Bookpleasures.com welcomes as our guest Charles Dowling Williams author of Echo Ridge.


Charles is a Kentucky native, a graduate of The Webb School in Bell Buckle, Tennessee, Duke University, and the University of Kentucky School of Law.

Charles has practiced law in Kentucky since 1979. He has earned numerous accolades and recognition for his work as a tree farmer. Named Kentucky Tree Farmer of the Year, Charles has also been awarded the Aldo Leopold Conservation Award for conservation stewardship, and the Central Region Tree Farmer of the Year, a prestigious honor spanning 13 states.

Norm: Good day Charles and thanks for taking part in our interview.

What do you consider to be your greatest success (or successes) so far in your writing career?

Charles:  My greatest success comes from people who write me to say that my haiku brought them joy or comfort or inspiration.

 Norm: How did you get started in writing haiku? What keeps you going?

Charles: I was in Honolulu and a friend took me to a Japanese Buddhist Mission. I was immediately enraptured. I could hear haiku forming in my mind for several days in Hawaii. That was August, 2006.

What keeps me going? Haiku is a great adventure, a never-ending progression of revelations.

Norm: What is so special about haiku?


Charles: Haiku is tiny—only 17 syllables—but sometimes, it can reach the power and majesty of a great oak tree.

 Norm: What inspires you to write haiku poetry?

 Charles: West Wind Farm inspires me, its trees and forests, its caves, its dogs, deer, donkeys, the rain and the wind, the sandstone, and limestone.

 Norm: Do you have any writing rituals

 Charles: Yes, I have kept a daily journal for 40 years that includes what has happened on the farm that day, as well as the temperature and weather conditions at the hour I begin my entry.

Always important are the births of pups, colts, and calves. I note the first asparagus harvest and when we find our first morel mushrooms in April, and on through the seasons until we are gathering persimmons, fall mushrooms and black walnuts in October. And in winter, finding fallen trees and harvesting firewood or logs.

Those journal entries are the basis of many haiku.

 Norm: What have you learned from writing haiku?

 Charles: I’ve learned to observe the wonders of the natural world widely but to write about them succinctly. As Mark Twain once advised: “Never miss an opportunity to shut up.”

With haiku, that speaks to me, as it means to leave things unsaid or only implied.

Norm: How has your writing of haiku changed over the years?

Charles: I’ve changed the time of day for composing. Years ago, I wrote haiku at the end of a day of office work. Then I came across this sentence in “The Old Farmer’s Almanac”; “The Muses love the morning.” I took it to heart.

Now, I begin composing between 3:00 and 4:00 a.m. The phone never rings then, and even the sheepdogs are not stirring.

Norm: What advice can you give to newbie poets of haiku?

Charles: The same advice that was given to me: Write about what you know, and Revise, Revise, Revise!

Norm: How can teachers foster a love of poetry, rather than a fear of it, in their students?

Charles: I do not know, because I have never been a teacher. In secondary school, college and law school, I studied with a dozen great teachers. They were all kind, patient, and encouraging. That last trait, encouraging, is the touchstone.

Norm: It is sometimes said that people in times of need turn to poetry. Is this true and if so, why?

Charles: I have never heard that, but I believe it. Poetry transports the reader to another place.

Norm: What purpose do you believe Echo Ridge serves and what matters to you about the collection of poems?

Charles: Echo Ridge serves the purpose of capturing moments of wide-ranging observation of the natural world in a specific place over a period of one calendar year, 2020.

It matters to me that the verse be presented in a clean, spare format with plenty of white space and few printed words.

Norm: What would you say is the best reason to recommend someone to read Echo Ridge?

Charles: The best reason to delve into Echo Ridge is to be transported to a forested farm in the hills of Kentucky, and find there a few haiku that resonate with the reader.

Norm: Where can our readers find out more about you and Echo Ridge?

Charles: To find out more about me, one can visit THIS LINK to the Aldo Leopold Awards: West Wind Farm | Sand County Foundation

To find out more about Echo Ridge, or to order a copy, one can go to Amazon.com, send an email to kytreefarm.com, or contact me at West Wind Farm, P.O. Box 157, Munfordville, Kentucky 42765, 270-524-5621.

Norm: What is next for Charles Dowling Williams?

Charles: To take a long walk in the Pine Woods and listen to the wind.

Norm: As this interview comes to an end, if you could invite three poets (dead or alive) to your dinner table, who would they be and why?

Charles: Dinner for four at West Wind Farm! What a delicious prospect.

First would be Masaoka Shiki, the Japanese master born in 1867. He said that he wanted to be remembered as one “who loved poetry and persimmons”. I’m with him on both.

Second would be Thomas Merton, the Trappist monk who lived for 27 years at the Abbey of Gethsemani, which is 27 miles from West Wind Farm. Merton once said that “Nothing has ever been said about God that hasn’t already been better said by the wind in the pine trees.”  I know exactly of what he spoke.

Third would be Wendell Berry, a Kentucky farmer and poet, whose writings have always inspired me. 

I would serve them Kentucky persimmons, Diospyros Virginiana, the sweetest fruit that grows in the woods of West Wind Farm.

 Norm: Thanks once again and good luck with all of your endeavors.

 FOLLOW HERE TO READ NORM'S REVIEW OF ECHO RIDGE