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."