By The Star Staff
The Mayagüez University Campus (RUM by its Spanish acronym) of the University of Puerto Rico is hosting the 10th Biennial Conference of the William Carlos Williams Society from today through Saturday. The conference is dedicated to honoring the memory and the literary work of the American writer and physician, whose mother was born in Mayagüez.
“It is a privilege to hold this conference in Mayagüez, the city where the mother of this illustrious writer was born,” said conference coordinator Linda M. Rodríguez Guglielmoni, a professor in the RUM English Department. “We want to honor Williams’ legacy and the relevance of his work, as well as his Hispanic heritage.”
With the theme “Crossing Borders,” the event will focus on Williams’ Hispanic heritage and includes talks, panel discussions, poetry readings and two keynote lectures by writers Marta Aponte Alcina and Julio Marzán.
Today’s events will open at 10:30 a.m. at the Ramón Figueroa Chapel Amphitheater at RUM with the first keynote lecture by the novelist and literary critic Aponte Alcina, entitled “The Fertile Darkness: Mayagüez, the Mother and the Poet.” Aponte Alcina is the author of the novel “The Happy Death of William Carlos Williams.”
Later today, at 6:30 p.m. at the Set The Bar Restaurant n Mayagüez, the second keynote lecture, entitled “William Carlos Williams in Mayagüez: The Poet and His Work,” will be given by the novelist Marzaìn, author of “The Spanish American Roots of William Carlos Williams.”
On Friday at 6 p.m. at De Raíz Restaurant in Mayagüez, a reading of Williams’ poems will be held.
“The program includes presentations by researchers from the RUM and universities in the United States and England, highlighting the work of the modernist poet, noted in his time for his innovative poetics,” Rodríguez Guglielmoni said. “We thank the William Carlos Williams Society for giving us the honor of hosting this important event.”
“Definitely, in Williams we found a multifaceted figure, doctor and artist, who knew Spanish, English and French very well, a positive example for the young people of Puerto Rico on the island and outside of it and who, with his multilingual and multicultural background, had a permanent effect on the world history of letters,” she added.
This edition of the biennial conference is organized by the departments of English and Humanities at the RUM, with the support of the Mellon Foundation.
The full conference program can be found at: