Overture to a Dance of Locomotives (Author Biography)

Author Biography

Williams was born on September 17, 1883, in Rutherford, New Jersey, to William George and Raquel Helene Hoheb Williams. From 1897 to 1899, he went to school in Switzerland and Paris but graduated from New York City’s Horace Mann High School in 1902. From 1902 to 1906, he attended the school of dentistry and then the school of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. These proved to be important years for young Williams as he later would enjoy a life-long career as a medical doctor. His time at the university proved fruitful for his other career, that of a poet, as this was where he met fellow American poets Ezra Pound and H. D. (Hilda Doolittle) and fellow Pennsylvania painter Charles Demuth.

In 1909, after interning in New York City, he self-published his first collection of poems, adequately titled Poems. For the next few years, Williams lived overseas but returned to marry Florence Helman on December 12, 1912.

Through the influence of Pound, Williams began to enjoy some moderate success with his poetry. Pound persuaded a British press to publish Williams’ collection of poems The Tempers in 1913, and then in 1914, Pound included Williams’ “Postlude” in his collection of Imagist work. An influential approach to poetry advocated by Pound, Imagist poetry tried to evoke an image or picture using as few words and forms as possible. In 1917, Williams’ first major book, Al Que Quiere!, appeared to critical acclaim. Other collections followed: Kora in Hell and Improvisations in 1920, Sour Grapes in 1921, and perhaps his most famous early book Spring and All in 1923. In 1925, Williams published what remains an American classic, In the American Grain. This book solidified his reputation as a major American literary voice, a reputation galvanized by the 1926 awarding of the Dial Prize for Poetry, Williams’ first major award, but not his last.

Between the publication of Spring and All and In the American Grain, Williams traveled in Europe and met many great literary figures of the twentieth century, including James Joyce, Gertrude Stein, and Ford Maddox Ford. Williams’ allegiances with painters, writers, and intellectuals would serve him well throughout his life. Williams was also a father by now, having two sons. This was a wildly busy time for him becasue he was raising children, maintaining his medical practice, and writing every day.

Even though Williams was quite prolific, he didn’t produce a major literary contribution until 1946 when Paterson, Book 1 appeared. This book, a long poem musing over Paterson, New Jersey, would reinvigorate Williams. He would go on to write five Paterson books in all, and, in so doing, he created one of the greatest long poems in American history. Though he suffered a heart attack in 1948, he recovered. In 1950, his Collected Later Poems appeared, and Paterson, Book 3 won the first National Book Award for Poetry. Williams finally finished the Paterson project in 1958 when book 5 appeared. He died in 1963.