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Crystal Williams

Crystal Williams is the author of several books of poetry, including Detroit as Barn (Lost Horse, 2014), which was a finalist for the National Poetry Series and the Cleveland State Poetry Prize. Troubled Tongues (Lotus, 2009), winner of the Naomi Long Madgett Poetry Prize, was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award and short-listed for the Idaho Prize for Poetry. She is a professor of English at Bates College, where she is also associate vice president and chief diversity officer.

Author

The Other Side

Spring 2015 | Poetry

Each night at 10 P.M., you snuffle & move bits of bone & debris about, making your bed in the wall beside mine. Sometimes your living is too loud, the bones too big,your agitation too wild. So I yell at you to quiet down. We ha [...]

Near the Source of Love

Spring 2015 | Poetry

after Sharon Olds’s “The Clasp” No one came for the old man across the hall in the intensive care unit. Nothing gathered at his eyes, no small bit of expectation as new bodies rounded the corner.  Sometimes you know w [...]

Elegy

Spring 2015 | Poetry

after Louise Glück I have been in love with my friend for thirty-three years & have just come to understand this truth, although others have long known. Over lunch a girlfriend explains that people mistake him & me for lovers, Be [...]