William Carlos Williams is applauded at Home

Williams enters Hall of Fame

(by Daniel O'Keefe - February 11, 2009)(from http://www.southbergenite.com/NC/0/2268.html

Doctor, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and lifelong Rutherford resident William Carlos Williams is one of 13 greats from the Garden State inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame's class of 2008. This year Williams joins fellow literary greats Walt Whitman and F. Scott Fitzgerald as well as popular celebrities Jon Bon Jovi, Shaquille O'Neal and Jerry Lewis.

"It's about time," said Daphne Williams Fox, Williams' granddaughter. "I'm hoping it opens more doors for his work." Though throughout the academy Williams is widely considered one of the most influential American poets of the last century, he isn't nearly as well known to the general public. However, Fox and other Rutherford locals have been working lately to make his name better known in the state.

"I was taken aback by all the people who supported him," said Fox. "For me this was like coming home again." She noted a book by her father about Williams, "Title," as well as a Caldecott Honor-winning children's book "A River of Words," have recently been published.

The Rutherford Public Library has a rotating exhibit of items belonging to Williams, such as his violin, correspondence with his publishers, his straw hats and some of his medical equipment such as a microscope and a blood pressure machine. Williams' dual roles as poet and local doctor are well symbolized by his desk which had a top that could be flipped over with a flat desk on one side for medical work and a typewriter attached to the other side for writing in between appointments. The library's collection is the most extensive of any of its kind, according to library director Jane Fisher.

Della Rowland, founder of the William Carlos Williams Symposium which began in 2005 and celebrated the poet's 125th birthday last year, said the work of people such as Fox, Fisher and borough historian Rod Leith over the past few years has helped focus wider attention on Rutherford and its native poet.

"I'm pleased he's being recognized in his home area for which he drew all his inspiration," she said. "What's happened here in Rutherford in terms of the poetry readings and everything has rippled out to the whole state."