David Earl Williams picks up where Cummings left off and continues on from there, soliloquizing like an enlightened maniac as he goes. He can be absurd and whimsical, serious and surreal, and even somber and reflective in his syntax-twisted musings, a hard skill to master, one which even the method’s pioneers seemed to struggle with. Yet Williams pulls it off with ease. Walking the streets of his contorted fantasies, he wallows in the mud and mire, fornicates with the women, and as Lowell with his callous proclamations at the end of The Dolphin, is aware of and yet unmoved by the blood on his hands. And so Williams joins the ranks of this publication’s favorite contemporary poets, not just with this example of his poetic prowess, but with an overwhelming majority of his work.
FROM THE GREAT AGE OF SEX: EVERYBODY LIVES HERE ONE NIGHT AT A TIME
