Athol Williams

Athol Williams

Athol Williams (born 20 June 1970) is an award-winning South African poet and social philosopher. From 2009 to 2014, Williams published his poetry under the pseudonym AE Ballakisten.

Life and career

Williams was born in Lansdowne, Cape Town, South Africa. South Africa's complex racial policies under apartheid classified Williams as Coloured given the racial mix of his parents. He grew up in Mitchells Plain, the coloured township established under apartheid. His experience of apartheid features prominently in his poetry.

He earned degrees from the University of the Witwatersrand,^[1] MIT Sloan School of Management, London Business School,^[2] Harvard University and the London School of Economics and Political Science^[3] where he focused on political thought and public policy. It was at the University of the Witwatersrand, in 1991, that he published his first poem, New South Africa in the student publication Wits Student; the poem captured the newfound optimism associated with the release from prison of Nelson Mandela and other anti-apartheid leaders in 1990.^[1]

Williams "deals in money and metaphor" – he has worked in business around the world, experiences which further shaped his writing.^[4] His social activism in South Africa has centred on youth development through education - he is the co-founder of Read to Rise,^[5] an NGO that promotes youth literacy by making appropriate books available to children in poor communities. His volunteering and philanthropy in education earned him a Wits Volunteer Award in 2009 and an Inyathelo Award in 2012. Williams presented the literature radio show, Words Alive on Mix 93.8 fm and has Executive Produced two human rights films, namely, Anna & Modern Day Slavery which features his poem Steel Cage, and A Shot at the Big Time.

Work

Williams tackles the global issues of conflict, fear and war through the art of poetry.^[6] His poetry has strong social and political messages, and is centrally concerned with visions of alternative social and political arrangements. In this way, he rejects Plato's dismissal of poetry as a source of inspiration for political and philosophical thought; he finds poetry to be a rich source because "here we can find uncensored possibility. The possibility of rich human existence is not found in avoiding each other but in finding ways to journey freely together – to co-exist in our differences, not always seek to reconcile them. But to do this we need a sense of who we are, in time and space, and the consciousness, that we are on this journey together."

The philosophies expressed in his poetry echoes the concerns and dreams for human greatness found in the writings of Roberto Mangabeira Unger, H. G. Wells and George Bernard Shaw. His more recent writings paint images of hope, offering poignant insight into the path that humanity can follow to find harmony. "Light on man's condition, man's spirit, the purpose of my writing," he wrote in A Consecration.^[7]

His poems have recently appeared in:

• New Contrast (2012),^[8]
• Being Coloured (2011)^[9]
• Harry Owen, ed. (2013). For Rhino in a Shrinking World. ISBN 978-0-620-55296-7. 
• Clare Market Review (2013)^[10]
• Inky Needles (2014)
• Visual Verse (2014)
• Staunton, Mathew; Masilo, Rethabile, eds. (2014). For the Children of Gaza. Onslaught Press. ISBN 978-0-9927238-4-2. 
• here, without - questions for a foreigner (2015)

His poem Euler's Daughter which is dedicated to mathematics professor Judy Holdener, was selected and read at the Joint Mathematics Meetings of the American Mathematical Society in January 2013. Williams was invited to read his poetry at the Chipping Campden Literature Festival in May 2014 and is a poet for 'here, without' a collaboration between Harvard and Israeli-Palestinian artists. In May 2015 he was invited to read his poems on the theme of 'the threads that bind us' at the SANAA Africa Poetry Festival 2015 in Johannesburg, relaunching his work under his own name. This reading was followed by his appearance at the AfrWEka Poetry Festival at the Wits Theatre, Johannesburg, where he declared ours the era of the Poet King (in reference to Plato's philosopher king.)

Books

• Writing on Flesh (1990) (unpublished)
• Ballakisten, A. E. (2009). Heap of Stones. Theart Press. ISBN 978-0-620-45702-6. 
• Ballakisten, A E (2011). Talking to a Tree: Poems of a Fragile World. Theart Quality Press. ISBN 978-0-620-51066-0. 
• Selected Poems: In Video, Volume 1 (2012) (as AE Ballakisten)
• Our World, Better Together (ed)(2013) (A private collection, Harvard University)
• Williams, Athol; Lock, Taryn (2014). Oaky and the Sun. Theart Press. ISBN 978-0-620-61848-9. 
• Oaky the Happy Tree (2015) (Children's book illustrated by Taryn Lock) THEART Press^[11]
• Bumper Cars (2015) The Onslaught Press ^[12]

Awards

• Sol Plaatje European Union Poetry Award (2015)^[13]

Reviews

• "An energy pervades this book, a raw, shocking energy. In an age when intellectual robots are in danger of taking over the world of poetry, here's something hauntingly different, something savage and visceral and human, a cry we cannot ignore. There's no danger of not knowing what's going on in these poems, poems such as where to start, a straight-talking, hard-hitting, political poem of the first order" - Gabriel Rosenstock

• "Athol Williams’s writing is viscerally engaging. It brings the reader into the sensory configuration of the world he inhabits with his metaphors like living members of an extended family. I was struck by the virtuosic skill inherent in the frontal simplicity with which he expressed the absurdity and hopelessness of the blind man’s guile in The Blind That See – Version 1 - a rare poetic gift for incisive and acerbic observation." - Eugene Skeef FRSA

• “Talking to a Tree brilliantly captures the essence of despair that can force humankind to change. Thought-provoking, devastatingly direct, this anthology is one that will shake the reader out of complacency.” – Fiona Ingram.^[14]

• "[Athol Williams] is one of those rare souls who perceives the world as it is with all its flaws and does whatever is in his power to change it. He uses well-chosen words and a natural gift for storytelling in this collection to create short narratives about issues which are familiar to us all.” – Janet van Eeden^[15]

• " ... it is such a satisfying thing to read the work of someone who is a real poet, able to work an image into a new existence.” – Angela Read Lloyd.^[14]

• “South African poet [Athol Williams]’s latest collection of poems seethes with rage over the violence humanity inflicts upon itself and the natural world. Hope flickers amid the bleakness ... [Williams]’s book serves as a call to action, urging readers to stop condoning violence.” – Camille-Yvette Welsch^[16]

References

External links

• Official website
• Read to Rise
• Athol Williams Youtube Channel