SOURCE: A review of New and Selected Poems, in Times Literary Supplement, December 8, 1995, p. 28.

In the following review, Jeffery offers a positive assessment of New and Selected Poems, though he regrets its small selection from Williams's early volumes, which are unavailable in Britain.

C. K. Williams is one of the most important poets currently using and recharging the English language. Hitherto he's been very much a poet's poet, enjoying the lively respect of his peers both in Britain and in his native America; this book should accelerate the dissemination of his work into the literary culture at large.

New and Selected Poems replaces and partly replicates Poems, 1963–1983. Excerpts from his first books, Lies and I Am the Bitter Name, have been heavily curtailed to make way for extensive selections from the most recent, Flesh and Blood and A Dream of Mind. Although this results in a comprehensive compilation...