Oscar Williams
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Oscar Williams (December, 1900 - October 10, 1964) was an American anthologist and poet. Among his influential anthologies are Master Poems of the English Language, Immortal Poems of the English Language, The Pocket Book of Modern Verse, and the Little Treasury Poetry Series, which were used in colleges and high schools around the U.S. in the 1950s and 1960s. Though a friend and promoter of poets like Dylan Thomas and George Barker, Williams' own poetry is not highly regarded by critics, though he published several volumes during his life time, and is not nearly as accomplished as the poetry of his wife, the unjustly neglected Gene Derwood (1909-1954).
Among Williams' poems are "Revenge," "Poem," "Poet," "The Last Supper" and "I Sing an Old Song."
Shopping for Meat in Winter is a typical Williams poem, with its urban theme, forced rhyme, and absurd attempts at replicating the neo-Romanticism of the New Apocalypse.
- Shopping for Meat in Winter
- What lewd, naked and revolting shape is this?
- A frozen oxtail in the butcher's shop
- Long and lifeless upon the huge block of wood
- On which the ogre's axe begins chop chop.
- The sun like incense fumes on the smoky glass,
- The street frets with people, the winter wind
- Throws knives, prices dangle from shoppers' mouths
- While the grim vegetables, on parade, bring to mind
- The great countryside bathed in golden sleep,
- The trees, the bees, the soft peace everywhere--
- I think of the cow's tail, how all summer long
- It beat the shapes of harps into the air.
His papers are housed at the Indiana University Lilly Library.
 |
This American poet-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
