The Department of Writing is pleased to present poet C. K. Williams, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award, as part of the Distinguished Visiting Writers Series. He will read from his work on Wednesday, March 31 at 7:30 p.m. in Clark Lounge, Egbert Hall. His reading is free and open to everyone.
C. K. Williams is the author of ten books of poetry, the most recent of which is Collected Poems (2006). The Singing won the National Book Award in 2003, and his previous book, Repair, was awarded the 2000 Pulitzer Prize and the Los Angeles Times Book Award. His collection Flesh and Blood received the National Book Critics Circle Award. Two books are forthcoming in 2010: Wait (FSG), a book of poems, and a prose book entitled Williams, On Whitman (Princeton University Press).
Recently he was awarded the Twentieth Annual Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, an honor given to an American poet in recognition of extraordinary accomplishment. Among his honors are awards in literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the PEN/Voelcker Career Achievement Award, and fellowships from the Lila Wallace Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. He teaches in the Writing Program at Princeton University.
Williams is known for his daring formal style, marrying perceptive everyday observations to lines so long that they defy the conventions of lyric poetry. His poems often border on the prosaic, inspiring critics to compare them to Walt Whitman's. Of poetry, Williams says, "The most interesting thing about a poem is that it doesn't exist until it has its music. Every poem has a 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."
Individuals with disabilities requiring accommodations and those seeking more information on the Distinguished Visiting Writers Series should contact Jack Wang, Assistant Professor in the Department of Writing, at 607-274-3493 or wang@ithaca.edu. We ask that requests for accommodations be made as soon as possible.
https://www.ithaca.edu/intercom/article.php/20100326100205300