The Singing: Poems

Williams, C. K.

ISBN 10: 0374292868 / ISBN 13: 9780374292867

Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 2003

About this Item

First printing of the stated first edition. Book and dust jacket in fine condition.

Seller Inventory # 022323

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Singing: Poems
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York
• Publication Date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0374292868
• ISBN 13: 9780374292867
• Binding: Hardcover
• Illustrator: Catherine Mauger (Author photo); Jonathan D. Lippincott (Jacket design); Jed Mauger Williams
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Printing: 1st Printing
• Condition: Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Fine
• Seller catalogs:
  • A Collection of Poetry
  • Modern First Editions

About this title

Synopsis

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"

In his first volume since Repair, C. K. 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. He gazes at a Rembrandt self-portrait, and from it fashions a self-portrait of his own. He ponders an "anatomical effigy" at the Museum of Mankind, an in so doing "dissects" our common humanity. Stoking a fire at a house in the country, he recalls a friend who was burned horribly in war, and then turns, with eloquence and authority, to contemporary life during wartime, asking "how those with power over us can effect these things, by what cynical reasoning do they pardon themselves." The Singing is a direct and resonant book: touching, searching, heartfelt, permanent.

 


The Singing is the winner of the 2003 National Book Award for Poetry.

About the Author

C. K. Williams won the Pulitzer Prize for Repair in 1999. His most recent work is Misgivings (2000), a memoir. He teaches at Princeton University and lives part of the year in Paris, France.