Described by Thom Gunn as ‘an ideal edition’, this first volume of William Carlos Williams’ Collected Poems is a vivid account of his formation as a poet, his time in Europe, and his interactions with the major players of Modernism (he never quite appreciated that he was one of them). The poems are printed in the order of original publication, starting with The Tempers (1913) and ending with Poems 1936–1939. Williams remains one of the most popular American poets of all time, Whitman’s heir but with a voice wholly unlike Whitman’s: provincial, particular, never quite settled. His material is the stuff of daily life, though he takes big risks of theme: ‘the urgent insurgent now’ that he lives and celebrates becomes history; it can generate energy even from the past.