24 July 2008 A RIVER OF WORDS: THE STORY OF WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS by Jen Bryant, illustrated by Melissa Sweet, Eerdmans Books for Young Readers, July 2008, 32p. ISBN: 978-0-8028-5302-8

Dawn

Ecstatic bird songs pound

the hollow vastness of the sky

with metallic clinkings--

beating color up into it

at a far edge,--beating, beating it

with rising, triumphant ardor,--

stirring it into warmth,

quickening in it a spreading change,--

bursting wildly against it as

dividing the horizon, a heavy sun

lifts himself--is lifted--

bit by bit above the edge

of things,--runs free at last

out into the open--lumbering

glorified in full release upward--

songs cease

--a William Carlos Williams poem I found online this morning as the dawn broke

William Carlos Williams is one of those dead American poets about whom I have always had vague-yet-positive sentiments. I believe that some short-time high school girlfriend admired him a lot. I think that I've also seen him listed as an influence on the back of some musician's record sleeve, or perhaps he is mentioned in a young adult novel. And I am confident that I have briefly encountered his work both in a class (undoubtedly, amidst some anthology of poems) and amongst the reading comprehension questions on some long-forgotten standardized test.

And so, as the result of some influence or other stored in the recesses of my brain, I react positively to the name William Carlos Williams and was thus pleased to discover last night that the UPS guy had delivered a copy of A RIVER OF WORDS, a picturebook biography of the poet.

I was even more pleased by the true story I found within the book.

"But when the other boys went inside,

Willie stayed outside..."

William Carlos Williams was not one to text message, play video games, or hang out in the mall. (Not that those diversions existed during his lifetime, but you know what I mean.) Instead, he was one of those kids who wandered in the woods, using his senses to absorb details of the world, and then pouring out his visions into poems.

Of course, writing poetry is oftentimes just slightly more lucrative than is writing Richie's Picks, so Williams's mom persuaded him to become a family doctor. And the wonderful thing is that he became friends with some brilliant and artsy students at the university, which helped him to not lose sight of his first love -- poetry -- when he grew up and subsequently went around doctoring:

"On his prescription pads, he scribbled a few lines

whenever and wherever he could.

In those precious times,

the rhythm of the river he had rested beside

as a child seemed to guide him. Like the water

that sometimes ran slow, smooth, and steady,

and other times came rushing in a hurried flood,

Willie's lines flowed across the page."

I love how the book's illustrations are filled with words, as if Willie could see lines of poetry splashing in the river or scrolling down the side of a patient's house. Written in verse, the text throughout is brief in word count yet full of the essence of the poet's life. A two-page timeline follows the story, while bits and pieces of his poems decorate the endpages

In the same way that I was influenced as a child by THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF THOMAS JEFFERSON -- the book that taught me how one can seem to always be doing ten different things at the same time -- A RIVER OF WORDS will be an empowering revelation to creative young adolescents who are beginning to toy with ideas of what they might do in their lives when they grow up.

Richie Partington, MLIS

Richie's Picks http://richiespicks.com

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