C.K. Williams (1936-2015) was the most challenging American poet of his generation, a poet of intense and searching originality who made lyric sense out of the often brutal realities of everyday life. His poems are startlingly intense anecdotes on love, death, secrets and wayward thought, examining the inner life in precise, daring language. In Writers Writing Dying, he retains the essential parts of his poetic identity - his candour, his compelling storytelling, 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 spectre 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'. Poetry Book Society Recommendation.

C.K. Williams (1936-2015) was the most challenging American poet of his generation, a poet of intense and searching originality who made lyric sense out of the often brutal realities of everyday life. His poems are startlingly intense anecdotes on love, death, secrets and wayward thought, examining the inner life in precise, daring language. 'A voice that has become utterly distinctive: restless, passionate, dogged, and uncompromising in its quest to find and speak the truth...an intelligence both compassionate and fierce. The result is four decades of poems that delve into everything from the most joyous and private matters of the heart (he is one of our greatest love poets) to the chaos and horror of politics, warfare, and our species' seemingly innate penchant for cruelty and self-destruction. Like Whitman's, his world view is simultaneously micro- and macrocosmic. Williams' rangy, elastic lines are measures of thought, and his syntax enacts the ways in which the mind moves through mood and memory, speculation and logic. Because the voice is both cerebral and muscular in its reflexes, the music it makes feels spontaneous, individual, and directly representative of the experience of which it sings. The poems are wholly American in this regard; their simultaneous tenderness and outrage bring to mind the music of Charles Ives. Few poets leave behind them a body of work that is global in its ambition and achievement, but C.K. Williams is one of them. His poetry will speak to future generations, as it does to us, of what it was to be human in our time.' - Chase Twichell

Yehuda Amichai (1924-2000) was Israel's most popular poet, as well as a literary figure of international reputation. In this collection, renowned translators Chana Bloch and Stephen Mitchell have selected Amichai's most beloved poems, including forty poems from his later work. A new foreword by C.K. Williams, written especially for this edition, addresses Amichai's enduring legacy and sets his poetry in the context of the new millennium.

C.K. Williams (1936-2015) was the most challenging American poet of his generation, a shape-shifting poet of intense and searching originality who made lyric sense out of the often brutal realities of everyday life. His poems are startlingly intense anecdotes on love, death, secrets and wayward thought, examining the inner life in precise, daring language. Over the past half-century, he took upon himself the poet's task: to record with candour and ardour 'the burden of being alive'. In Falling Ill, his final volume of poems, he brought this task to its conclusion, bearing witness to a restless mind's encounter with the brute fact of the body's decay, the spirit's erasure. Written with unsparing lyricism and relentless discursive logic, these brave poems face unflinchingly 'the dreadful edge of a precipice' where a futureless future stares back at them. Urgent, unpunctuated, headlong, vertiginous, they race against time to trace the sinuous, startling twists and turns of consciousness. All is coming apart, taken away, except the brilliant art to describe it all as the end is coming. All along is the reassurance of love's close presence. Here are no easy resolutions, false consolations. Like unanswered prayers, they are poems of deep interrogation - a dialogue between the agonised 'I' in its harrowing here-and-nowness and the elusive 'you' of the beloved who flickers achingly just out of reach. C. K. William's Falling Ill will take its place among the enduring works of literature about death and departure.

'Well this book blew my mind! What a delicious plot twist. One of the best psychological thrillers I have read in a very long time' Michelle, reader review She told you her secret. Now she's dead and it's your fault... As the local doctor, Kate O'Leary has the respect of her community, after all she's helped generations of those in need. But then a teenage patient is murdered. And her blood is found in Kate's house. Her neighbours turn against her and rumours start to spread. Alone and under arrest, Kate turns to the one person who can help. But she knows that even an official verdict can mean nothing if those looking for revenge find you guilty. Kate knows she's not a killer. But if it's not her, then who? And finding the truth might be the only way to stay alive... Local Whispers is a gripping and twisty psychological crime thriller perfect for fans of Claire Douglas and Gillian McAllister. See what readers are saying...: 'So many hidden surprises and twists and turns, amazing and dark and funny at times' Gillian 'Fast-paced, tense and full of twists. I was gripped right from the start' Kirsty 'This book kept me turning the pages for hours...fabulous' Rubie *Published as The Woman at No.13 in ebook*

In this book, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet C. K. Williams sets aside the mass of biography and literary criticism that has accumulated around Walt Whitman and attempts to go back to Leaves of Grass as he first encountered it--to explore why Whitman's epic "continues to inspire and sometimes daunt" him. The result is a personal reassessment and appreciation of one master poet by another, as well as an unconventional and brilliant introduction to Whitman. Beautifully written and rich with insight, this is a book that refreshes our ability to see Whitman in all his power.

I am the reason girls are told not to trust strangers. I am their cautionary tale. Nineteen years ago Linn Wilson was attacked. Seventeen-years-old and home alone, she'd been waiting for her friends to arrive when she heard the doorbell ring. But when she opened the door, Linn let in her worst nightmare. The culprit was never found. It was someone I knew. I am going to find out who did this to me. Now, Linn is determined to get to the bottom of the night that changed her life forever. Returning to the village where she grew up, she knows that someone must know something. The claustrophobia and isolation of small town living means secrets won't remain secrets for long... A wonderfully tense and gripping suspense thriller that will have you hooked! Perfect for fans of D.K Hood's Detective Kane and Alton series and Sheryl Browne. What others are saying about Flowers for the Dead: 'Wow, I loved this book very much. It's dark, intense and quite chilling at times, and it really made for some harrowing reading.' Sarah, NetGalley reviewer 5* 'Bar none, this one of my top favorite thrillers to date. Whoa! Damn... You've gotta read it! 5+ stars.' Olivia, NetGalley reviewer 5* 'I would fully recommend this well written book. Strap yourself in - the subject matter is harrowing but expertly woven into a tale of secrets, mis-truths and ulterior motives.' Mark, NetGalley reviewer 5* 'One of the best novels I read for 2019. The rough storyline hit a nerve and didn't stop until the end. I loved the strong and determined main character.' Reva, Netgalley reviewer 'A great psychological thriller which will keep you reading until the last page.' Sharon, Netgalley reviewer 'I thought I knew the culprit and then thought it was first one character and then another. Isn't this what makes a great mystery?' Sallie, Netgalley reviewer 'An exhilarating read, everything I would hope for in a psychological thriller.' Netgalley reviewer

A capstone to an unforgettable career Over the past half century, the great shape-shifting poet C. K. Williams took upon himself the poet's task: to record with candor and ardor "the burden of being alive." In Falling Ill, his final volume of poems, he brings this task to its conclusion, bearing witness to a restless mind's encounter with the brute fact of the body's decay, the spirit's erasure. Written with unsparing lyricism and relentless discursive logic, these brave poems face unflinchingly "the dreadful edge of a precipice" where a futureless future stares back. Urgent, unpunctuated, headlong, vertiginous, they race against time to trace the sinuous, startling twists and turns of consciousness. All is coming apart, taken away, except the brilliant art to describe it as the end is coming. All along is the reassurance of love's close presence. Here are no easy resolutions, false consolations. Like unanswered prayers, they are poems of deep interrogation--a dialogue between the agonized "I" in its harrowing here-and-nowness and the elusive "you" of the beloved who flickers achingly just out of reach. Williams's Falling Ill takes its place among the enduring works of literature about death and departure.

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."

"Wait" finds C. K. Williams by turns ruminative, stalked by "the conscience-beast, who harries me," and "riven by idiot vigor, voracious as the youth I was / for whom everything always was going too slowly, too slowly." Poems about animals and rural life are set hard by poems about shrapnel in Iraq and sudden desire on the Paris metro; grateful invocations of Herbert and Hopkins give way to fierce negotiations with the shades of Coleridge, Dostoyevsky, and Celan. What the poems share is their setting in the cool, spacious, spotlit, book-lined place that is Williams's consciousness, a place whose workings he has rendered for fifty years with inimitable candor and style.

"Williams manages to consistently maintain the gentle, witty, and honest voice that he has spent a lifetime crafting." --Rachel A. Burns, "The Harvard Crimson"

"I want to thank you, your words touched me deeply. There was such feeling and a very sincere compassion in your subject matter. Your poems took me to a place where few take the time to go. To put yourself into someone else's shoes and walking through their live is amazing. Please continue with your works. For if you can open the door for one person, perharps many will follow." Lisa J. - Houston, TX. "I love your poems! They are refreshing, uplifting and thought-provoking. You have a true gift and vision that bridges history and culture with lessons in life, and provides meaningful words anyone can relate to. Morning Breakfast, Greater Expectations and You Don't Hear Me are just a few of your poems that are colorful and a joy to read. They left me soul searching. May this and your future works continue to inspire and encourage people around the world." Anthony H. - Colorado Springs, CO

All the work of this major poet who has "set a new standard for American poetry."*
"Collected Poems" brings together in one volume C. K. Williams's work of nearly forty years, enabling readers to follow the career of this great poet through its many phases and reinventions.
Here are his confrontational early poems, which bristle with a young idealist's righteous anger. Here are the roomy, rangy poems of "Tar" and "With Ignorance," in which Williams married the long line of Whitman to a modern's psychological self-scrutiny; the compact sonnets of "Flesh and Blood"; and the inward investigations of "A Dream of Mind." Here are the incomparable poems from the prize winning books "Repair" and "The Singing." Here, too, are new poems, in which Williams's moral vigilance is brought to bear, again, on life during wartime. "Collected Poems" is the life's work of a modern master--fiercely intelligent, arresting in its beauty, unforgettable in its echoes and reverberations.

New work from the Pulitzer-Prize winning author of "Repair"
. . . Reality has put itself so solidly before me
there's little need for mystery . . . Except for us, for how we take the world
to us, and make it more, more than we are, more even than itself.
--from "The World"
The awards given to C.K. Williams' two most recent books--a National Book Award for "The Singing "and a Pulitzer Prize for "Repair"--complete the process by which Williams, long admired for the intensity and formal daring of his work, has come to be recognized as one of the few truly great living American poets. Williams treats the characteristic subjects of a poet's maturity--the loss of friends, the love of grandchildren, the receding memories of childhood, the baffling illogic of current events--with an intensity and drive that recall not only his recent work but also his early books, published forty years ago." The Singing" is a direct and resonant book: searing, hearfelt, permanent.

Nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award

The Vigil, which first appeared in 1997, finds contemporary American master-poet C. K. Williams taking a more reflective and empathetic turn in his work. As Jonathan Aaron wrote in The Boston Globe: "A matchless explorer of the burdens of consciousness, Williams has always written brilliantly about human pain, that which we inflict upon others and upon ourselves, and that which we experience in dreading what we're fated for. In The Vigil Williams affirms the uncanny resiliency of love as solace for pain—what he calls 'these invisible links that allure, these transfigurations even of anguish that hold us' ('The Neighbor'). It is a mystery he has probed before, but never with quite such sympathy and candor."

The poetry of C. K. Williams has won an essential place in contemporary American poetry. The long lines that have characterized his style since the mid-seventies have allowed him to make ever more radical forays into what Edward Hirsch, writing in The New York Times Book Review, has called "a unique and inclusive poetry of consciousness." A Dream of Mind (1992) is dominated by the long title poem, which explores the materials and qualities of our states of consciousness with enormous flexibility and suppleness. Other poems make similar investigations into jealousy, family life, and psychological and intellectual constructs. Passionate, truculent, humorous, and always questioning, Williams's poetry is, in more than one sense, the poetry of contemporary experience. This challenging, exhilarating book marks a new stage in a truly groundbreaking writer's constantly evolving work.