Author Description

<b><b><i></b><b><i>Alms for Oblivion</i></b><b></i></b></b><b><i> </i></b>collects the best of William Heath's recent poems, ranging from autobiographical reminiscences to social commentary, travels abroad, observations of the natural world, meditations on the art of poetry, and a final section on aging and the fate of our nation. Here's what his fellow poets have said about his previous poetry books: <br><p><br><p><br><b><b><i></b><b><i>The Walking Man</i></b><b></i></b></b><b><i> </i></b>(Icarus Books, 1994)<b><i>: </i></b>William Heath is in my opinion one of the most brilliantly accomplished and gifted young poets to appear in the United States in quite some time. I am especially moved by the delicacy and precision of the language, which indicate a distinguished intelligence, and by the purity and depth of feeling in all of his poems. <br><p><br>-James Wright<br><b><p></b><br><b><p></b><br></i><i>The Walking Man</i></i> is the work of a poet who knows how to tell a story.<br><p><br>-Richard Wilbur<br><p><br><p><br>William Heath is a gifted and mature writer and his work merits a wide public audience. <br><p><br> -Philip Levine<br><p><br><p><br><b><i><b></b><b><i>Night Moves in Ohio</i></b><b></i></b></b><b><i> </i></b>(Finishing Line Press, 2021): These poems are savvy and lively, as exact as a high jumper's focus, quick and accurate as a tennis player's eye, wrist, ankle. <i><i>Night Moves in Ohio</i></i> is Heath's own remembrance of things past-an autobiography in rapt miniature of his unforgotten early life, mercilessly but compassionately lit by the laser-light of memory. <br><p><br>-Eamon Grennan<br><b><p></b><br><b><p></b><br><b><i><b></b><b><i>Steel Valley Elegy</i></b><b></i></b></b><b><i> </i></b>(Kelsay Books, 2022): Heath builds his poems on closely observed details. The movement from one line to the next transforms a set of visual items into a meditation. He conveys the unimaginable horrors of Auschwitz and Hiroshima through small details. Heath emp