The Book by Miller Williams

"The Book" by Miller Williams is a bit morbid. The poem is about a book that a man found that was blank. The man kept it as a diary and later found out that it was bound in human skin. The man tells this to the speaker in the poem while the speaker holds it. I can't find any experience in Williams' life that would inspire a piece like this. He was born in 1930, so he would have been 15 when WWII started, but I don't think he served any time. He completed his master's in '52, at age 22. By this, I would assume that Williams didn't take any time off from school in order to serve. This poem was published with a collection of others. Several poems had central themes of death and suicide. For some reason, Williams wrote many depressing pieces around this time. The most interesting part of this poem is how the speaker reacts. Initially, the speaker is curious, fascinated with this morbid item. He wonders whose skin and who did it. Slowly, horror grows in the speaker. He is horrified that he once found the book beautiful. The way that Williams writes the reaction helps the reader visualize it: the fifth stanza is about who the skin is from. This leads naturally to the fourth stanza which is about who would do this. Finally, the sixth stanza shows the thoughts as the gravity of the book sinks in. This progression really gets Williams' idea across and is really the whole point of the poem. The lines leading up to these stanzas are all background information.