Repair: Poems

by C.K. Williams

Book Overview

Nominated for the National Book Award--The eighth book by one of our greatest poets "Always, "These gigantic inconceivables."Always, "What will have been done to me?"And so we don our mental armor,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0374527067
• Release Date: June 2000
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
• Length: 80 Pages
• Weight: 0.29 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.5" x 0.2" x 5.5"

Customer Reviews

The Most Penetrating Poet of Our Time: Skill and Depth

C.K. Williams poems wound us to heal us. They dig deep into the psyche, revealing our intimate thoughts, our guilt, our attempts at love, our failures and little triumphs. He is the most psychologically profound poet we have writing in America today. His skill is dazzling and he keeps the reader closely with him, building a tension that is at once inviting and beguiling. We feel that we're living inside his head and he is living inside ours as we read his amazingly wrought poems. This is poetry unlike any other of our times. C.K. Williams books are worth every minute and penny we spend with them. Accessible and penetrating. Imaginative and rich, but most of all honest and true. Deeply questioning and loving, this poet blames and forgives us for all at the same time that he heals our loneliness.

Craftsman delights in different forms: keeps moral focus

Williams has nor stayed with the uniformly long and sometimes exhausting lines of his previous work, and shows us what can be done with briefer forms. The book reminds me of a visit to an ancient English home, in which a visitor wondered "How do they get that wonderful finish?" An attendant leaned forward and said "400 years of elbow grease Madam." The poems in 'Repair' are complex and multi-layered, the evidence of many years of elbow grease, and much mature reflection. I am privileged to be able to learn from them.

A reader from Richmond, VA

This review is in light of the previous view of 1 star...all I can say is that when one denotes a poet who bares his or her soul in the form of verse with the talent of Mr. Williams as "watching a dog lick up its vomit" is saying more about him-or-herself than the poet...

American poetry at its best.

What a joy to pick up the newest book of poems by C.K. Williams. As a longtime reader I can only say that he has out-done himself this time. His work gets better and better.

The poetry of C.K. Williams continues to astound.

I have been an admiring reader of C.K. Williams since picking up a copy of "With Ignorance" from a new publication shelf in my college library, some twenty years ago. I have continued, volume after volume with Williams. Something that I can say for only a few poets. In "Repair" Williams is moving into new territory, beginning to move away exclusively from the long line that has come to represent his work. The poetry of the older Williams is as distinguished as his earlier work. He has found a new sense of calm and belonging not found in previous books. I can only recommend that someone who is new to C.K. Williams, should search out his earlier volumes. He is a great American poet and he continues only to satisfy.