Paul O. Williams

Paul O. Williams reading from his book of cat haiku, 2006. Photo by J.H. Hymas. Licensed under Creative Commons, courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Paul Osborne Williams (January 17, 1935 - June 2, 2009) was an American poet, science fiction writer, and academic.

Life

Williams was born in Chatham, New Jersey

A haiku poet, Williams was professor emeritus of English at Principia College in Elsah, Illinois.

Williams died in Elsah, Illinois of an aortic dissection on June 2, 2009.

Writing

His most notable science fiction works are a series of novels, the Pelbar Cycle, set in North America about a thousand years after a "time of fire", in which the world was nearly totally depopulated. The novels track a gradual reconnection of the human cultures which developed. Much of the action takes place in the communities of the Pelbar, along the Upper Mississippi River — in the general vicinity of Elsah. Several cultures, including the matriarchal Pelbar, join together in the Heart River Federation. Others, especially the tyrannical Tantal and slave-raiding Tusco, fall apart after suffering defeats. The predominant characters are change agents: Jestak, Stel and his wife Ahroe Westrun. All are Pelbar.

Williams is also known as a writer of haiku, senryū, and tanka, who wrote a number of essays on the haiku form in English. In a 1975 essay, he coined the term "tontoism" to refer to the practice of writing haiku with missing articles ("the", "a", or "an"), which he claimed made the haiku sound like the stunted English of the Indian sidekick, Tonto, in the Lone Ranger radio and television series. Williams was the president of the Haiku Society of America (1999) and vice president of the Tanka Society of America (2000).

Recognition

Williams won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in Science Fiction in 1983.

His 2001 essay collection, The Nick of Time: Essays on Haiku Aesthetics, won the Haiku Society of America's 2003 Merit Award for Best Criticism

Publications

Poetry

• The Edge of the Woods: 55 Haiku. privately printed, 1968.
• Tracks on the River. 1982.
• Growing in the Rain: Fifty-four poems. Smith-Waite Press, 1991.
• Outside Robins Sing: Selected Haiku. Brooks Books, 1999. ISBN 0-913719-98-6

Novels

• The Gifts of the Gorboduc Vandal. New York: Ballantine Books / Del Rey, 1989.
• The Man from Far Cloud. Durango, CO: Terminus Books, 2004.

The Pelbar Cycle

• The Breaking of Northwall. New York: Ballantine Books / Del Rey, 1981.
• The Ends of the Circle. New York: Ballantine Books / Del Rey, 1981.
• The Dome in the Forest. New York: Ballantine Books / Del Rey, 1981.
• The Fall of the Shell. New York: Ballantine Books / Del Rey, 1982.
• An Ambush of Shadows. New York: Ballantine Books / Del Rey, 1983.
• Song of the Axe. New York: Ballantine Books / Del Rey, 1984.
• The Sword of Forbearance. New York: Ballantine Books / Del Rey, 1985.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction.

• The Pelbar Cycle was republished in 2005–2006 by the University of Nebraska Press.

Non-fiction

• The Nick of Time: Essays on Haiku aesthetics, Press Here, 2001. ISBN 1-878798-23-5

Edited

• The Day of Strawberries (companion chapbook to the Haiku Poets of Northern California’s 15th annual Two Autumns poetry reading series). San Francisco: Two Autumns Press, 2004.

See also

• List of U.S. poets

External links

Poems

• Remembering Paul O. Williams at Haikuworld
• Paul O.Williams's Haiku at Terebess Asia Online (TAO)

Books

• Paul O. Williams at Amazon.com
• Paul O. Williams at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database

About

• Williams, Paul O at the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction
• Paul O. Williams, Haiku Foundation weblog.
• Remembering Paul Williams, Haiku Poets of Northern California
• "The Middle Way: Paul O. Williams's Essays on Haiku"