Nearly five years ago, I published my poem “Catch” on this blog. In the time since, I’ve written and created many more works of various kinds. This includes a photograph of a found baseball in my {Un}Reverence still life photography collection. Seeing a large, framed print of that photograph on Read more…
The Irish poet David Whyte surely speaks to countless souls with his poem, “What to Remember When Waking.” He posted only a small piece of it on social media yesterday, the first stanza plus the opening line of the second. It drew me in to search for the whole of Read more…
Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote in his poem, “The Voiceless”: Alas for those that never sing, But die with all their music in them. Psychotherapist Barry Michels cited that line of Holmes’ poem in “The Tools,” the book he co-authored with the psychiatrist Phil Stutz. And then Michels wrote: “It is Read more…
As I’ve written before, in “What Sets a Poem in Motion,” poetry often starts flowing in my mind when I’m present and open to it. It doesn’t take much to set it off. On hikes, in the shower, meditating. Anywhere, anytime. As long as I’m not brain-deep into spinning on Read more…
Before the pandemic, I had said on this blog that I was writing a chapbook of poetry from a two-week family trip to Oaxaca, Mexico. We stayed in a small village on the Pacific coast, San Agustinillo. I had written a solid number of related poems between 2018 and 2020, Read more…
Because of my unexpected dive into the poetic ocean of Vuong this morning, which I wrote about separately from what follows here (Read “A Revelation: Ocean Vuong”), my curiosity carried me into the jaws of Google, where rabbit holes tangled and infinite can pull me in like black holes that Read more…
Soon enough, or maybe not soon enough, Ocean Vuong will be centered in the occasional series I keep, “A Poet Was There.” I need time to read more, digest more, breathe. In the past several years, the name Ocean Vuong has seeped into my mind here and there. It was Read more…
Overview: In this short solo episode (ep 140), Adam Williams adds to his occasional series, “A Poet Was There,” and features poet Brian Turner and work from his first collection, “Here, Bullet” (2005). He also reads three of Turner’s poems from that book, including the title poem. (Released on podcast Read more…
Overview: In this short solo episode (ep 132), Adam Williams shares the pure gold of what we’ve been looking for and a way to get there, amid his reflections on Maya Angelou’s line, “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” (Released Read more…
Overview: In this ultra-short solo episode (ep 128), Adam Williams shares “a poem from somewhere, for whomever needs it.” For anyone who knows feelings of loneliness, anxiety and depression, this short poem, “Spark Cloaked But Burning,” is one of compassion and solidarity. (Released on podcast on Jan. 25, 2023) Also Read more…
Overview: In this short solo episode on the Humanitou podcast, Adam Williams shares a couple poetic examples of his awareness practices while on a trail hike. (Released on podcast on Jan. 21, 2023) Also on Apple, Spotify, Pandora, Stitcher, YouTube, Google and other players. EP 125 SHOW NOTES, LINKS & TRANSCRIPT Connect with Adam Williams Humanitou on Read more…
I’ve been aiming for simplicity in creating and all things for so many years. It’s one of those cyclical things that comes back around every so often, probably when my efforts have become overly wrought again, and it reminds me that I haven’t learned the lesson yet. Simplicity, it seems, Read more…
After time away from various creative veins (I’ve written about the hiatus), I have begun to think in lines of poetry again. I wrote a poem in the shower on one recent night, a poem with a particular still life photograph of river rocks stacked in my mind, a poem Read more…
Poetic notings of an afternoon in July 2021 while reading on my front porch in Colorado: A winged yellow insect appears on the page I am reading, walking northward, parallel to the epic’s spine. It pauses in the gap where the sentence soon will end, “Music erupted in the [insert Read more…
Many writers or otherwise creative, artful beings know the story below well, I dare say. Here is an abridged version of “Christmas poem to a man in jail” by Charles Bukowski. hello Bill Abbott: I appreciate your passing around my books in jail there, my poems and stories. if Read more…
Notes from an evening walk with my wife on my birthday’s eve, 2021: Archipelago of clouds infused with hues of lavender and pink, something feeling more refined and elevated than mere references to cotton candy in the evening sky, a chain of islands ephemeral and conjuring the Pacific, serene Read more…
In Mary Oliver’s poem, “The Moth, The Mountains, The Rivers,” she writes: “Who can guess the luna’s sadness who lives so briefly? Who can guess the impatience of stone longing to be ground down, to be part again of something livelier? Who can imagine in what heaviness the rivers remember Read more…
“The Fish,” a poem, comes from my forthcoming chapbook, San Agustinillo. I wrote it in the winter of 2020 before a pandemic sent the world into upheaval and my sons came home from school to stay. I had been working steadily on the chapbook, then set it aside. I’m now Read more…
Overview: In this solo episode, Adam Williams kicks off an occasional series called “A Poet Was There.” Adam reads his poem, “I Want Poets,” which is his kernel of inspiration for the series, praising poets as essential truth tellers, the ones who are most equipped to help us understand the Read more…
Editor’s Note: This profile series called “A Poet Was There” highlights poets from around the world who through their verse convey the kind of intimacy, truth and connection with place and experience that only exists because a poet was there. Read “A Poet Was There: Introducing A New Blog Series” Read more…