Flesh and Blood, the fifth collection by C. K. Williams, was awarded the 1987 National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry. Reviewing it in The New York Times Book Review, Edward Hirsch noted that the book's compression and exactitude gave it "the feeling of a contemporary sonnet sequence." Hirsch added: "Like Berryman's Dream Songs or Lowell's Notebooks, Mr. Williams's short poems are shapely yet open-minded and self-generative, loosely improvisational though with an underlying formal necesity."
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Library Journal
Since With Ignorance ( LJ 6/15/77) , Williams has been honing a distinct, visually recognizable style that stretches the lines of his verse from margin to margina style not necessarily suited to standard book format. In this newest collection, consisting of 130 8-line stanzas, these long, breathy lines make his poems lean toward a prosy, conversational voice: "After a string of failed romances and intensely remarked sexual adven-/ tures she'd finally married." But Williams is also capable of the strong, lyrical moment, as in his moving elegy to friend and fellow poet Paul Zweig: "Scents of dawn, the softening all-night fire, char, ash, warm ember in the/ early morning chill./ The moment holds, you move across the path and go, the light lifts, breaks:/ goodbye, my friend, farewell." A good choice for contemporary poetry collections. Thom Tammaro, Multidisciplinary Studies Dept., Moorhead State Univ., Minn.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
"To put it simply, C. K. Williams is a wonderful poet, in the authentic American tradition of Walt Whitman and W. C. Williams, who tells us on every page what it means to be alive in our time. Among the treasures [in Flesh and Blood] is his sequence of poems on the death of his friend, the poet Paul Zweig. It is unmistakably one of the truly great modern elegies."--Stanley Kunitz
"A refreshingly urban book. . . . There is a restless intelligence behind all of C. K. Williams's work. . . . The range of his concerns and the depth of his emotional insight give [this book] value. Williams's poems, whatever their shape, remind us how much other poets leave out."--Don Bogen, The Nation
"A refreshingly urban book. . . . There is a restless intelligence behind all of C. K. Williams's work. . . . The range of his concerns and the depth of his emotional insight give [this book] value. Williams's poems, whatever their shape, remind us how much other poets leave out."--Don Bogen, The Nation
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent collection,
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This review is from: Flesh & Blood: Poems (Paperback)
C. K. Williams fully understands the complexities of writing good poetry. The work is profound and truly high art. It is most excellent.
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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Good Mother Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
40
books
cite this book:
See all 40 books citing this book
- A Poetry of Two Minds (The Life of Poetry: Poets on Their Art and Craft) by Sherod Santos on 5 pages
- The Question of Style in Philosophy and the Arts (Cambridge Studies in Philosophy and the Arts) by Caroline van Eck on 4 pages
- Behind the Lines: Pieces on Writing and Pictures by Michael Hofmann on page 55, page 57, and page 59
- The Secret of Poetry by Mark Jarman on page 157, page 162, and page 163
- The Particulars of Rapture: An Aesthetics of the Affects by Charles Altieri in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
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