C. K. Williams (1936–2015), one of the most treasured American poets of the past century, was also one of the most surprising. From poem to poem, his voice would shift in register and style, yet a certain essence would remain: his conviction, his ethic, and his burning gaze. As William Deresiewicz wrote in , “Williams’s scorching honesty has always been his calling card. His poetry proceeds not from a verbal impulse, not from a lyrical impulse, not even from a prophetic or visionary impulse, but from a moral impulse. Everything, in his work, is held up to the most exacting ethical scrutiny, beginning with the poet himself.” is the essential collection of the great poet’s work. Selected by his family and friends and with an introduction by the award-winning poet Alan Shapiro, this book charts Williams’s path from gifted young poet to his status as one of the most consequential poets of his—or any—generation. “If American poetry today is, as I believe it is, more diverse than ever,” Shapiro writes, “more open to any and all forms of life, more vitally engaged with a world external to the self and shared with others, it’s because of what the poems in this volume accomplished.” This collection distills the prolific poet’s body of work into one indispensable volume, through which one can trace the shifts and innovations that Williams’s work bore on American poetry.