William Carlos Williams (1883-1963): physician-writer and "godfather of avant garde poetry".
William Carlos Williams, Pulitzer Prize-winning physician-writer, was born in Rutherford, New Jersey, where he practiced medicine until he was incapacitated by a stroke at age 68. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Williams trained in New York City and Leipzig, Germany, settling in Rutherford in 1909. Doctor Williams revolutionized American poetry by rejecting traditional conventions of rhyme and meter, and he masterfully used "American" English-brusque, colloquial, and incisive-in his poetry. Williams is recognized as one of the most original poets of the 20th century. His medical life sometimes trivialized, Williams was a serious student of medicine and considered himself "in the front lines, in the trenches." He regarded art and medicine as "two parts of a whole," and the intimate doctor-patient interface proved a powerful inspiration for his writing. Dr Williams was a physician of immense integrity and dedication; he regarded allegiance to humanism as important as excellence in medical science. Prolific in various genre, Dr William Carlos Williams attained belated recognition in spite of astonishing productivity and originality. His stature and influence has steadily increased since his death in 1963, and Dr Williams is now considered "the most important literary doctor since Chekhov."