Errors in the Script: Sewanee Writers Conference Series

by Greg Williamson

Greg Williamson's verbal wizardry is again on display in these funny and darkly serious poems. As Richard Wilbur said of his first collection, The Silent Partner, Williamson "is concerned...with the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1585671177
• ISBN13: 9781585671175
• Release Date: March 2001
• Publisher: Harry N. Abrams
• Length: 160 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.3" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Excellence Exposed

Greg Williamson's book, "Errors in the Script," is evidence that legendary poets can come at all points in history, even now. Williamson's poems are destined to be classics in the years to come. Williason's use of puns is quite extensive. His poems are both humorous and serious and somehow reflect the life of a poet. "Errors in the Script" was highly enjoyable because of it's evasive style. The poetry in all three sections of the book can never be pinned down with one description of it's style. Williamson is, by trade, a true poet. He is a poetry machine capable of producing and reproducing ideas and stories in different fashions. Whether in free verse, riddles, or a strict rhyme scheme, the poetry is exquisite. Sometimes Titles in the book can be misleading, but upon deeper reading one can find serious meaning to all of Williamson's poetry. He is a poetry craftsman,writing in forms that have never been written in before. The Creative style of the book always seem to have multiple meanings and/or answers to all questions raised. In the section of the book titled Double Exposures, the author skillfully writes 26 frames of poetry that can be read in three differnet ways. The playfulness of one of the three ways may turn in to a much more serious expression as in "Billboard with Woman in Mirror." Williamson uses puns like the word fag to describe both a cigarette butt and a drag queen. He gets personal in the end of that poem and tells the reader two lies or two truths or maybe one of each. If you like that sort of mysterious poetry meaning "Errors in the Script" is definitely a must read book. Lastly, these poems are excellent reads because they prompt the reader to think. Williamson not only tells the stories, he asks readers what the stories he writes about mean to them by asking and answering what poetry and life is to him. Genius, pure Genius.

enchanting and thought-provoking

The book is broken up into three sections, the second a section entitled "Double Exposures," a novel form of poetry in which each poem may be read three different ways to get three different meanings. Besides the second section, most of the poems are not intertwined by plot or theme-characters change from poem to poem, however, Greg Williamson seems to be the running thread that connects each poem. In "Origami," he even throws in his name, `"No really, Mr. Greg!"' Others appear to be his opinions and observations on life, for example "Bodies of Water," where he responds to a quote by Seamus Heaney that says, "Glimmerings are what the soul's composed of," with "Yes, but the body is made of water...." "The Dark Days" represents another form of his poems which leans toward reflection, "We should have seen it coming back In June: seeds of unrest..." One of my personal favorites was "Riddles," where Williamson pokes fun at this form of literature, coming up with twelve riddles and twelve sets of five answers that are all probable solutions. But by far the best part of this book was section two, the "Double Exposures." Williamson writes these with such grace and agility-two separate poems that somehow when the lines are alternately linked, fit together and make sense. The endings are especially ingenious-he turns "Swept by the tide, while the sun's filigree Embellishes an opalescent sea." into "...while the sun's filigree Catching the hostess's eye in this tableau Embellishes an opalescent sea Of carefree faces, taken years ago." Reading the second version, one would never assume the "sea" is an actual body of water, yet that is exactly what it is in the first version. It is these ingenious twists Williamson throws at us that makes the middle section of the book so fun to read. However, even if you are not interested in this type of double-poem, the first and last sections provide an ample amount of poems that appear more `normal' in shape and form. Williamson's tone throughout the book varies, but I found myself laughing out loud to many of his poems, for example, "The Life and Times of Wile E. Coyote, Super Genius," alluding to the television cartoon, where he toasts the coyote for his intellect and quirky inventions, and "The Top Priority," where he questions the English language, "If grocery stores supply a pre-sliced roll, And sliced is sliced, pre-sliced is what? Well, whole." I recommend this book to anyone with a sense of humor or as a gift to anyone who would enjoy a fun twist on poetry.

An Amazing Collection

This collection of poems is united under the theme of "Errors" which comes through in very interesting, and often very amusing ways. Williamson says in one of his poems, "They ask what I can make. `I make mistakes.'" Found in the second section of the book, Williamson's "Double Exposures" was fascinating for its completely new dualistic style. I applaud his creativity and skill for the idea of describing a double exposed photograph image through a poem made out of two parts; where each part composes half of a whole poem, or image, and yet where each may stand alone and be read separately without appearing nonsensical. These double exposures fit into the theme of "Errors" in that they were made "accidentally." The poem "Origami" also supports the theme of Errors well; it explores the multiple representations a sheet of paper may take on, from a bed sheet to the mainsail of the Pequod, to a snowball when crumpled at the end of the poem. Williamson continues to play on words and meanings in his poem entitled "Riddles" which consists of twelve three-lined poems which each represent a riddle with multiple answers, all of which are provided on an "Answer sheet." The entire collection possesses this similar playful tone to it, and contains an infectious sense of amazement and excitement in the hidden meanings of the written word. Readers that enjoy riddles and puns will be enthralled with Willamson's manipulation of words throughout his poems. In the other sections of the book, ambiguities in language and meaning are further explored in "Top Priority" and in the more serious, darkly humorous, "The Muse Addresses the Poet (and getteth alle up in hys face)" which explores the troubles encountered in modern day poetry writing. We are even taken into the life of a man with astigmatism, the disease of seeing double, in the poem "Binocular Diplopia." Most of the poems also contain allusions to classic works such as Milton's "Paradise Lost" or Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales." There are multiple implications to Hardy's "Darkling Thrush" in Williamson's "The Mockingbird Is Imitating Life." So, for prolific readers, these allusions make the poetry rich through deeper layers of meaning. However, the reader need not have any knowledge or background in poetry or the classics to enjoy this collection since the style used is one that appeals to the general public with its modern themes and new poetic forms. The humor, wit, and innovative writing techniques found in this book are what make it my favorite collection of contemporary poetry to date.

A Scrivener in the Scriptorium

Williamson may well be the most prodigiously gifted young poet to come along since Wilbur, Hecht and Justice appeared around 1950. All these masters have eloquently praised his work; and if we fifty-somethings haven't said much, maybe we're too flumoxed by how damn good he is. Errors in the Script is a substantially better book than The Silent Partner, which was superb. The first third is comprised of big, solid poems which are advances on his earlier triumphs. My two favorites are Origami and Kites at the Washington Monument. The second third is a tour de force, twenty-six Double Exposures. Each poem is three poems, two in heroic couplets, and the third in quatrains. The left and right-hand poems interleave like fingers in hands folded in prayer to form the third, and the third is far greater than the sum of the parts. The same is true of the entire work, an extended meditation on life, on consciousness and perception. The final section of the book is perhaps a little too hip, too flip, for my codgerly taste, though mall-crawlers half my age may prize it above the rest. Anyone seriously interested in the present and future of poetry owes it to her or himself to acquire this terrific collection.

A Brilliant, Brilliant Book

There may not be much I can say about Greg Williamson's second book that isn't said by the blurbs on the back cover. Williamson is "brilliant, masterful, hilarious"; the book has "ingenuity," and "wit and invention and vigor." All true. Even a glance at the book would tell you that Williamson can handle form as well as any poet practicing in America now: the hallmark of his adroitness is surely the central sequence of "Double Exposures," poems which describe a (notional) roll of double-exposed film, by reading in one column (in couplets) as a description of one image, in the other column (also couplets) as the second image, then -- here's the brilliance -- reading differently as the two columns interleave (as quatrains). It's a form of Williamson's invention, and I imagine Anthony Hecht of James Merrill might kick himself for not coming up with it sooner. The most amazing thing about this sequence, however, is that it succeeds in being more than a stunt: at turns it is insightful and emotionally touching, as when a description of a broken radiator becomes a description of a fighting couple: "The thing was just a radiator, right? / (And we were talking, vowing to try again.) / Which didn't work, especially at night."Indeed, formal proficiency is NOT the only virtue of this book: look closer -- peer through the veneer -- and you'll see that it is deeply and intelligently concerned with all the problems of beautiful surfaces: misprision (as in "Binocular Diplopia"), multivalence (as in his five-answers-per-riddle "Riddles"), and nearly every other problem of interpretation. I suspect some readers may see Williamson's smooth, clever finish and accuse him of vacuity, of being all surface, but that could only come from such a reader's shallow reading. The mockingbird imitating car alarms in one of Williamson's poems is not a joke but a serious commentary on the place of nature in our lives (a development, perhaps, from "Nature Poem," in his earlier _The_Silent_Partner_). Nor are the puns in "The Dark Days" trivial simply because they seem to offer that "momentary stay against confusion" Frost claims all poetry should offer.Can a poet of the twenty-first century offer both polish and depth? Apparently so, apparently so. I couldn't recommend this book more strongly, especially for junior poets practicing and refining their craft.