Winner of the 1999 Pulitzer Prize and the 1987 National Book Critics Award, distinguished poet and lecturer in the creative writing department C.K. Williams has been awarded another prize to add to his collection — the 2003 National Book Award.
Williams won the National Book Award for poetry for "The Singing," a collection of poems addressing a wide range of issues, from aging and memory to more timely concerns, such as war and terrorism.
The "many, many themes [of the collection] are one of the things I like best about the book," Williams said. "There are political poems, lyrical poems, love poems and an elegy."
Williams received the award in a ceremony at the New York Marriott Marquis on Nov. 19.
Williams was a finalist for the National Book Award in 1999 for "Repair" — the collection for which he won the Pulitzer Prize. "They make [the ceremony] like the Oscars, with spotlights, a red carpet and a big screen," Williams said, "so to lose in front of 900 people is not like just receiving a letter in the mail. It's much more pleasant to win."
Many of Williams' poems reflect upon aging and maturity — the loss of friends, the fading memories of childhood and the love of grandchildren.
"The Singing" also features poems about Sept. 11, 2001, the events leading to the war in Iraq and "the propensity of humans to do war," Williams said. Though Williams has been an outspoken critic of U.S. involvement in Iraq, "The Singing" denounces the brutality of war in a general sense.
The title "The Singing" refers to the second poem of the collection as well as "the traditional reference to poetry," Williams said.
The National Book Awards were created to promote readership of great contemporary American authors and recognize achievements in four genres: fiction, nonfiction, poetry and young people's literature. The winners are selected by five-member judging panels for each genre and receive a $10,000 cash award and a crystal sculpture.
This year's four winners were chosen from among 1,030 authors, the highest number of entrants in the awards' 54-year history.
"I'm thrilled by the award," professor and poet Paul Muldoon said, "It's a wonderful book, so 'present' in the sense that it helps us understand the momentousness of the moment, be it the state of war in which we find ourselves, or a glimpse of a doe in a yard."
Past winners of the National Book Award in poetry include William Carlos Williams, Wallace Stevens, W.H. Auden and Allen Ginsberg.
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