William Carlos Williams (1883–1963), author of Paterson and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Pictures from Brueghel, is widely considered one of the greatest poets of the twentieth century. Also a short-story writer, novelist, essayist, and translator, he helped in a big way to establish modernism in America.
C. D. Wright’s most recent poetry collection Rising, Falling, Hovering won the prestigious Griffin Poetry Prize. She is currently the Israel J. Kapstein Professor of English at Brown University.