Selected Poems [Hardcover]

C. K. Williams (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1994

For his Selected Poems, C. K. Williams has chosen from three decades of his work to represent every aspect of his marvelous career.

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

His Selected Poems sets the violent brooding of Williams's (A Dream of Mind) early writing against the lucid equanimity of his more mature work. The poetry spans three decades and offers an outline of his development. We get only occasional glimpses of the crude brutality that characterizes the poems from Lies (1969) and I am the Bitter Name (1972) in the mostly affirmative selections from Tar (1983), Flesh and Blood (1987) and his other recent books. Early, physically explicit and jarring poems like "Saint Sex" lead to the more cerebral work that has come to represent his style. The poems excerpted from The Lark. The Thrush. The Starling. (1983) reinforce a reader's impression of Williams's versatility while offering a formal alternative to the lengthy, Whitmanesque lines that he appears to prefer. And, though not ground-breaking, the dozen new poems here offer a closing, microcosmic view of his career with topically and stylistically familiar work. In "Villanelle of the Suicide's Mother," however, Williams unexpectedly uses a formal rhyme scheme to achieve the chilling impression of a cyclic children's song. Selected by the poet, this volume is a formidable retrospective.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Williams plucks the plums from three decades and 10 books for this delicious selection. Sometimes when a poet releases a selected works, it's easy to see in it the slow evolution from trembling, green beginner to self-confident, mentally expanded stylist. But Williams has always been the languorous observer who changes only his form, not his voice. (Still, far more substantially represented here than any other form is the powerful long line that has become his trademark and that he first explored in With Ignorance[1977].) His subject matter consists of world events, instances of human frailty, and others of shameless romanticism in a wild congeries, so that, for instance, a short poem about a child's incontinence on Easter precedes another on Bishop Tutu's visit to the White House. A complete and thoughtful collection that represents a remarkable career. Elizabeth Gunderson

Product Details

• Hardcover: 289 pages
• Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux (T); First Edition edition (October 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374258813
• ISBN-13: 978-0374258818
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,106,064 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of America's Best Contemporary Poets, April 30, 2003

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This review is from: Selected Poems (Paperback)

C.K. Williams poetry often mimics the thought process, reasoning its way to significance. In his early poems, sections or stanzas divide this process. Later, as he develops his writing, the lines grow. The amount of thought and details expand As Sherod Santos describes in his essay A Solving Emptiness, "The breathless insistence of Williams's line give ordinary moments a stupefying psychological power, an Orphic music. With a microscopic eye that notch by notch closes in on its subjects, Williams's microscopic eye allows us to experience his experiences almost as if they are our own. His poems have a strong sense of place, with large amounts of description and images to further this effect. My favorite poem is "Tar", but I enjoy many of his other poems such as "A Day for Anne Frank", "The Beginning of April", "The Sanctity." C.K. Williams is a poet that should not be overlooked by anyone interested in great poetry.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Original, Penitrating Poetry, June 5, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Selected Poems (Paperback)

If you want to feel less alone in the real world of honest feelings, if you want to get in touch with true feelings, if you want to understand your emotions and explore your guilt and really dig deeper than sentiment--C.K. Williams is the poet for you. His voice is more original and his psychological depth deeper than most contemporary poets. He makes you feel less alone with your inner life. There is no sentimental frosting here. This is accessible and original poetry with a crafty use of language, a flowing free verse. I've spent my life reading poetry, and I find this poet thoroughly satisfying. Spend an evening or a morning or both with his SELECTED POEMS and you will be moved and amazed at the original angles he takes on truth and human feelings and relationships. This is a poet of psychological, philiosphical realization--a thinker who really probes the inner life with grace of expression. Daniela Gioseffi, American Book Award winning author, poet/critic/novelist.

0 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars william c.k. williams, April 24, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Selected Poems (Paperback)

Yes, indeed. CK Williams' poem about the red wheel barrow is really something, especially since there's more to the wheel barrow than meets the eye--something about the origins of the word and how he/she breaks the stanzas. In this poetry class I took I heard that she/he used to be a doctor. I wonder if that has something to do with how he saw the contrast with the white chickens.