Lisa Williams

Lisa Williams Poems

Lisa Williams Biography

Lisa Williams (born 1966) is an American poet. She is from Nashville, Tennessee. She graduated from Belmont University, from the University of Virginia, with an M.F.A. and from the University of Cincinnati, with an M.A. She is an associate professor of English at Centre College. Her work has appeared in The Southwest Review, Poetry, Raritan, The Cincinnati Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, Poetry Daily, and The Hollins Critic.)

The Best Poem Of Lisa Williams

Brooding Eels

They are circling circling wanting a way to the sea
the urge to spawn comes the urge to spawn goes

there is no way to swim to the sea they are
circling growing bigger growing tremendous

they lift heads now huge out of water to smell
air whether there will be a change

so they can swim to the sea (a rock
slide blocks their way from the lake

to the sea) they are circling for decades
their skin thickens their eyes cloud they are ready

the urge to spawn comes the urge to spawn goes
they will die some day they will never

die there is no way no way
to the sea breeding is necessary brooding

is what happens will there be a chance a storm
or just this ache for distance another century?

Lisa Williams Comments