JL Williams was born in New Jersey and studied at Wellesley College with the poet Frank Bidart. She has performed her poems in America and in the United Kingdom and her poetry has been published internationally in a number of journals including The New Writer, laurahird.com, Aesthetica, The Red Wheelbarrow, Chanticleer, The Wolf, Orbis, Fulcrum and Poetry Salzburg Review (upcoming 2008) and Stand (upcoming 2009).
Since moving to Edinburgh in 2001 she has been active both as a poet and in the performing arts as a director and producer, most recently of the performance art cabaret Neue Liebe. She was awarded a grant from the Scottish Arts Council for a poetry collaboration entitled chiaroscuro pentimenti with composer Martin Parker and artist Anna Chapman.
JL Williams plays experimental
percussion in a band called Laura Lewis and the Tea Dance Orchestra and
is currently studying at the University of Glasgow on the Creative Writing MLitt programme.
Why Silence
Don't ask, it was and
of all you the most and
sunset behind the mountain.
Of all the words what left to describe
another language or painting or sculpture
maybe in death or maybe in dreams
over the River Almond the smell of...
What is it on full moons that butterflies?
In tweed and brogues you the first and
your hand with no gun
strokes what is most definitely
my thigh bruised by butterflies.
How can I tell
out over the ocean
of the hundred leaping fishes?
(c) 2008 JL Williams
The Invisible
we have not known or met ourselves previously
blue fire burns from our mouths the gold father dies
each night is born each morning
we enact love in air we do not copulate the horns
of planes impale us
we wrap ourselves around you feel
the pulse in your thighs
your heartful of tears sloshing
we wait with those of no homes as they die
nakedness does not embarrass us
we do not feed are carried along on the wind
we smell of seedlings and ferns we sound like bells
as children comb their hair we learn to make music
we cannot see ourselves
our tears are what you call rain we lose in mist
(c) 2008 JL Williams
Breath like Loaves of Bread
All people must eat to survive, even Jews.
All must eat – the salty skin between his thighs,
the smoky Gitanes on his tongue.
The listener can taste everything.
He waits as long as he can to hear
them make love one more time before
the bombs fall on their house or
the secret police break through their armour of love.
His arm falls. His replacement appears;
a sack of potatoes – with that much concern
for all these people who love. Like a paralyzed man
he cannot sacrifice the headphones.
He listens to the sound of their lovemaking,
a spy on the victims of love. His body
holds the feeling of love in it
as the soil holds the roots of the most beautiful rose.
(c) 2008 JL Williams
