William Carlos Williams 
Selected Poems 

With the publication of this book, Charles Tomlinson’s edition of Williams’s Selected Poems, New Directions has introduced a gathering larger and more comprehensive than the original 1963 edition.

Opening with Professor Tomlinson’s superbly clear and helpful introduction this selection reflects the most up-to-date Williams scholarship. In addition to including many more pieces, Tomlinson has organized the whole in chronological order.



‘It isn’t what he [the poet] says that counts as a work of art, ‘ Williams maintained, ‘it’s what he makes, with such intensity of purpose that it lives with an intrinsic movement of its own to verify its authenticity.’

About the author

Charles Tomlinson read English at Queens College, Cambridge, has lived in Northern Italy and London, and has recently retired after thirty-six years of teaching at the University of Bristol. In 1993 he received the Bennett Award for achievement in literature from The Hudson Review of New York, and in 1991 the Premio Europeo di Cittadella. He is the editor of the classic anthology The Oxford Book of Verse in English Translation. He lives in Gloucester, England.