The poetry of C. K. Williams has won an essential place in contemporary American poetry. The long lines that have characterized his style since the mid-seventies have allowed him to make ever more radical forays into what Edward Hirsch, writing in
The New York Times Book Review
, has called "a unique and inclusive poetry of consciousness."
A Dream of Mind
(1992) is dominated by the long title poem, which explores the materials and qualities of our states of consciousness with enormous flexibility and suppleness. Other poems make similar investigations into jealousy, family life, and psychological and intellectual constructs. Passionate, truculent, humorous, and always questioning, Williams's poetry is, in more than one sense, the poetry of contemporary experience. This challenging, exhilarating book marks a new stage in a truly groundbreaking writer's constantly evolving work.