Poetry. African American Studies. "I began writing HOWELL about fifteen years ago in the wake of the Oklahoma bombing and subsequent trials of Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols (Michael Fortier was given partial immunity in exchange for his testimony against McVeigh). The title refers to some newspaper accounts of the itinerary of McVeigh in Michigan when he visited and stayed at the Nichols brothers' home 'near Howell, Michigan.' The location of the Nichols house, near Troy, Michigan, is actually nowhere 'near' Howell, and this 'error' is the catalyst for the poem, itself a kind of 'writing through' the history of Howell, Michigan (there are, at last count, at least four different histories of Howell online, and these constitute the major divisions of the poem), as well as the birthplaces, towns and regions of Nichols and Fortier."—Tyrone Williams

Author City: CINCINNATI, OH USA

Tyrone Williams teaches literature and theory at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio. He is the author of four books of poetry—C.C. (Krupskaya, 2002), ON SPEC (Omnidawn Publishing, 2008), THE HERO PROJECT OF THE CENTURY (The Backwaters Press, 2009), ADVENTURES OF PI (Dos Madres Press, 2011), and HOWELL (Atelos, 2011) —and several chapbooks, including a prose eulogy, Pink Tie (Hooke Press, 2011). His poems have been published in magazines, including Chicago Review, DENVER QUARTERLY, The Kenyon Review, Caliban, Colorado Review, and XCP. And his poems have been anthologized in anthologies, including RAINBOW DARKNESS: AN ANTHOLOGY OF AFRICAN AMERICAN POETRY (Miami University Press, 2005) and Great American Prose Poems: From Poe to the Present (Scribner, 2003). Williams received his doctorate of English from Wayne State University. He was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan.

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interview by Joshua Marie Wilkinson @ The Volta