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C.K. Williams

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Poet

The Resume

    (November 4, 1936-September 20, 2015)
    Born in Newark, New Jersey
    Birth name was Charles Kenneth Williams
    Author, literary critic and translator
    Poetry collections included 'Lies' (1969), 'I Am the Bitter Name' (1972), 'With Ignorance' (1977), 'Tar' (1983), 'he Lark. The Thrush. The Starling' (1983), 'Flesh and Blood' (1988), 'Helen' (1991), 'A Dream of Mind' (1992), 'The Vigil' (1997), 'Love About Love' (2001), 'The Singing' (2003), and 'Falling III' (2017)
    Essays and criticism included 'Poetry and Consciousness' (1998), 'On Whitman' (2010), and 'In Time: Poets, Poems, and the Rest' (2012)
    Other works included 'Misgivings, My Mother, My Father, Myself' (2000) and 'Catherine's Laughter' (2013)
    Pulitizer Prize for Poetry recipient for 'Repair' (1999)

Why he might be annoying:

    He was a Bill Ayers look-alike.
    His poetry tended to experiment with long, unraveled lines that spilled over the standard page.
    One of his best known poems - In the Heart of the Beast - he chose to begin as follows: 'This is fresh meat right mr nixon?' (referring to the Kent State shooting of student demonstrators in 1970).

Why he might not be annoying:

    His poems regularly addressed war, poverty and climate change.
    He won nearly every major poetry award known to man.
    He won the National Book Critics Circle Award for 'Flesh and Blood' (1987).
    He was a National Book Award finalist for 'Repair' (1999).
    He published translations of the plays of Euripides and Sophocles.
    James Franco portrayed him in the 2013 movie 'Tar,' which draws heavily from his work.
    He said: 'What I think poets tell themselves, either aloud or unconsciously, is that poetry is part of the moral resonance of the world. Poetry adds to that, that sense that human beings have that we have some moral meaning that is part of the basis of our identity, no matter what our acts are.'

Credit: BoyWiththeGreenHair


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 2 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 2 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 8 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 100 Votes: 54.00% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 8 Votes: 50.0% Annoying