Charles Kenneth Williams is an American poet who started writing poetry at 19, after taking only his required English classes at University of Pennsylvania. He began his career as a[…]
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It all begins with a sound.
Topic: Process and Poem Writing
C. K. Williams: You start with a fragment, a sound. Sometimes you start with an image, with an idea. The most important thing is the sound. You have to get the sound of the poem, the music of the poem I call it, and until you have that you don’t have anything, and that’s the hardest part is waiting for the music and the matter to come together because sometimes it can take many years to come together. Sometimes it can never-- I have some poems at my house that I’ve had there for 30 years that basically I know now are never going to come together but I still keep just in case a miracle happens.
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