A continuing selection of my favourite passages from JL Williams' third collection: Dark, this desire for space. The wasteland stained star-white. A lake speared with dead trees whose white trunks stab the sky. The ribs of angels up. from 'Desiderata Nocturne' a raven stands in the jade grass still as a carving in onyx watching the blood drip out of the car soak into the soil dye the frond-like curls of ferns from 'Blood on the Trees' In order to smell the smoke in the dark r

I liked Williams' first collection, Condition of Fire, and published two selections of passages on my old Blogspot blog. Indeed, she launched her first book alongside my second, Divining for Starters, at Swedenborg Hall in London, as we were both bringing out books with Shearsman. I missed her second book (bought but I don't think read--I'll go scouring my shelves shortly) and picked up her third, After Economy, at the splendid Free Verse Poetry Book Fair this past September.