that it doesn't exist until it has its music. Every poem has music. And until it has that, it's not a poem. It's just information or data that's floating around in your head or on your desk.” Williams has been teaching a creative writing program at Princeton University since 1996 and divides his time between Paris, France and the United States. Williams is considered to be one of the best American poets of the 20th century and certainly has accomplished a tremendous amount in his long career.
With all this being said, lets give a warm welcome to the marvelous poet we have heard all about, C.K Williams.