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Oscar Williams
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Oscar Williams was an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 anthologist and poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...

. Oscar Williams was his pen name.

Life

He was born Oscar Kaplan in Letychiv
Letychiv
Letychiv is a town in the eastern part of Khmelnytskyi Oblast of western Ukraine. 51 km from Khmelnytskyi and 33 km from the railway station Derazhnya. Administrative center since Tsarist times, formerly in Podolia Province. Population: 11,081 inhabitants . There are brickworks, dairy,...

, Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...

, son of Jewish parents Mouzya Kaplan and Chana Rapoport. He immigrated to New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

 at the age of 7.

Among his influential anthologies are Master Poems of the English Language, Immortal Poems of the English Language, The Pocket Book of Modern Verse, and the Little Treasury Poetry Series, which were used in college
College
A college is an educational institution or a constituent part of an educational institution. Usage varies in English-speaking nations...

s and high schools around the U.S. in the 1950s and 1960s. During his lifetime, anthologies he edited sold more than two million copies, a nearly unheard amount for books of poetry. Many of his anthologies are still being republished today. Though a friend and promoter of poets like Dylan Thomas
Dylan Thomas
Dylan Marlais Thomas was a Welsh poet and writer, Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 11 January 2008. who wrote exclusively in English. In addition to poetry, he wrote short stories and scripts for film and radio, which he often performed himself...

 and George Barker
George Barker (poet)
George Granville Barker was an English poet and author.-Life and work:Barker was born in Loughton, near Epping Forest in Essex, England, elder brother of Kit Barker [painter] George Barker was raised by his Irish mother and English father in Battersea, London. He was educated at an L.C.C. school...

, Williams' own poetry is not highly regarded by critics, though he published several volumes during his lifetime, and is not nearly as accomplished as the poetry of his wife, the unjustly neglected Gene Derwood
Gene Derwood
Gene Derwood was an American poet, painter and wife of the poet and anthologist Oscar Williams.- Life :The couple lived in a penthouse of an office building on Water Street....

 (1909–1954).

Among Williams' poems are "Revenge," "Poem," "Poet," "The Last Supper" and "I Sing an Old Song," "The City's Face".

Shopping for Meat in Winter is a typical Williams poem, with its urban theme, forced rhyme, and attempts at replicating the neo-Romanticism of the New Apocalypse.
Shopping for Meat in Winter

What lewd, naked and revolting shape is this?
A frozen oxtail in the butcher's shop
Long and lifeless upon the huge block of wood
On which the ogre's axe begins chop chop.


The sun like incense fumes on the smoky glass,
The street frets with people, the winter wind
Throws knives, prices dangle from shoppers' mouths
While the grim vegetables, on parade, bring to mind


The great countryside bathed in golden sleep,
The trees, the bees, the soft peace everywhere--
I think of the cow's tail, how all summer long
It beat the shapes of harps into the air.


Oscar Williams and his poet-artist wife Gene Derwood sponsored an annual $15,000 poetry award which bears their name.
They lived in a penthouse of an office building on Water Street
Water Street
-Canada:*Water Street, Peterborough, Ontario, Canada*Water Street, St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada*Water Street, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada-United States:*Water Street, Boston, Massachusetts*Water Street, Eau Claire, Wisconsin...

.
In his later years, Oscar Williams' home near Wall Street in Manhattan served as a mecca for young poets. Asked how he chose the poems used in his anthologies, he said, "How do you pick one girl to marry? In poetry it's divine polygamy. Generally, when a poem stays with me a long time that poem delivers the goods".

Throughout his life, Oscar Williams eschewed his Jewish background. He was always mysterious about his origins and was buried by an Episcopal Church. He was survived by a son, Strephon Kaplan-Williams, who was raised in boarding schools and hardly ever interacted with his parents. His papers are housed at the Indiana University
Indiana University Bloomington
Indiana University Bloomington is a public research university located in Bloomington, Indiana, in the United States. IU Bloomington is the flagship campus of the Indiana University system. Being the flagship campus, IU Bloomington is often referred to simply as IU or Indiana...

 Lilly Library.

Published works

(reprint Ams Press Inc, ISBN 040453810X) http://www.amazon.com/dp/040453810X/

Biography

  • Chapin, David A. and Weinstock, Ben, The Road from Letichev: The history and culture of a forgotten Jewish community in Eastern Europe, Volume 2. ISBN 0-595-00667-1 iUniverse, Lincoln, NE, 2000, p. 547-549.

External links

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