Northeast Ohio Medical University (NEOMED)’s annual poetry competition was named for and envisioned in the spirit of William Carlos Williams. It honors his legacy by celebrating contemporary clinician writers—both medical students and established practitioners—whose work illustrates the art of medicine and the dynamic interplay of health care and the humanities.
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The 11th Annual Biennial Conference
Join the William Carlos Williams Society in Paris, in heart of the Latin Quarter, for the 11th William Carlos Williams Society Biennial Conference. The conference program is available at the conference web site or by scanning the bar code on the conference flyer available in this news item.
Continue readingJulio Marzán, William Carlos Williams, Lin-Manuel Miranda and the enigma of identity
A poet once wrote memorable lines about the difficulty of getting the news. Today we are fortunate to have Spanish language journalism focused on culture, including 80grados prensa sin prisa (“80Degrees+ press without rush”). A column by Julio Marzán, published in July 2021, will be of interest to readers of William Carlos Williams and to the ongoing dialogue about Williams and twenty-first century literature and culture.
Continue readingLeggere Poesia. William Carlos Williams e il modernismo statunitense
Published in Italian by Marietti 1820, Cristina Giorcelli’s new book consists of a 27-page Introduction to Modernism and U.S. Modernism and 10 essays that present close readings of 13 poems (2 of them in their earlier and later version) by William Carlos Williams.
Continue readingWilliam Carlos Williams in Paris
Join the William Carlos Williams Society in Paris, in heart of the Latin Quarter, for the 11th William Carlos Williams Society Biennial Conference. We seek papers on any aspect of William Carlos Williams’s works, but we especially welcome papers relating to Williams and Paris, Williams and French or francophone authors, or on readings of Williams’s work in relation to one or more of the alumni of the École normale supérieure in Paris
Continue readingCFP for MLA 2027 in Los Angeles: Californian Williams
Seeking papers that elaborate Williams’s relationship to California and West Coast culture, broadly defined or focused on various Los Angeles poetry scenes, Williams’s reading tours, engagement with Hollywood, or relations to western modernism.
Continue readingPoem Songs by J.T. Woodhouse & The Leaves of Grass
Modern Poetry, an album of modern and contemporary “poem-songs” by Walt Whitman, William Carlos Williams (“The Red Wheelbarrow”), H.D., E.E. Cummings, T. S. Eliot, Maya Angelou, Richard Hugo, and Antonio Machado, among others.
Continue readingMy Excellency — With Jonathan Cohen & Gy Mirano at the Drama Book Shop, 266 West 39th Street, New York
The Drama Book Shop presents, in association with Jay Michaels Global Communications, My Excellency: William Carlos Williams’s “Lost” Translation of Luis Rechani Agrait’s Masterpiece — With Jonathan Cohen & Gy Mirano — A Talkback, signing and live podcast recording.
Continue readingALA Symposium on American Poetry
The William Carlos Williams Society will be sponsoring a panel at the second conference of the Society for the Study of American Poetry, March 27–28, 2026 in Salem, Massachusetts.
Continue readingSpecial Double Issue of the William Carlos Williams Review: Williams’s Latin American and Caribbean Heritage
The William Carlos Williams Review invites submissions for a special issue dedicated to exploring Williams’s Latin American and Caribbean heritage, emphasizing his engagement with Puerto Rican, Caribbean, Peninsular, and Colonial Spanish literary traditions, alongside broader themes of borders and translation—linguistic, geographic, and cultural—that shape his work.
Continue readingWalter Scott Peterson Prize (Volume 41 2024)
The Society is pleased to announce Richard Ratzan’s essay “Ambiguity in the Short Fiction of William Carlos Williams” as the winner of the 2024 Walter Scott Peterson Prize.
Continue readingFor William Carlos Williams (1883–1963): Martín Espada’s “Insult”
Readers of Williams will appreciate a recent poem by Martín Espada dedicated to William Carlos Williams. A print version of the poem Insult appears in the Michigan Quarterly Review 64.1 (Winter 2025); and a link to the poet reading the poem is available at the MQR Sound podcast.
Continue readingMy Excellency, a play by Luis Rechani Agrait, translated by William Carlos Williams
In November Swan Isle Press will publish Jonathan Cohen’s edition of Williams’s translation of Rechani Agrait’s play, My Excellency. The edition includes an Introduction by Cohen, a Foreword by Julio Marzán, and an Afterword by José Luis Ramos Escobar, theater scholar and playwright and former director of the drama department at the University of Puerto Rico−Rio Piedras.
Continue readingAmerican Poetry, William Carlos Williams, and Documentary Film
The relationship between the poems of William Carlos Williams and Gary Snyder has surfaced on the occasion of Snyder’s ninety-fifth birthday. Colin Still, introducing his documentary “O Mother Gaia: The World of Gary Snyder” on the Library of American web site, writes, “I’m a London-based filmmaker with an interest in American poetry dating back to my school days, when I encountered the poems of William Carlos Williams.”
Continue readingWilliam Carlos Williams and Failure: MLA Toronto 8–12 January 2026
Join us in Toronto for our 2026 MLA session “William Carlos Williams and Failure.” How did William Carlos Williams understand “failure”? Proposals on unfinished works, works Williams understood as failures, the opportunities he saw in failure, or how poets/critics have evaluated his work and his place in literary history.
Continue readingDigital Williams:ALA, Boston, Massachusetts, 21–24 May 2025
Join us in Boston for a panel discussion organized around the presence and circulation of Williams in social media, in digital archives, and across digital platforms. How do digital platforms and tools enable readers to engage with Williams’s poetry and prose or make visible the critical art of reading poems? What new digital platforms (and/or tools) might be useful for readers, students, teachers, and scholars of Williams?
Continue readingCFP for MLA 2026 Toronto: William Carlos Williams and Failure
How did William Carlos Williams understand “failure”? Proposals on unfinished works, works Williams understood as failures, the opportunities he saw in failure, or how poets/critics have evaluated his work and his place in literary history.
Continue readingMLA 2025 (New Orleans): 100 Years of In the American Grain
Join us in New Orleans for our 2025 MLA session “William Carlos Williams and the Question of ‘America’: 100 Years of In the American Grain” featuring presentations by Stephen Hahn, Florian Gargaillo, and Zachary Tavlin.
Continue readingProceedings of the 2024 William Carlos Williams Society Biennial Conference
The Proceedings of the William Carlos Williams Society Biennial Conference is available in the October 1, 2024 edition of Tinta Regada, edited by Professor Jeffrey Herlihy-Mera and his students at the University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez.
Continue readingLatino Poetry: The Library of America Anthology
Latino Poetry: The Library of America Anthology, edited by Rigoberto González, contains two poems by William Carlos Williams: “All the Fancy Things” and “The Poet and his Poems.”
Continue reading1995 Ginsberg Reading at Georgian Court University
Allen Ginsberg visited Georgian Court University in 1995 to talk with students in a British Romantics course led by Dr. Eric Wurmser and Dr. Gail Holian. Ginsberg read and discussed a range of poems, including “Good Night” by William Carlos Williams.
Continue readingMarjorie Perloff (1931–2024) In Memoriam
The Williams Society received the news of Marjorie Perloff’s death at the age of 92, on Sunday March 24, with heavy hearts. While Perloff is more immediately associated with poets like Frank O’Hara, John Cage, John Ashbery or the Language poets, Williams studies has benefited enormously from her pioneering work.
Continue readingThis is Just to Say: Honoring William Carlos Williams
This public event (Sunday, September 22, 2024 at 4 p.m. at the Hoboken Historical Museum) will feature four notable poets celebrating the work and legacy of William Carlos Williams. The event will be hosted by Hoboken Historical Museum’s Poet in Residence Danny Shot, and will feature the New Jersey poets Joel Lewis, Catherine Doty, Frank Rubino, and Claudia Serea.
Continue readingTenth Biennial Conference in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico
Since 2005 the William Carlos Williams Society Biennial Conference has brought together writers, literary and cultural historians, and independent scholars to discuss Williams’s writing and its relationships to modern poetry and other literary forms––in North America and in other areas of the world. The 2024 conference, Crossing Borders / Cruzando Fronteras, convened at the Universidad de Puerto Rico, Mayagüez February 15–17, 2024.
Continue readingWalter Scott Peterson Prize (Volume 39 2022 and Volume 40 2023)
We are pleased to announce the 2022 (volume 39) award for Sam S. Hushagen’s “William Carlos Williams and the Traditions of Georgic,” and the 2023 (volume 40) for Florian Gargaillo’s “Invisible Labor in William Carlos Williams”
Continue readingThe Paterson Project
A Musical and Visual Response to William Carlos Williams’ poem: a composer of modern classical music and a visual artist unite to create the Paterson Project, based on the poetry of William Carlos Williams
Continue readingMLA 2025 (New Orleans): 100 Years of In the American Grain and Williams and Jazz
The William Carlos Williams Society is sponsoring two sessions at the 2025 MLA convention in New Orleans (9–12 January): William Carlos Williams and the Question of ‘America’: 100 Years of In the American Grain” and “William Carlos Williams and Jazz.”
Continue readingALA 2024 (Chicago): Botanical Williams
Williams’s study of and focus on the botanical deeply informed his career in medicine and his literary work; and his poems are rich with imagery of all kinds of plants, especially flowers. We are interested in papers that explore how he used plants of all kinds as inspiration and as a vehicle for his imagination.
Continue readingMSA Brooklyn: “Everything is and is new”: Spring and All at 100
A seminar for participants to consider the many afterlives of Williams’s Spring and All and to engage with both its overt and subtle influences in the work of poets throughout the twentieth century and into the contemporary moment.
Continue readingA Note on the Childhood Home of William Carlos Williams
Recent data collected by Rutherford Borough Historian Rod Leith provides evidence to support Williams’s birthplace as 87 West Passaic Avenue.
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