Pulitzer-Winning Poet Williams Channels Voices from the Canon

Herbert, Hopkins, Goethe, and Dostoevsky are only a few of the voices that C.K. Williams conjures in his new collection, “Wait.” In one poem, he applies fertile Hopkins-like music to descriptions of dust and destruction, while in another he re-imagines a scene from “Crime and Punishment” in which Raskolnikov notices a “Jew on a Bridge.” But even as he takes on the styles or subjects of canonical writers such as these, Williams manages to consistently maintain the gentle, witty, and honest voice that he has spent a lifetime crafting.

In “Wait,” Williams does not limit himself to a single theme or style. He meditates on subjects ranging from war to desire, from nature to literature. While he often employs the long, fluid lines characteristic of so much of his work, as in his poems “Brain” and “Apes,” he also tries out more chiseled, succinct forms in poems such as “Vertigo” and “Rats.” Even as he displays his virtuosity as a writer, however, Williams remains humble and unassuming, calling himself at one point “a long-faced, white-haired ape with a book, still turning the page.”

This awareness of his age, his accomplishments, as well as his shortcomings recurs throughout the collection. Williams’ reflections on his work more often than not lead him to a kind of melancholy. In “Apes,” he wonders, “Could I have passed through my own golden age and not even known I was there?” What is more, Williams acknowledges the wide breadth of his literary knowledge, but also hints that such erudition is not necessarily satisfying or comforting. In the same poem, he writes, “It occurred to me I’ve read enough; at my age all I’m doing is confirming my sadness.” Reading, after all, brings him not only to the study of the poetic voices that influence him, but also to the confrontation of political issues that crop up throughout his work, from Roe v. Wade to the war in Iraq.

Williams’ politically motivated poems, which display his deep engagement and discouragement with contemporary affairs, are nevertheless not the most compelling ones in his collection. Rather, the most riveting moments in “Wait” come from Williams’ autobiographical ruminations, which give his reader glimpses of the past out of which this careful, quiet poetic personality has evolved. Though it is hard to imagine this wise voice as a wayward student, in one poem, Williams disparagingly describes the self of his school days: “I was an indifferent student; I fidgeted, / daydreamed, didn’t do my homework, didn’t / as my teachers often said, apply myself.”

Elsewhere, Williams recollects his relationship with an old mentor. “I suppose I understand now what drove him: all artists know times when the gates close, / or when everything you continue is despoiled by haste,” he writes. As Williams revisits his earlier memories, he eloquently shows the thought process behind his revisions of his understanding of his own life. Though as a young man the actions of his mentor seemed unfathomable, from this end of his career, Williams is able to understand the older writer’s paralyzing lack of confidence.

In no poem is the evolution of self-doubt more apparent than in “I,” in which Williams directly addresses the idea of lyric subjectivity. After referring to Goethe as “One of those ‘I’s who aren’t truly at one with themselves, / who in construing themselves betray the ‘I’ they could/should have been,” Williams implies that his own “I” is, like Goethe’s, not entirely trustworthy. However, although he casts doubt on the reliability of this subjective “I,” it is in fact the apparent genuineness of his voice that makes his work throughout the collection so transfixing.

But even amidst his contemplations of selfhood and subjectivity, Williams also continually returns to the vivid observations that give his work such buoyancy. In “Riot,” Williams evokes the music of dawn’s approach after a tumultuous, sleepless night: “The first dawn crows / sound like humans imitating crows, / but hungrier than crows, or more afraid. / The rising light gilds / then slashes red the fallow fields.” Throughout “Wait,” Williams consistently reveals perceptions of the world unique to his own alert senses. In “Teachers,” the poet imagines a schoolroom at night, after both students and teachers have returned home: “Come dusk, the classrooms emptied, / the book shut tight, those forsaken treasures / of knowledge must batter the fading blackboards / and swarm the silent, sleeping halls, / like shades of lives never to be lived.” It seems here that Williams is wondering whether his own work will eventually rest unheard and unread in closed books and dark classrooms. One can only imagine, however, that a voice this full of candor and sensitivity will remain audible and appreciated for a long while yet.

—Staff writer Rachel A. Burns can be reached at rburns@fas.harvard.edu.