Miller Williams
(1979-1981)

The best translation is a bridge the original author seems to cross to speak our own language to us. The job of the translator is to build that bridge as well, something that requires as much of the historian in us (even if the work is contemporary), and of the social scientist, and of the psychologist, sometimes of the theologian, and -- yes -- even of the engineer in us, as it does of the wordsmith. The rich complexity makes it a hard bridge to build. And that's the joy of it.

Miller Williams has published twenty-eight books. They are translations from the work of Nicanor Parra and Giuseppe Gioachino Belli, critical works on John Crowe Ransom and John Ciardi. Collections of his own poetry include Living on the Surface: New and Collected Poems, Points of Departure, and The Ways We Touch. His poems are also available on cassette from Spoken Arts under the title Poems of Miller Williams.

Miller Williams is the founding director of The University of Arkansas Press. He is University Professor of English and Foreign Languages at The University of Arkansas in Fayetteville.