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Selected Poems
Opening with Professor Tomlinson's superbly clear and helpful introduction this selection reflects the most up-to-date Williams scholarship. In addition to including many more pieces, Tomlinson has organized the whole in chronological order.
It isn't what he [the poet] says that counts as a work of art," Williams maintained, "it's what he makes, with such intensity of purpose that it lives with an intrinsic movement of its own to verify its authenticity.
It isn't what he [the poet] says that counts as a work of art," Williams maintained, "it's what he makes, with such intensity of purpose that it lives with an intrinsic movement of its own to verify its authenticity.
302 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1963
About the author
William Carlos Williams
343 books767 followersWilliam Carlos Williams was an American poet closely associated with modernism and Imagism. He was also a pediatrician and general practitioner of medicine. Williams "worked harder at being a writer than he did at being a physician," wrote biographer Linda Wagner-Martin. During his long lifetime, Williams excelled both as a poet and a physician.
Although his primary occupation was as a doctor, Williams had a full literary career. His work consists of short stories, poems, plays, novels, critical essays, an autobiography, translations, and correspondence. He wrote at night and spent weekends in New York City with friends—writers and artists like the avant-garde painters Marcel Duchamp and Francis Picabia and the poets Wallace Stevens and Marianne Moore. He became involved in the Imagist movement but soon he began to develop opinions that differed from those of his poetic peers, Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot. Later in his life, Williams toured the United States giving poetry readings and lectures.
In May 1963, he was posthumously awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Pictures from Brueghel and Other Poems (1962) and the Gold Medal for Poetry of the National Institute of Arts and Letters. The Poetry Society of America continues to honor William Carlos Williams by presenting an annual award in his name for the best book of poetry published by a small, non-profit or university press.
Williams' house in Rutherford is now on the National Register of Historic Places. He was inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame in 2009.
Although his primary occupation was as a doctor, Williams had a full literary career. His work consists of short stories, poems, plays, novels, critical essays, an autobiography, translations, and correspondence. He wrote at night and spent weekends in New York City with friends—writers and artists like the avant-garde painters Marcel Duchamp and Francis Picabia and the poets Wallace Stevens and Marianne Moore. He became involved in the Imagist movement but soon he began to develop opinions that differed from those of his poetic peers, Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot. Later in his life, Williams toured the United States giving poetry readings and lectures.
In May 1963, he was posthumously awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Pictures from Brueghel and Other Poems (1962) and the Gold Medal for Poetry of the National Institute of Arts and Letters. The Poetry Society of America continues to honor William Carlos Williams by presenting an annual award in his name for the best book of poetry published by a small, non-profit or university press.
Williams' house in Rutherford is now on the National Register of Historic Places. He was inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame in 2009.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 296 reviews
March 31, 2024
What can I say? An absolutely stunning collection - a GREAT poet tells it like it is!
William Carlos Williams never pulled any punches - and had the temerity to play the neighbourhood sawbones, unscathed by the undoubtedly countless murderous thoughts of his patients toward their tell-all writer/doctor, in the same old town all his life - not-unhappily ever after!
How on earth did he DO it?
He had a will of iron, the hide of an old gator, and the poetic voice of the Angel Gabriel!
His poetry is sharp, crystal clear and filled with deeply telling images from his own life and the lives of those around him.
And no poem is more telling than the double-edged American Epic he wrote about his lifelong public abode - Paterson, New Jersey.
I DARE you to read that in a single marathon sitting, without frequent excursions from the room to fetch your own personal brand of anodyne for Prolonged, Unmitigated Stress. The stress of seeing RIGHT through everyone’s motives.
Including our own...
And this great, cutting writer might have been crystal-balling our own ‘public’ though highly personal incursions into the common Agora of the Internet...
And our fate - in so doing - in opening ourselves to the ironic scrutiny of the Hoi Poloi...
When in 1955 he wrote:
THE PINK LOCUST
A modest flower,
resembling a pink
sweet-pea,
you cannot help
but admire it
until its habits
become known.
Are we not most of us
like that? It would be
too much
if the public
pried among the
minutiae
of our private affairs.
Not
that we have anything
to hide
but could THEY
stand it? Of course
the world would be
gratified
to find out
what fools we have
made of ourselves....
I couldn’t help it!
Five HUGE, HONEST stars, fearlessly (like the fool who rushed in), honestly and beautifully come by!
Though this review could be taken just be as a reflection on my own ill-advisedly ingenuous outspokenness...
Small wonder I LIONIZE this poet!
William Carlos Williams never pulled any punches - and had the temerity to play the neighbourhood sawbones, unscathed by the undoubtedly countless murderous thoughts of his patients toward their tell-all writer/doctor, in the same old town all his life - not-unhappily ever after!
How on earth did he DO it?
He had a will of iron, the hide of an old gator, and the poetic voice of the Angel Gabriel!
His poetry is sharp, crystal clear and filled with deeply telling images from his own life and the lives of those around him.
And no poem is more telling than the double-edged American Epic he wrote about his lifelong public abode - Paterson, New Jersey.
I DARE you to read that in a single marathon sitting, without frequent excursions from the room to fetch your own personal brand of anodyne for Prolonged, Unmitigated Stress. The stress of seeing RIGHT through everyone’s motives.
Including our own...
And this great, cutting writer might have been crystal-balling our own ‘public’ though highly personal incursions into the common Agora of the Internet...
And our fate - in so doing - in opening ourselves to the ironic scrutiny of the Hoi Poloi...
When in 1955 he wrote:
THE PINK LOCUST
A modest flower,
resembling a pink
sweet-pea,
you cannot help
but admire it
until its habits
become known.
Are we not most of us
like that? It would be
too much
if the public
pried among the
minutiae
of our private affairs.
Not
that we have anything
to hide
but could THEY
stand it? Of course
the world would be
gratified
to find out
what fools we have
made of ourselves....
I couldn’t help it!
Five HUGE, HONEST stars, fearlessly (like the fool who rushed in), honestly and beautifully come by!
Though this review could be taken just be as a reflection on my own ill-advisedly ingenuous outspokenness...
Small wonder I LIONIZE this poet!
December 11, 2010
This Is Just to Say
I have finished
the book
by William
Carlos Williams
and which
was edited by
a Robert
Pinsky
I am sorry
for it was lovely
and now
it's done
I have finished
the book
by William
Carlos Williams
and which
was edited by
a Robert
Pinsky
I am sorry
for it was lovely
and now
it's done
July 24, 2023
A good collection of poems - with a perfect blend of ordinary and extraordinary themes.
William Carlos William's poems do have a power to bring out the extraordinary beauty in the mundane. His keen observation of life's simple moments reflects a rare artistic sensibility. In "This Is Just to Say," he captures the essence of apology and human connection:
"I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold"
Some literary scholars and critics have interpreted it as having biblical undertones or allusions.
For example, the above verses in this poem has been compared to the act of confessing one's sins, which is a significant theme in religious texts, including the Bible.
Additionally, the theme of temptation and succumbing to it, as portrayed in the poem, can be seen as reminiscent of the biblical story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.
What I felt was that it's worth noting that these interpretations are subjective and open to different readings. While some readers might find biblical undertones in the poem, others might interpret it purely as a simple, personal confession about the allure of life's little pleasures. Poetry often allows for multiple layers of meaning, and the beauty of William Carlos Williams's work lies in its ability to resonate with readers on various levels.
William Carlos William's poems do have a power to bring out the extraordinary beauty in the mundane. His keen observation of life's simple moments reflects a rare artistic sensibility. In "This Is Just to Say," he captures the essence of apology and human connection:
"I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold"
Some literary scholars and critics have interpreted it as having biblical undertones or allusions.
For example, the above verses in this poem has been compared to the act of confessing one's sins, which is a significant theme in religious texts, including the Bible.
Additionally, the theme of temptation and succumbing to it, as portrayed in the poem, can be seen as reminiscent of the biblical story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.
What I felt was that it's worth noting that these interpretations are subjective and open to different readings. While some readers might find biblical undertones in the poem, others might interpret it purely as a simple, personal confession about the allure of life's little pleasures. Poetry often allows for multiple layers of meaning, and the beauty of William Carlos Williams's work lies in its ability to resonate with readers on various levels.
April 28, 2010
William Carlos Williams frustrates me. I just don't get him, and that makes me mad.
He writes stuff like this:
"so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens"
and I don't know what the hell he's talking about. In my poetry class we spent at least 45 minutes discussing those four stanzas and we still have no idea what the damn poem is even trying to be about.
*shakes fist at sky* WILLIAMS!
Read for: Modern Poetry
He writes stuff like this:
"so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens"
and I don't know what the hell he's talking about. In my poetry class we spent at least 45 minutes discussing those four stanzas and we still have no idea what the damn poem is even trying to be about.
*shakes fist at sky* WILLIAMS!
Read for: Modern Poetry
March 21, 2013
LOVE WCW.
Analysis of "Young Woman at a window"
As it happened with Ezra Pound's poem "In a Station of the Metro", which was at first a thirty lines poem reduced finally to two verses, we are confronted by two versions of the same poem by Williams. In both cases, the second versions were reduced and condensed into something clear and straightforward as an image. And that is exactly what defines the Imagism Movement, to use language employing the exact, not nearly-exact, but THE EXACT word, without flourishing or decorative ornamental writing.
In the second version of Williams' "Young Woman at a Window" we can easily identify some propositions in the imagist manifesto:
- In contrast to lyrical poetry, we find a clear, honest and precise description of an image, it can almost be seen as a photograph. An instant captured by Williams and depicted in this free verse without conventional formal constraints. Actually, this could be an exact representation of what a Metapoem could be, its form, five stanzas of two lines, reminds me of another poem by Williams, "Between Walls", which can be read as a single line, but the conscious act of separating it into five different stanzas emphasises every word, making something new out of a domestic and common image.
- The repetition of some words, even of a whole line such as "her cheek", "her cheek on" gives a new cadence to the poem, and the use of the same structure - "her cheek", "her hand"- as if enumerating a list takes out all the possible lyricism of the picture.
- Another imagist trait is the lack of superfluous words, there are no linkers, only the necessary prepositions and almost no verbs which conveys a non-existent action; what we see is a static image with no movement, everything is still, like a snapshot. We could even frame it, or make a sculpture.
- Analysing the content of the poem:
This is a precise and concentrated description of a woman sitting to next to a window, because there is mention of glass and because the title of the poem says so, who is holding a child (her son?) in her lap. The child, though, is unaware of this woman’s disposition because he is concentrated on what’s going on outside this window, so he doesn’t realise that the woman is crying. And that is that, no indefinite ideas, no vague generalities or cliched symbols or grand subjects; only an intimate moment of domesticity portrayed in these few lines.
If we compare this second version of the poem to the first one, which could still be considered as imagist, we can find some "violations" to the propositions exposed in the manifesto.
- There are prepositions which locate the action. Words such as "while" or "there" imply a sense of time and of movement when the poem is supposed to present a static image.
- Presence of some superfluous words such as "with" or "who" not necessary to transmit what is being said here.
- There are some lines which give a kind of value to the text, "knows nothing of his theft", "who robs her", there is more possible interpretation in this poem than in the second version of it. Because whereas I know the woman is crying in the second poem (but I don't know why and maybe I don't care, I just want to describe the hard, clear and static image I'm seeing); I have a clue of what it might be about in the first version. It's the child's fault, he seems to have robbed her of something. Happiness? Youth? Freedom? So, the poem becomes more open and rich in feelings, which is opposed to what an imagist poem should do to the reader.
But then, let me finish by questioning whether it is possible to eliminate all value from this image, because even in the second reduced version, there is a sort of evocative description, almost nostalgic. A sad narrative. There are tears on cheeks, a child with his nose pressed to a glass, unaware of this woman's misery, looking out.
Only a captured, robbed instant? Only that?
How can one not be affected by this poem? How can one not wonder the reason of the tears? How can one not try to interpret its meaning? Only this questioning makes the imagist movement fail in its attempt to be only a transparent use of the language to describe a moment in time. At least for me.
Dolors Casas
October, 4th 2012
Analysis of "Young Woman at a window"
As it happened with Ezra Pound's poem "In a Station of the Metro", which was at first a thirty lines poem reduced finally to two verses, we are confronted by two versions of the same poem by Williams. In both cases, the second versions were reduced and condensed into something clear and straightforward as an image. And that is exactly what defines the Imagism Movement, to use language employing the exact, not nearly-exact, but THE EXACT word, without flourishing or decorative ornamental writing.
In the second version of Williams' "Young Woman at a Window" we can easily identify some propositions in the imagist manifesto:
- In contrast to lyrical poetry, we find a clear, honest and precise description of an image, it can almost be seen as a photograph. An instant captured by Williams and depicted in this free verse without conventional formal constraints. Actually, this could be an exact representation of what a Metapoem could be, its form, five stanzas of two lines, reminds me of another poem by Williams, "Between Walls", which can be read as a single line, but the conscious act of separating it into five different stanzas emphasises every word, making something new out of a domestic and common image.
- The repetition of some words, even of a whole line such as "her cheek", "her cheek on" gives a new cadence to the poem, and the use of the same structure - "her cheek", "her hand"- as if enumerating a list takes out all the possible lyricism of the picture.
- Another imagist trait is the lack of superfluous words, there are no linkers, only the necessary prepositions and almost no verbs which conveys a non-existent action; what we see is a static image with no movement, everything is still, like a snapshot. We could even frame it, or make a sculpture.
- Analysing the content of the poem:
This is a precise and concentrated description of a woman sitting to next to a window, because there is mention of glass and because the title of the poem says so, who is holding a child (her son?) in her lap. The child, though, is unaware of this woman’s disposition because he is concentrated on what’s going on outside this window, so he doesn’t realise that the woman is crying. And that is that, no indefinite ideas, no vague generalities or cliched symbols or grand subjects; only an intimate moment of domesticity portrayed in these few lines.
If we compare this second version of the poem to the first one, which could still be considered as imagist, we can find some "violations" to the propositions exposed in the manifesto.
- There are prepositions which locate the action. Words such as "while" or "there" imply a sense of time and of movement when the poem is supposed to present a static image.
- Presence of some superfluous words such as "with" or "who" not necessary to transmit what is being said here.
- There are some lines which give a kind of value to the text, "knows nothing of his theft", "who robs her", there is more possible interpretation in this poem than in the second version of it. Because whereas I know the woman is crying in the second poem (but I don't know why and maybe I don't care, I just want to describe the hard, clear and static image I'm seeing); I have a clue of what it might be about in the first version. It's the child's fault, he seems to have robbed her of something. Happiness? Youth? Freedom? So, the poem becomes more open and rich in feelings, which is opposed to what an imagist poem should do to the reader.
But then, let me finish by questioning whether it is possible to eliminate all value from this image, because even in the second reduced version, there is a sort of evocative description, almost nostalgic. A sad narrative. There are tears on cheeks, a child with his nose pressed to a glass, unaware of this woman's misery, looking out.
Only a captured, robbed instant? Only that?
How can one not be affected by this poem? How can one not wonder the reason of the tears? How can one not try to interpret its meaning? Only this questioning makes the imagist movement fail in its attempt to be only a transparent use of the language to describe a moment in time. At least for me.
Dolors Casas
October, 4th 2012
February 6, 2017
the faces are raised
as toward the light
there is no detail extraneous
You know, I credit Mike Puma with this turn, oh and Robert Zimmerman and maybe Ezra Pound. All these loose associations led a curious thrust into verse these last days of 2015. It might prove habit forming. There is something remarkable to wake from a deep slumber and find traction into verse. My initial encounters were ill defined. Form was found as I progressed.
Without other cost than breath
and the poor soul,
carried in the cage of the ribs,
chirping shrilly
The world of Williams appear to exist as a collection of things. There's stuff and some of it is alive. We are enriched by this awareness, if not the distinction. There doesn't appear to be any greater point. There is a melody then of thing-ness. I am quite tempted to now approach his long-form verse.
as toward the light
there is no detail extraneous
You know, I credit Mike Puma with this turn, oh and Robert Zimmerman and maybe Ezra Pound. All these loose associations led a curious thrust into verse these last days of 2015. It might prove habit forming. There is something remarkable to wake from a deep slumber and find traction into verse. My initial encounters were ill defined. Form was found as I progressed.
Without other cost than breath
and the poor soul,
carried in the cage of the ribs,
chirping shrilly
The world of Williams appear to exist as a collection of things. There's stuff and some of it is alive. We are enriched by this awareness, if not the distinction. There doesn't appear to be any greater point. There is a melody then of thing-ness. I am quite tempted to now approach his long-form verse.
August 19, 2021
Terse verse: sublime snapshots, capturing the distilled essence and inherent alchemy of objects and artefacts that are incidentally combined in a poise of the moment; of architecture and nature, the brutal, the benign; an overhead electrical cable the swift trajectory of a bird; speed of thought, slow descent of the sun. The world of things and their relationships with each other, captured with such direct immediacy yet more enigmatic and poignant for it. Ace.
March 17, 2015
Poetry stripped of its wreaths and laurels, made sharp, laconic, and painful. At one point, Williams notes how the remains of a shattered cathedral window strewn out on the ground is of greater value than its original form. He is perpetually angry at a static world, complacent in its old age. So he goes out, writes, and smashes everything he sees. My kind of man.
June 18, 2023
A collection of Wordsworth's poetry has been sitting on my shelves for over a decade. Finally, I picked it up. I enjoyed it more than I expected - really nice, and I might get another collection of his.
July 17, 2019
I read William Carlos Williams in the early 70's and didn't like his poetry much. I had to go back to an Original Poet---Walt Whitman, whom I hadn't thought I'd like but was mesmerized by "Leaves of Grass". I think William Carlos Williams and his ilk tried to do that also but rarely reached the level of Whitman.
One summer I locked myself in a dark storage room, with a single light bulb in back of the house of relatives in a Greek mountain village. It was cool, quiet and out of the way. There I wrote the first poems that would be published and made myself read writers like Whitman whom I had neglected to appreciate during college.
I read a collection of Freud’s writings, a few Shakespeare plays, “The Divine Comedy”, a selection of Yeats and so on. I tried WC Williams as well. I learned from reading him what I was expected to like as an American, but instead of embracing what the faculty at famous colleges were espousing, I turned away and said to myself, “It’s okay not to like Carlos’ poetry. Just go your own way without embracing a style you instinctively dislike and without reacting to it. Just read whatever you like and say what you have to say the best way you can in the only language you can.”
I’ve rarely looked at Carlos’ poetry again. But maybe I should. (I would love to go back to that little room in that house in Greece and extend my stay there for a couple of years--maybe for life. Unwrap time and place altogether.)
One summer I locked myself in a dark storage room, with a single light bulb in back of the house of relatives in a Greek mountain village. It was cool, quiet and out of the way. There I wrote the first poems that would be published and made myself read writers like Whitman whom I had neglected to appreciate during college.
I read a collection of Freud’s writings, a few Shakespeare plays, “The Divine Comedy”, a selection of Yeats and so on. I tried WC Williams as well. I learned from reading him what I was expected to like as an American, but instead of embracing what the faculty at famous colleges were espousing, I turned away and said to myself, “It’s okay not to like Carlos’ poetry. Just go your own way without embracing a style you instinctively dislike and without reacting to it. Just read whatever you like and say what you have to say the best way you can in the only language you can.”
I’ve rarely looked at Carlos’ poetry again. But maybe I should. (I would love to go back to that little room in that house in Greece and extend my stay there for a couple of years--maybe for life. Unwrap time and place altogether.)
February 6, 2015
i dont think ill ever be a
big
fan of william carlos williams what kind of
dude does the
red wheelbarrow
the kind with a lastname first name the
same as his last
name anyway
he didnt only write in
imagist
adverbscostextra but also
jagged modern or
neoclassic paint
excised of canvas in his
way
a real formalist
____________
Keepers:
"Queen Anne's Lace"
"Smell!"
"The Sparrow"
big
fan of william carlos williams what kind of
dude does the
red wheelbarrow
the kind with a lastname first name the
same as his last
name anyway
he didnt only write in
imagist
adverbscostextra but also
jagged modern or
neoclassic paint
excised of canvas in his
way
a real formalist
____________
Keepers:
"Queen Anne's Lace"
"Smell!"
"The Sparrow"
Read
April 11, 2009From the Introduction by Randall Jarrell:
"When you have read Paterson you know for the rest of your life what it is like to be a waterfall; and what other poet has turned so many of his readers into trees?"
I like "Dedication for a Plot of Ground," a tribute to Emily Dickinson, which ends with "If you can bring nothing to this place / but your carcass, keep out."
And of course this from the beginning of "Love Song":
"I lie here thinking of you:-- / the stain of love / is upon the world!"
Not just any poet can use an exclamation point.
More to come. . .
"When you have read Paterson you know for the rest of your life what it is like to be a waterfall; and what other poet has turned so many of his readers into trees?"
I like "Dedication for a Plot of Ground," a tribute to Emily Dickinson, which ends with "If you can bring nothing to this place / but your carcass, keep out."
And of course this from the beginning of "Love Song":
"I lie here thinking of you:-- / the stain of love / is upon the world!"
Not just any poet can use an exclamation point.
More to come. . .
October 1, 2019
"Hei-de lembrar-me destas mesmas plumas,
Das ervas e das heras nas paredes
Por mudas gotas de água orvalhadas,
Que um dia no meu peito infundiram
Imagens de remanso e plenitude,
Tão calmas, tão serenas, e tão belas,
Por entre os pensamentos mais inquietos,
De modo que o pesar e o desespero
Que advêm da mudança e da ruína,
São formas transitórias da existência
Que passam como um sonho indolente
Deixando em seu lugar meditação.
Assim me fiz à estrada e fui feliz."
Das ervas e das heras nas paredes
Por mudas gotas de água orvalhadas,
Que um dia no meu peito infundiram
Imagens de remanso e plenitude,
Tão calmas, tão serenas, e tão belas,
Por entre os pensamentos mais inquietos,
De modo que o pesar e o desespero
Que advêm da mudança e da ruína,
São formas transitórias da existência
Que passam como um sonho indolente
Deixando em seu lugar meditação.
Assim me fiz à estrada e fui feliz."
November 11, 2020
When over the flowery, sharp pasture’s
edge, unseen, the salt ocean
lifts its form—chicory and daisies
tied, released, seem hardly flowers alone
but color and the movement—or the shape
perhaps—of restlessness, whereas
the sea is circled and sways
peacefully upon its plantlike stem
----
The bare cherry tree
higher than the roof
last year produced
abundant fruit. But how
speak of fruit confronted
by that skeleton?
Though live it may be
there is no fruit on it.
Therefore chop it down
and use the wood
against this biting cold.
----
School is over. It is too hot
to walk at ease. At ease
in light frocks they walk the streets
to while the time away.
They have grown tall. They hold
pink flames in their right hands.
In white from head to foot,
with sidelong, idle look
in yellow, floating stuff,
black sash and stockings
touching their avid mouths
with pink sugar on a stick
like a carnation each holds in her hand
they mount the lonely street.
edge, unseen, the salt ocean
lifts its form—chicory and daisies
tied, released, seem hardly flowers alone
but color and the movement—or the shape
perhaps—of restlessness, whereas
the sea is circled and sways
peacefully upon its plantlike stem
----
The bare cherry tree
higher than the roof
last year produced
abundant fruit. But how
speak of fruit confronted
by that skeleton?
Though live it may be
there is no fruit on it.
Therefore chop it down
and use the wood
against this biting cold.
----
School is over. It is too hot
to walk at ease. At ease
in light frocks they walk the streets
to while the time away.
They have grown tall. They hold
pink flames in their right hands.
In white from head to foot,
with sidelong, idle look
in yellow, floating stuff,
black sash and stockings
touching their avid mouths
with pink sugar on a stick
like a carnation each holds in her hand
they mount the lonely street.
December 9, 2008
This is what poetry should be - unabashed, symbolic, conversational, creative and reflective of a view mainly outside of oneself in the sense that is has something to cause others to 'go outside', too. Stylistically, Williams is hard to beat - layers of subtle rhymes, repeats in the right places, the confidence to lay off the punctuation (except for the exclamation mark!) and very economical with word choice. The substance can be weighty, yet Williams is gracious enough to leave most interpretation up to the reader. He's humorous, energetic, and kind-hearted:
"Flowers By the Sea"
When over the flowery, sharp pasture's
edge, unseen, the salt ocean
lifts its form--chicory and daisies
tied, released, seem hardly flowers alone
but color and the movement--or the shape
perhaps--of restlessness, whereas
the sea is circled and sways
peacefully upon its plantlike stem
Here, to me, flowers represent individuals - lovely, fragile and cranky, who could be overtaken by life's greater considerations (the ocean), but by some grace are left to live and grow. I grew slightly tired of the symbolism, though, and wanted work that was more edgy and personal. The book, consisting of sample poems from 16 of Williams's books, made up for that by ending with his well-known "Paterson", which wonderfully summarizes what he has said before yet mixes in playfulness, prose and connections, for example, between the humans and nature of his native New Jersey with a group of tribal women - several wives of one man in an African village. Williams has a certain calm that allows him to appreciate things as they are, yet never stops challenging the reader to invent his or her own reality:
... In ignorance
a certain knowledge and knowledge,
undispersed, its own undoing...
Voices!
multiple and inarticulate . voices
clattering loudly to the sun, to
the clouds. Voices!
assaulting the air gaily from all sides.
Williams is well-rounded, often seeing the completeness that many ideologies and outlooks ignore. He knows, expects, that anything can happen, and tries to have his way only some of the time.
"Flowers By the Sea"
When over the flowery, sharp pasture's
edge, unseen, the salt ocean
lifts its form--chicory and daisies
tied, released, seem hardly flowers alone
but color and the movement--or the shape
perhaps--of restlessness, whereas
the sea is circled and sways
peacefully upon its plantlike stem
Here, to me, flowers represent individuals - lovely, fragile and cranky, who could be overtaken by life's greater considerations (the ocean), but by some grace are left to live and grow. I grew slightly tired of the symbolism, though, and wanted work that was more edgy and personal. The book, consisting of sample poems from 16 of Williams's books, made up for that by ending with his well-known "Paterson", which wonderfully summarizes what he has said before yet mixes in playfulness, prose and connections, for example, between the humans and nature of his native New Jersey with a group of tribal women - several wives of one man in an African village. Williams has a certain calm that allows him to appreciate things as they are, yet never stops challenging the reader to invent his or her own reality:
... In ignorance
a certain knowledge and knowledge,
undispersed, its own undoing...
Voices!
multiple and inarticulate . voices
clattering loudly to the sun, to
the clouds. Voices!
assaulting the air gaily from all sides.
Williams is well-rounded, often seeing the completeness that many ideologies and outlooks ignore. He knows, expects, that anything can happen, and tries to have his way only some of the time.
September 8, 2017
I like these poems, they are long and mostly short, subject specific and place oriented, both plain and flourished. With a gr's wink here is a few stanzas from book three "The Library" from "Paterson."
'A cool of books
will sometimes lead the mind to libraries
of a hot afternoon, if books can be found
cool to the sense to lead the mind away.
For there is a wind or ghost of a wind
in all books echoing the life
there, a high wind that fills the tubes
of the ear until we think we hear a wind,
actual' ...
'A cool of books
will sometimes lead the mind to libraries
of a hot afternoon, if books can be found
cool to the sense to lead the mind away.
For there is a wind or ghost of a wind
in all books echoing the life
there, a high wind that fills the tubes
of the ear until we think we hear a wind,
actual' ...
Want to read
December 17, 2009I've always wanted to read Williams... mostly because it cracks me up to no end--imagining his parents sitting there over their cute newborn baby, shaking their heads to each other. In my creative scenario, his dad says, "Nope... no, sir... can't think of a better name..." And the mom offers, "Aww, shucks, just go with William Williams. Nobody'll ever see the kid's name in print, anyway."
June 10, 2009
I have known that cat (p70) and I thrill in the knowledge that you have given in to the need for plums.. (p74). I cannot resist a quiet visit with WCW every once in a while, to celebrate the simply elaborate human condition.
April 13, 2020
I asked him, What do you do?
He smiled patiently, The typical American question.
In Europe they would ask, What are you doing? Or, What are you doing now?
What do I do? I listen, to the water falling. (No
sound of it here but with the wind!) This is my entire occupation.
He smiled patiently, The typical American question.
In Europe they would ask, What are you doing? Or, What are you doing now?
What do I do? I listen, to the water falling. (No
sound of it here but with the wind!) This is my entire occupation.
May 4, 2020
"E plo poder que bendizemos,
Que vive em toda a parte,
As nossas almas mediremos:
De amor será a arte.
Por isso, irmã, faz-me um favor,
Põe roupa para a serra, vamos:
E livros nada, não senhor!
Pois hoje nós folgamos."
Que vive em toda a parte,
As nossas almas mediremos:
De amor será a arte.
Por isso, irmã, faz-me um favor,
Põe roupa para a serra, vamos:
E livros nada, não senhor!
Pois hoje nós folgamos."
March 4, 2024
The only good thing that has ever come out of New Jersey
March 22, 2020
her ne kadar türkçesini okumuş olsam da;
"you are forever april
to me
the eternally unready"
"you are forever april
to me
the eternally unready"
June 6, 2020
Quando, por vezes, surge a pergunta [complicada] "qual é o teu poema/poeta favorito?", não demoro muito a responder:
"...What though the radiance
which was once so bright
Be now for ever taken from my sight,
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass,
of glory in the flower,
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind;
In the primal sympathy
Which having been must ever be;
In the soothing thoughts that spring
Out of human suffering;
In the faith that looks through death,
In years that bring the philosophic mind."
William Wordsworth.
--
É sempre tão boa a leitura de Wordsworth, uma infinita nostalgia fica connosco quando o livro termina. E ler uma edição bilíngüe enriquece sempre qualquer leitura. A lista de poetas que concorrem com Wordsworth é extensa: Shelley, Lord Byron, Coleridge, Keats... Mas em Wordsworth encontramos o mundo bucólico, a ode à folha que cai, um hino à vida que se desgasta e nos deixa.
"...What though the radiance
which was once so bright
Be now for ever taken from my sight,
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass,
of glory in the flower,
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind;
In the primal sympathy
Which having been must ever be;
In the soothing thoughts that spring
Out of human suffering;
In the faith that looks through death,
In years that bring the philosophic mind."
William Wordsworth.
--
É sempre tão boa a leitura de Wordsworth, uma infinita nostalgia fica connosco quando o livro termina. E ler uma edição bilíngüe enriquece sempre qualquer leitura. A lista de poetas que concorrem com Wordsworth é extensa: Shelley, Lord Byron, Coleridge, Keats... Mas em Wordsworth encontramos o mundo bucólico, a ode à folha que cai, um hino à vida que se desgasta e nos deixa.
April 6, 2008
Basically, if anybody wants to understand contemporary free verse in America, they should read Whitman first, and Williams second. Williams pioneered the simple, seemingly effortless looking poem that relied on vivid imagery and line breaks as organizational principals.
December 24, 2018
a painter with words, a poet! with verve!
September 10, 2022
É sempre um deleite para a alma ler a poesia de William Wordsworth.
June 3, 2019
"Selected" poetry collections are fickle things. Any poet, especially with a career as expansive as Williams', develops their style over an extended period of labor; labor which does not skip around from book-to-book, nor stylistic period-to-stylistic period, but accrues the features of a unique form through every poem the author pens.
And yet, a collection of selected poetry is ultimately necessary if new readers are to develop interest in a poet, few being expected to drop $40+ on the complete poems of an author they've never read, save for that one about the wheelbarrow, or that other odd number where the author eats his wife's plums.
The question, then, is how successfully this collections would inundate a new reader with Williams' style. My answer: very well! Of course I have my small grievances. Why is "Asphodel," one of Williams' best poems and sure proof of his continued artistic strength in old age, not featured in its entirety? Why include the poems from Williams' earliest publications at all, seeing how totally divorced they are from nearly everything that followed? Why include fragments of "Paterson" at all?
But I'm willing to forgive all of that, simply because the poetry that is on offer here, most of it some of Williams' best, is the kind of stuff that can make one fall in love with the good ol' lover of flowers and figures. And any collection that can have that effect, especially at a time where Williams' contributions to modern poetry are so often taken for granted, gets a full five stars in my book.
The Descent (from Paterson) [sadly deprived of typographical features]
The descent beckons
as the ascent beckoned
Memory is a kind
of accomplishment
a sort of renewal
even
an initiation, since the spaces it opens are new places
inhabited by hordes
heretofore unrealized
of new kinds—
since their movements
are toward new objectives
(even though formerly they were abandoned)
No defeat is made up entirely of defeat—since
the world it opens is always a place
formerly
unsuspected. A
world lost
a world unsuspected
beckons to new places
and no whiteness (lost) is so white as the memory
of whiteness
With evening, love wakens
though its shadows
which are alive by reason
of the sun shining—
grow sleepy now and drop away
from desire
Love without shadows stirs now
beginning to awaken
as night
advances
The descent
made up of despairs
and without accomplishment
realizes a new awakening:
which is a reversal
of despair
For what we cannot accomplish, what
is denied to love
what we have lost in the anticipation—
a descent follows
endless and indestructible
And yet, a collection of selected poetry is ultimately necessary if new readers are to develop interest in a poet, few being expected to drop $40+ on the complete poems of an author they've never read, save for that one about the wheelbarrow, or that other odd number where the author eats his wife's plums.
The question, then, is how successfully this collections would inundate a new reader with Williams' style. My answer: very well! Of course I have my small grievances. Why is "Asphodel," one of Williams' best poems and sure proof of his continued artistic strength in old age, not featured in its entirety? Why include the poems from Williams' earliest publications at all, seeing how totally divorced they are from nearly everything that followed? Why include fragments of "Paterson" at all?
But I'm willing to forgive all of that, simply because the poetry that is on offer here, most of it some of Williams' best, is the kind of stuff that can make one fall in love with the good ol' lover of flowers and figures. And any collection that can have that effect, especially at a time where Williams' contributions to modern poetry are so often taken for granted, gets a full five stars in my book.
The Descent (from Paterson) [sadly deprived of typographical features]
The descent beckons
as the ascent beckoned
Memory is a kind
of accomplishment
a sort of renewal
even
an initiation, since the spaces it opens are new places
inhabited by hordes
heretofore unrealized
of new kinds—
since their movements
are toward new objectives
(even though formerly they were abandoned)
No defeat is made up entirely of defeat—since
the world it opens is always a place
formerly
unsuspected. A
world lost
a world unsuspected
beckons to new places
and no whiteness (lost) is so white as the memory
of whiteness
With evening, love wakens
though its shadows
which are alive by reason
of the sun shining—
grow sleepy now and drop away
from desire
Love without shadows stirs now
beginning to awaken
as night
advances
The descent
made up of despairs
and without accomplishment
realizes a new awakening:
which is a reversal
of despair
For what we cannot accomplish, what
is denied to love
what we have lost in the anticipation—
a descent follows
endless and indestructible
July 19, 2017
Holy shit, it has to be noted—and I did not do this on purpose—but it took me five years exactly to read this book. I started reading it on July 11, 2012, and finished it on July 11, 2017.
That's exactly how slow going it was.
To my disappointment, not everything William Carlos Williams wrote is as accessible as "The Red Wheelbarrow" and "This is Just to Say," two of his most famous poems. Instead, there's a mix of transparent and opaque.
And then there's Paterson, which he's also known for, a five-volume epic poem that here is presented in extracts, taking up about forty pages instead of its usual three hundred, and seems to be about a grasshopper, a park, geography, some text from a medical journal, a personal letter, and a history lesson. I don't know if it would have made more sense if I had read it in its entirety, but I'm not interested in finding out.
Williams liked to experiment with white space and sentence fragments—he's a contemporary of e e cummings and T. S. Eliot—but his white space lacks the energy and enthusiasm of cummings, or, later, of Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Mostly it just looks jumbled, or unnecessarily spread out, staggered like the teeth of a zipper. The chopped up, incomplete sentences were coarse and seemed to impede meaning rather than free it. I didn't feel like I was discovering or feeling something; I felt like I was tripping over it.
For such a long volume, my notes with my favorite poems and lines don't even take up a whole index card, and I was definitely experiencing William Carlos Williams fatigue by the end. The book collects selected poems from 1914 to 1962, and I found Charles Tomlinson's introduction to be wordy and almost breathless in tone but informative about Williams and his poetry style, though more useful after I'd read the book than before.
My favorite discovery has to be the complete Pictures from Brueghel series. I'd read parts of it before, but didn't realize there was more to it. It's ten poems based on works by Brueghel the Elder, who I encounter quite often in poetry. There's something about his paintings that draws poets to him. It's probably the level of detail, all the little stories going on in these huge lush landscapes full of color and people and animals. The poems I've read have all evoked such clear images, even if I'm unfamiliar with the paintings themselves, and Williams's work is no exception. Though, as always, in order to enjoy Williams's "Landscape with the Fall of Icarus" to its fullest, you benefit by knowing the joke behind Brueghel's "Landscape with the Fall of Icarus" and the tiny splash Icarus makes down in the corner of the painting where no one is even looking. Just his leg sticking out of the water. Williams captures the humor and sadness of that image, still giving it only slightly more attention than Brueghel did.
It seems I like Williams best when he's being simple and transparent. His complicated, fractured works don't appeal to me as much, and it feels like this collection is more geared toward the latter. But could be it only felt like it.
Contains: rape, classism, and racist language and attitudes.
That's exactly how slow going it was.
To my disappointment, not everything William Carlos Williams wrote is as accessible as "The Red Wheelbarrow" and "This is Just to Say," two of his most famous poems. Instead, there's a mix of transparent and opaque.
And then there's Paterson, which he's also known for, a five-volume epic poem that here is presented in extracts, taking up about forty pages instead of its usual three hundred, and seems to be about a grasshopper, a park, geography, some text from a medical journal, a personal letter, and a history lesson. I don't know if it would have made more sense if I had read it in its entirety, but I'm not interested in finding out.
Williams liked to experiment with white space and sentence fragments—he's a contemporary of e e cummings and T. S. Eliot—but his white space lacks the energy and enthusiasm of cummings, or, later, of Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Mostly it just looks jumbled, or unnecessarily spread out, staggered like the teeth of a zipper. The chopped up, incomplete sentences were coarse and seemed to impede meaning rather than free it. I didn't feel like I was discovering or feeling something; I felt like I was tripping over it.
For such a long volume, my notes with my favorite poems and lines don't even take up a whole index card, and I was definitely experiencing William Carlos Williams fatigue by the end. The book collects selected poems from 1914 to 1962, and I found Charles Tomlinson's introduction to be wordy and almost breathless in tone but informative about Williams and his poetry style, though more useful after I'd read the book than before.
My favorite discovery has to be the complete Pictures from Brueghel series. I'd read parts of it before, but didn't realize there was more to it. It's ten poems based on works by Brueghel the Elder, who I encounter quite often in poetry. There's something about his paintings that draws poets to him. It's probably the level of detail, all the little stories going on in these huge lush landscapes full of color and people and animals. The poems I've read have all evoked such clear images, even if I'm unfamiliar with the paintings themselves, and Williams's work is no exception. Though, as always, in order to enjoy Williams's "Landscape with the Fall of Icarus" to its fullest, you benefit by knowing the joke behind Brueghel's "Landscape with the Fall of Icarus" and the tiny splash Icarus makes down in the corner of the painting where no one is even looking. Just his leg sticking out of the water. Williams captures the humor and sadness of that image, still giving it only slightly more attention than Brueghel did.
It seems I like Williams best when he's being simple and transparent. His complicated, fractured works don't appeal to me as much, and it feels like this collection is more geared toward the latter. But could be it only felt like it.
Contains: rape, classism, and racist language and attitudes.
March 10, 2021
When I was 13, my parents fought. A lot. My mother, a women who typically was a reserved and kind women became explosive and always infuriated. My father, usually a ghost became a forest fire of emotion, filling out house with smoke to the point where I couldn’t notice either his or my mother’s face every night.
There soon came a point in which I was to stay at my friends house, a refuge from the uncertainty of the calmness of the front I lived on.
My mother one afternoon picked me up from school, bags ready for 3 days of departure. She told me there was to be one stop. My only safe place in the orbit of my solar system, the library. I told my mom, at various stages of my life. I wanted to be a writer. ( I’d never heard of being a paid reader, so writing would do) and after 2 weeks of language arts class focusing on only poetry, I’d finally been awoken to the enjoyment and lifelong appreciation of poetry for a lifetime.
She dropped me off at the front and told me she had to make a phone call and to be back in 15 minutes and to ONLY get 2 books. I rushed inside, fumbling to place my backpack over the slumps of shoulder and briskly moved to the section enshrined for poetry.
My mother, who never read. Only liked poetry. Yates and Whitman to be her prized champions. I didn’t want Yates or Whitman. I wanted someone new, someone I’d never heard of. In the anxiety of not wanting to make my mother wait, and the overwhelming sense of indecision I heard a horn honking ( it wasn’t my mothers) enough to make me flinch and just grab something close to the “Whitman” I had stopped in remembrance of my mother and ran to the check out counter.
The uninterested librarian scanned the book and waved goodbye and I made it to the car as my mother screamed a forceful thumb into her phone.
She whipped away a tear and told me that I’d be staying at my friends house and that she wanted to make sure I had something I enjoyed doing with me. As a 13 year old I was uninterested in most things other kids my age were, I hated being outside and sports and crowds and people and talking about things that were not books or at the time by band “the pixies”
At my friends house, a place that I had never been too. Was very tidy and tidiness unlike my home made me uncomfortable. I was scared of being yelled at or being a nuisance so I didn’t move from the chair I was welcomed too. Unzipping my backpack I flipped though a text called the “collected William Carlos Williams” and instantly read:
This Is Just To Say
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
I didn’t know what to make of this poem. I had listened to my teacher and even wrote a poem that didn’t rhyme, for she told me it was ok that it didn’t. But what was it about? The person who wrote the poem, obviously wasn’t supposed to eat them. Why did he do it? What’s the point?
I wrestled with this until, someone came into my friends door, his father. Home from work, tired but excited to see everyone. He kindly greeted me and showed me a personal sized German dark forest cake. “Why I work!” He said. “ my loving family and for this here damn delicious chocolatey goodness” I smiled to him graciously just for the attempt to cheer me up amidst all the changes.
“Don’t eat this Shelly! You here me? It’s all I’ve looked forward too since last Friday!”
He placed the cake on the island of the kitchen and went to his room. My friend and I played video games and watched movies, ate pizza and there was a sense of normalcy that I didn’t know was apart of daily home life. It was a vacation 10 miles down the road.
The next morning, a Saturday. I woke up into the kitchen, the cake, almost completely gone. Had a note resting ontop of it.
James,
I couldn’t resist. I owe you a giant cake and to say sorry I stocked the fridge with beer, the gas station didn’t have any cake.
Love, Shelly.
My friends father arm against the sink just laughed at me smirking,” Shelly is a one of a kind women. The only person I’ve ever met who can eat all my damn cake and somehow make me feel happy she did. Besides now I got a whole thing of beer I’m not allowed to have out of it. Life’s good” he smiled drank his coffee threw the sugar spoon into the sink. “Well off to mow the yard” . I stood in the kitchen and in the instance I understood the poem. And that my parents maybe at some point, loved each other, but now, it was clear they didn’t.
So this is just to say, my parents, who I knew weren’t a representation of the life or the marriage I wanted to had sent me somewhere to not get lost in the wreckage. But I found an inner love. I found reality in poetry and even if hadn’t and if I still don’t understand anything even in Williams writing. It taught me something. Writing exist to challenge us, not give us answers. To provide us with human and emotional connections internally and externally.
To just be correspondence even in the finite unmemorable exchanges in life.
My life was changed. Because of a couple lines and some damn plums.
Thanks for reading this.
There soon came a point in which I was to stay at my friends house, a refuge from the uncertainty of the calmness of the front I lived on.
My mother one afternoon picked me up from school, bags ready for 3 days of departure. She told me there was to be one stop. My only safe place in the orbit of my solar system, the library. I told my mom, at various stages of my life. I wanted to be a writer. ( I’d never heard of being a paid reader, so writing would do) and after 2 weeks of language arts class focusing on only poetry, I’d finally been awoken to the enjoyment and lifelong appreciation of poetry for a lifetime.
She dropped me off at the front and told me she had to make a phone call and to be back in 15 minutes and to ONLY get 2 books. I rushed inside, fumbling to place my backpack over the slumps of shoulder and briskly moved to the section enshrined for poetry.
My mother, who never read. Only liked poetry. Yates and Whitman to be her prized champions. I didn’t want Yates or Whitman. I wanted someone new, someone I’d never heard of. In the anxiety of not wanting to make my mother wait, and the overwhelming sense of indecision I heard a horn honking ( it wasn’t my mothers) enough to make me flinch and just grab something close to the “Whitman” I had stopped in remembrance of my mother and ran to the check out counter.
The uninterested librarian scanned the book and waved goodbye and I made it to the car as my mother screamed a forceful thumb into her phone.
She whipped away a tear and told me that I’d be staying at my friends house and that she wanted to make sure I had something I enjoyed doing with me. As a 13 year old I was uninterested in most things other kids my age were, I hated being outside and sports and crowds and people and talking about things that were not books or at the time by band “the pixies”
At my friends house, a place that I had never been too. Was very tidy and tidiness unlike my home made me uncomfortable. I was scared of being yelled at or being a nuisance so I didn’t move from the chair I was welcomed too. Unzipping my backpack I flipped though a text called the “collected William Carlos Williams” and instantly read:
This Is Just To Say
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
I didn’t know what to make of this poem. I had listened to my teacher and even wrote a poem that didn’t rhyme, for she told me it was ok that it didn’t. But what was it about? The person who wrote the poem, obviously wasn’t supposed to eat them. Why did he do it? What’s the point?
I wrestled with this until, someone came into my friends door, his father. Home from work, tired but excited to see everyone. He kindly greeted me and showed me a personal sized German dark forest cake. “Why I work!” He said. “ my loving family and for this here damn delicious chocolatey goodness” I smiled to him graciously just for the attempt to cheer me up amidst all the changes.
“Don’t eat this Shelly! You here me? It’s all I’ve looked forward too since last Friday!”
He placed the cake on the island of the kitchen and went to his room. My friend and I played video games and watched movies, ate pizza and there was a sense of normalcy that I didn’t know was apart of daily home life. It was a vacation 10 miles down the road.
The next morning, a Saturday. I woke up into the kitchen, the cake, almost completely gone. Had a note resting ontop of it.
James,
I couldn’t resist. I owe you a giant cake and to say sorry I stocked the fridge with beer, the gas station didn’t have any cake.
Love, Shelly.
My friends father arm against the sink just laughed at me smirking,” Shelly is a one of a kind women. The only person I’ve ever met who can eat all my damn cake and somehow make me feel happy she did. Besides now I got a whole thing of beer I’m not allowed to have out of it. Life’s good” he smiled drank his coffee threw the sugar spoon into the sink. “Well off to mow the yard” . I stood in the kitchen and in the instance I understood the poem. And that my parents maybe at some point, loved each other, but now, it was clear they didn’t.
So this is just to say, my parents, who I knew weren’t a representation of the life or the marriage I wanted to had sent me somewhere to not get lost in the wreckage. But I found an inner love. I found reality in poetry and even if hadn’t and if I still don’t understand anything even in Williams writing. It taught me something. Writing exist to challenge us, not give us answers. To provide us with human and emotional connections internally and externally.
To just be correspondence even in the finite unmemorable exchanges in life.
My life was changed. Because of a couple lines and some damn plums.
Thanks for reading this.
March 28, 2018
Remember how in that movie 'Paterson' the guy's girlfriend says: Carlos William Carlos?
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