Though schooling and travel took him far away, William Carlos Williams always returned to his hometown of Rutherford, New Jersey, which remained a central presence in his work. Williams was born in 1883 in Rutherford, near the city of Paterson. He attended school in New York, Switzerland and Paris, and received his M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, where he began lifelong friendships with Ezra Pound and H.D. After finishing medical school, he went to Germany to study advanced pediatrics, and then traveled through the Netherlands, France, Spain, and visited Pound in England.

Williams returned home to Rutherford, and set up a private medical practice in 1910, eventually becoming the head pediatrician of Passiac General Hospital in nearby Paterson. At the same time, he began publishing in small magazines, and by 1909 had published his first collection, Poems.

In 1913, a year after marrying his wife, Flossie, Williams bought a home on 9 Ridge Road, where the couple raised their two sons, and lived for the rest of their lives. He maintained a home office for his private practice, and upstairs, in the attic, was his writing studio. Many of Williams's poems contain observations of the town from his attic studio and bits of street conversations he overheard. In his poem, "The Attic Which is Desire," the poet looks out the attic window and sees a neon sign declaring "SODA."

Surrounding the house were flower gardens that Williams passionately tended to in his spare time. Many flowers, whether from his garden or in local fields, appear in his poems, including daisies, primroses, Queen Anne's lace, and tulips.

While many of his contemporaries were enamored with Europe, Williams sought to create a singular American poetry, even maintaining an ambivalence towards the sometime-haughty literary scene in New York City. He was deeply inspired by the working class townspeople, especially the patients he treated everyday.

Throughout Williams's work, one encounters Rutherford--the Passaic River, Erie Railroad Station, Hackensack Meadows, Paterson Falls--especially his epic sequence Paterson, which he labored over for nearly two decades. "You are never far from Rutherford in any of Williams's poems--together they create a composite of the town," explains Herbert Leibowitz, publisher of Parnassus: Poetry in Review, who is currently writing critical biography of Williams.

In 1982, named in his honor, The Williams Center for the Arts was opened in Rutherford, The non-profit multi-cultural performing arts center and cinema was constructed around the 1920s Rivoli Vaudeville theatre, and located just two blocks from Williams's home.

Photo of Williams's grave in Hillside Cemetery courtesy of Cameron Self.