Paul O. Williams

Former Board Member
(January 17, 1935 – June 2, 2009)

Paul O. Williams was a retired English professor with a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania. He wrote haiku since 1964. In 1999, he served as president of the Haiku Society of America and in 1989 helped found the Haiku Poets of Northern California. He was widely published in haiku magazines and elsewhere. His most recent book of tanka was These Audacious Maples. He also published nine science fiction novels. See <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_O._Williams>.

gone from the woods
the bird I knew
by song alone

            (for Nicholas Virgilio)

                                                                   for a moment
                                                                   the dead apple tree bears—
                                                                   goldfinches

so hard a rain
now even the mountain
flows down the mountain

 

Publications by Paul O. Williams

The Edge of the Woods: 55 Haiku, 1968.

Tracks on the River. Elsah, IL: Coneflower Press, 1982.

Growing in the Rain, 1991.

Outside Robins Sing. Decatur, IL: Brooks Books, 1999.

The Nick of Time: Essays on Haiku Aesthetics. Foster City, CA: Press Here, 2001.

These Audacious Maples, Xlibris, 2007.

Twenty-three Haibun for Christmas 2007. Hayward, CA: Blue Oak Press, 2007.

A Speck of Infinite Light: Haibun at Christmas, 2008. Hayward, CA: Blue Oak Press, 2008.

The Pelbar Cycle (Science Fiction):

The Breaking of Northwall (1981)
The Ends of the Circle (1981)
The Dome in the Forest (1981)
The Fall of the Shell (1982)
An Ambush of Shadows (1983)
Song of the Axe (1984)
The Sword of Forbearance (1985)

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

The Gorboduc Series (Science Fiction):

The Gifts of the Gorboduc Vandal (1989)
The Man from Far Cloud (2004)