Besides being a practicing physician, William Carlos Williams (1883–1963) was a poet, short-story writer, novelist, translator, playwright, and essayist whose contribution to the development of modern American poetry grew out of his commitment to recording the "local" experience of Rutherford, New Jersey, and its environs. Jonathan Cohen is the editor and compiler of William Carlos Williams’ By Word of Mouth: Poems from the Spanish,1916–1959 and editor and translator of Ernesto Cardenal’s Pluriverse: New and Selected Poems, both published recently by New Directions.

"Jonathan Cohen shows us why translation is crucial to understanding Williams, who approached it as an essential act of poetry. The poet emerges as the first among our modernist writers to see the literary value of translating classical and contemporary verse from both Spain and Latin America. By Word of Mouth makes that clear."

Besides being a practicing physician, William Carlos Williams (1883–1963) was a poet, short-story writer, novelist, translator, playwright, and essayist whose contribution to the development of modern American poetry grew out of his commitment to recording the "local" experience of Rutherford, New Jersey, and its environs. Jonathan Cohen is the editor and compiler of William Carlos Williams’ By Word of Mouth: Poems from the Spanish,1916–1959 and editor and translator of Ernesto Cardenal’s Pluriverse: New and Selected Poems, both published recently by New Directions.

"Jonathan Cohen shows us why translation is crucial to understanding Williams, who approached it as an essential act of poetry. The poet emerges as the first among our modernist writers to see the literary value of translating classical and contemporary verse from both Spain and Latin America. By Word of Mouth makes that clear."