Our featured poet this issue is Ken Williams of Prince Edward Island, who celebrates his 86th birthday in May.
You are not in the corner to be punished. This is where the beauty is hiding.
Ken Williams, published his first book in 2024 and won the International Impact Award for his children’s book We Were All Together. His motto Helping Children Feel Important will be carried through to the next editions of We Were All Together to be published in 2026. Ken has also written or co-written several plays in which he has directed and acted. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Alberta when he was forty-six. In his early life, (he is now eighty-five) he was a broadcaster. He also taught pubic speaking to Four-H members and prior to that to prisoners in a maximum security penitentiary. Ken believes that all days will not be good. You’ll have setbacks, make mistakes, and feel lost sometimes. Things won’t always fall into place the way you hoped. You just have to keep going.
Source: Gooseys, PEI Writers
Welcome! So good to have you back. Our featured poet this issue is Ken Williams of Prince Edward Island, who celebrates his 86th birthday in May. What better way to honour a celebrated writer than by reflecting on the wisdom in his words.
Ken Williams, who belongs to an intriguing writing group in PEI known as the Goosey’s, is not only a poet but a children’s book author, whose 2024 book We Were All Together won the International Impact Award in the United States (written under the pen name K.T. Williams and available on Amazon). He was inspired to write that book, which focuses on helping children feel important, by his grandchildren, and it was supported by his kindergarten teacher wife, Norma Jean (who also inspired and supported his move from the prairies to PEI many years ago). A former volunteer teacher himself, who helped inmates at the penitentiary in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan in the 1970s, Ken Williams writes from a long list of experiences, and his reflections on aging and faith are honest and universal. Here are two lovely poems by Ken Williams for your reading pleasure:
~Monique Montgomery
I’m the Oldest in Our Writing Group
I’m the oldest in our writing group;
I’m the oldest male at our church.
I’m the oldest male at our aqua-fitness group.
I’m the longest living male in our family.
Is being old an honour, or
a matter of coincidence?
I didn’t start wanting to be
the oldest of anything,
and yet here I am, a man
in a minority, living
amongst several others
my age and loving it.
Ken Williams
Faith Untried is No Faith at All
Faith untried is no faith at all.
Like a potter
whose skilled hands
shape the future,
your faith can do the same.
There have been so many moves,
allowing so many possibilities.
Some have been lucky,
and some have been like the surf of the sea,
driven and tossed by faith.
Ken Williams
