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The Ways We Touch: Poems (Illinois Poetry Series)

About Specification

Includes

"Of History and Hope,"

the 1997 Presidential Inaugural Poem

When Miller Williams

read his Inaugural Poem, "Of History and Hope," to a world-wide

audience in January, his proverbial "fifteen minutes of fame"

lasted far less — somewhere between three and four minutes. That was long

enough to make a big impact on many. Said poet Paul Zimmer, one of the

millions in his viewing audience, "I came up out of my Lazy-Boy and

cheered loudly!"

Williams is an

American original whose poems have been praised for both the elegance

of their style and the simplicity of their language, for their wonderful

humor and genuine passion. The works in his newest collection, The

Ways We Touch, may be nostalgic or challenging, humorous or full of

moral fortitude; always Williams speaks with the kind of insight that

rises from wisdom and experience.

Praise for Williams's

earlier work:

"Miller

Williams is one of those writers whose books drag me snorkeling happily

along. Happy as a pig among truffles, I hurry to the next treasure."

— William Stafford

"Most contemporary

poets might well go to him for lessons in the art of speaking plainly

in disciplined lines alive with emotional energy." — X. J. Kennedy

"Better

than almost anything else being published." — Donald Justice