[6] Philip Larkin included "The Butcher", a poem from this collection, in his 1973 anthology The Oxford Book of Twentieth Century English Verse.
[7] The poem also attracted the attention of the poet, editor and literary critic Ian Hamilton, who became Williams's mentor and "perfect reader".
In 1971, Williams received a Cholmondeley Award, which is given annually by the Society of Authors to "recognise the achievement and distinction of individual poets" chosen "for their general body of work and contribution to poetry".
[10] Williams's style evolved away from "Review-style lyrical spareness" while his subject matter became more personal and intimate in nature, culminating in his 1985 collection Writing Home, which the poet Mick Imlah called a "classic of creative autobiography".
[11] Williams credits his reading of Robert Lowell's Life Studies with the change, remarking that he was "well into my career before I started writing about mummy and daddy and all that".
[7][12] Williams's 1999 book Billy's Rain won the T. S. Eliot Prize, which "is awarded annually to the best new collection of poetry in English published in the UK or the Republic of Ireland".
[2] The subjects of later books include the death of his younger sister Polly from cancer (I Knew the Bride) and his experiences undergoing dialysis and a kidney transplant (Lines Off).
[7] As a journalist and columnist he has written on theatre for The Sunday Correspondent (1989–1991), film for Harper's & Queen (1993–1998), popular music for Punch, and television for the New Statesman (1983–1988), where he was also poetry editor from 1984 to 1993.