Hesitant to Start: And Other Poems

Hesitant to Start picks up where Robert Williams' previous collection Backroads and Other Poems (2019) left off. Both collections succeed in showing the power of ordinary language and a talent for communicating heart-felt observations. Backroads began out doors and concluded indoors viewing the world of experience from the kitchen window, in memory, in self-awareness. Hesitant to Start and Other Poems begins with an awareness of the poet's self-doubt. Will this poem: "pull at your heart stings? Make you feel sad, thoughtful, angry or indifferent? Will you hear the child's laughter, see the light dance between two lovers' eyes?" Such is the ambition of Robert Williams, making him aware of his own vulnerability, "And even when I finish there is always doubt." In this collection he again shares insights from habitual venues: backyard arbor, kitchen or office window, while driving country roads, and from the barstool. He comfortably shifts his focus from self-awareness to the consciousness of others around him, strangers and loved ones; moving to mortality and the meaning of life. He comments on the drift of our culture in a plague year, laments the lack of inner peace, societal disharmony, and the disdain for wisdom characterizing the present age. He tempers the somberness with poems celebrating family, friends and nature. Robert Williams' poetry often bring to mind Billy Collins or Stanley Kunitz. He's a damn fine writer. Woody Gimbel