History

WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS ANNUAL POETRY COMPETITION

History

NEOMED’s William Carlos Williams poetry competition was founded by Drs. Martin Kohn and Delese Wear in 1982, soliciting medical student submissions in the fall of that year and welcoming the first awardees to campus to share their work alongside a guest speaker in the spring of 1983. It is named for the iconic American poet and physician William Carlos Williams, celebrated for his humanistic and patient-centered values as a practitioner and the spare, imagistic style of poems like “The Red Wheelbarrow” and “This is Just to Say.” The late Williams’ son, the physician William Eric Williams, endorsed the naming of NEOMED’s competition for his father in a letter to Dr. Wear, writing:

By all means use my father’s name as a title for your poetry competition.… I’m sure Dad would be happy, not to say proud, to think that there are 224 embryo medices out there sufficiently interested in poetry to submit their work to be judged. I like the tone of the whole thing. Puts me in mind of Robert Coles up in Boston barking up the same tree.

Continued success in your most worthwhile endeavor.

Very truly yours, W.E. Williams M.D.

The competition remains enthusiastically received and nationally renowned.