The evening tribute to Tennessee Williams continued with a reading by Charles F. Martin from The Glass Menagerie. Charles F. Martin is the Poet-in-Residence at The Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine. Mr. Martin and a board of electors selected Tennessee Williams to be inducted into the Poets’ Corner this year.
The poet William Jay Smith followed. His presence demonstrated the depth and diversity of the invited guests. William Jay Smith was a college friend of Thomas Lanier Williams. We know this friend as Tennessee Williams, but to William Jay Smith, he was just Tom. Imagine these two men of letters as college friends, armed only with their youthful passion for poetry and drama and not knowing where those passions would lead them.
William Jay Smith wrote the foreword to Tennessee Williams’ Candles to the Sun which New Directions published.
