Tar

It's not very often that a film is made on the life of a poet, but here's one: 'Tar', based on poems by C K Williams, opens in the US on Dec 1. The movie is an independent production directed by 12 film students with an impressive lineup of stars: James Franco, Mila Kunis and Jessica Chastain, among them. Williams is considered one of the most distinguished poets of his generation. Born in 1936, he has won a long list of awards and honors, including the Pulitzer, the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award.

'Tar', the poem, gave title to the book published in 1983. These are the first lines:

The first morning of Three Mile Island: those first disquieting, uncertain, mystifying hours.
All morning a crew of workmen have been tearing the old decrepit roof off our building,
and all morning, trying to distract myself, I’ve been wandering out to watch them
as they hack away the leaden layers of asbestos paper and disassemble the disintegrating drains.

Read the whole poem at the Poetry Foundation.

Click here to learn more about C K Williams.

Click here to learn more about the movie in the Los Angeles Times.