May 17, 2026

Adele Elise Williams

Adele Elise Williams

Adele Elise Williams is the author of WAGER, selected by Patricia Smith for the Miller Williams Poetry Series, and Sacrosanct, forthcoming from the Wisconsin Poetry Series. She is a Professor of English and Creative Writing at UNC-Chapel Hill as well as an Assistant Editor at Conjunctions and Texas Review Press.

Rain’s been so heavy, the herons
fall from Live Oak limbs
like pennies down a thin well. A girl
was strangled and thrown into
the bayou, again and again. I saw
a man so hungry, he ate his own
beard for breakfast. The heat
here makes everyone crazy, boils
our hearts into hate.

POEMS 

Clifton was born with twelve fingers; mark of a beast! Sexton believed herself to be her own naughty God. It’s just me and the Bus Stop Madonna in this poem; my stupidity is performed, her Jesus is figurative. What are we really ashamed of here, anyway? The thing or the performance of the thing?

INTERVIEW 

Our Inaugural Poet

Jonathan Chan

Poet in Transit

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