Books: poet C.K. Williams turns to prose in All at Once

“It is probably not fair to compare C. K. Williams’ prose in All at Once with his award winning verse poetry books, but it does offer poetry averse readers an opportunity to engage with a perceptive and empathic wordsmith whose work they otherwise would not encounter.” —From my NYJB book review.  Read that review first. Additional remarks that appeared in a different and now defunct publication begin with the next paragraph.

Books: In All at Once poet C.K. Williams turns to prose

More than two decades ago a creative writing grad school classmate related how a prospective employer told her she would not get the publishing job for which she had applied, because "poets can't write prose." If prose memoirs by poets such as Mary Karr had not already disproved that canard, All at Once, poet C.K Williams' new book of short prose pieces, surely would.

During the middle decades of Williams' poetic oeuvre he used very long lines, lines so long that perhaps it's not that much of a stretch for him to dispense with line breaks entirely in All at Once and switch to prose (after all, novelistDavid Albahari has shown that paragraph breaks are also dispensable). On the other hand, it might be an interesting creative writing exercise to put line breaks into Williams' prose in All at Once.

There is no consensus on what defines or how to write a prose poem, nor on whether to emphasize the prose or the poetry. In the 19th Century French symbolist poets wrote poetic prose pieces featuring a lyrical voice and poetic imagery. That approach was also favored by the late American writer Carol Novack, the founder of Mad Hatters Review. OTOH, prose poets such as Phyllis Koestenbaummake the prose in her prose poems as prosy as possible. Williams uses both approaches in the varied pieces that comprise All at Once, some of which seem more like essays.

In my New York Journal of Books review of All at Once I write, "It is probably not fair to compare C. K. Williams’ prose inAll at Once with his award winning verse poetry books, but it does offer poetry averse readers an opportunity to engage with a perceptive and empathic wordsmith whose work they otherwise would not encounter." See that review for a fuller discussion of the book.

C.K. Williams

Books: in David Grand's Mount Terminus both protagonist and Los Angeles come of age

 "David Grand’s third novel, Mount Terminus, is written in luscious, erudite prose so dense his readers have no choice but to read it slowly." 

-- from my review of Mount Terminus by David Grand on New York Journal of Books. Additional remarks that appeared in a different and now defunct publication begin with the next paragraph.

Books: in Mount Terminus both protagonist and Los Angeles come of age

From the time this country annexed what was then northern Mexico in 1848 New Yorkers have been moving to California to start their lives anew. In David Grand's third novel Mount Terminus (published last month by New York based publisher Farrar, Straus and Giroux) a father and son move from New York to the outskirts of Los Angeles, and the boy nicknamed "Bloom" and his new home come of age in the movie business in the first decades of the Twentieth Century.

In my New York Journal of Books Review I describe Mr. Grand's novel as "written in luscious, erudite prose so dense his readers have no choice but to read it slowly." I recommend the book but only to sophisticated readers; as I read the novel I kept a Wikipedia app handy to look up cultural references.

I first became aware of Mount Terminus when I read an excerpt in Tablet Magazine. But as the novel progresses there is less and less Jewish content, perhaps accurately reflecting a process of assimilation. For a fuller discussion of the book read my NYJB review.

David Grand