Spring and all -- William Carlos Williams

Guest poem submitted by Aseem Kaul:

(Poem #1846) Spring and all By the road to the contagious hospital under the surge of the blue mottled clouds driven from the northeast -- a cold wind. Beyond, the waste of broad, muddy fields brown with dried weeds, standing and fallen patches of standing water the scattering of tall trees All along the road the reddish purplish, forked, upstanding, twiggy stuff of bushes and small trees with dead, brown leaves under them leafless vines -- Lifeless in appearance, sluggish dazed spring approaches -- They enter the new world naked, cold, uncertain of all save that they enter. All about them the cold, familiar wind -- Now the grass, tomorrow the stiff curl of wildcarrot leaf One by one objects are defined -- It quickens: clarity, outline of leaf But now the stark dignity of entrance -- Still, the profound change has come upon them: rooted they grip down and begin to awaken -- William Carlos Williams

It's Spring!! And what better way to sing the spring's advent but with this
glorious Williams' poem.

I love the way this poem captures the sense of dead things coming to life,
that stirring, quickening sensation that makes Spring such a magical time of
the year. The way the season seems to take hold of everything ("rooted they
/ grip down and begin to awaken"), and the world seems to take on colour and
shape again.

The best adjective I can think of to describe this poem is the one Williams
gives us himself: contagious.

Aseem.

Overture to a Dance of Locomotives -- William Carlos Williams

Guest poem submitted by Aseem Kaul:

(Poem #1636) Overture to a Dance of Locomotives Men with picked voices chant the names of cities in a huge gallery: promises that pull through descending stairways to a deep rumbling. The rubbing feet of those coming to be carried quicken a grey pavement into soft light that rocks to and fro, under the domed ceiling, across and across from pale earthcoloured walls of bare limestone. Covertly the hands of a great clock go round and round! Were they to move quickly and at once the whole secret would be out and the shuffling of all ants be done forever. A leaning pyramid of sunlight, narrowing out at a high window, moves by the clock; discordant hands straining out from a center: inevitable postures infinitely repeated - two-twofour-twoeight! Porters in red hats run on narrow platforms. This way ma'am! - important not to take the wrong train! Lights from the concrete ceiling hang crooked but - Poised horizontal on glittering parallels the dingy cylinders packed with warm glow - inviting entry - pull against the hour. But brakes can hold a fixed posture till - The whistle! Not twoeight. Not twofour. Two! Gliding windows. Coloured cooks sweating in a small kitchen. Taillights - In time: twofour! In time: twoeight! - rivers are tunneled: trestles cross oozy swampland: wheels repeating the same gesture remain relatively stationary: rails forever parallel return on themselves infinitely. The dance is sure. -- William Carlos Williams

It takes a very special poet to see and capture the beauty of something as
banal as a railway station. It takes a very special poet to take the sheer
mundaneness of the experience of entering that station and to turn it into
an allegory and a vision of human existence. It takes a very special poet to
convey, with incredible clarity, not only the sight of the terminal, but
also its sounds and its rhythms. It takes a very special poet to combine the
easy realism of "two-twofour-twoeight!" with the analytic precision of
"inevitable postures infinitely repeated". It takes a very special poet to
make something as clunky as an old steam locomotive dance.

It takes William Carlos Williams. What moves me about this poem is the sheer
beauty of it, the extravagence of the conceit and the breathtaking way that
Williams pulls it off. It's amazing how exact Williams' observations are -
to see what I mean just try boarding a train from Grand Central station with
"promises / that pull through deep stairways / to a deep rumbling" running
through your head. And it's fascinating how the poem is truly an overture -
how there's a distinct sense at the end of having been launched into some
great adventure, of a rhythm building to some grand waltz. Just the way you
feel when you're starting a long train journey and the train finally pulls
out of the station and into the countryside.

Aseem

P.S. Is it just me, or does this poem read like a cubist or Dada-ist
painting - like something Marcel Duchamp would have painted?

Rose -- William Carlos Williams

Another guest poem inspired by Poem #1224 - Aseem
writes:

Reading the Gluck poem reminded me of this exquisite Williams poem that
I can't resist sharing:

(Poem #1235) Rose The rose is obsolete but each petal ends in an edge, the double facet cementing the grooved columns of air--The edge cuts without cutting meets--nothing--renews itself in metal or porcelain-- whither? It ends-- But if it ends the start is begun so that to engage roses becomes a geometry-- Sharper, neater, more cutting figured in majolica-- the broken plate glazed with a rose Somewhere the sense makes copper roses steel roses-- The rose carried weight of love but love is at an end--of roses It is at the edge of the petal that love waits Crisp, worked to defeat laboredness--fragile plucked, moist, half-raised cold, precise, touching What The place between the petal's edge and the From the petal's edge a line starts that being of steel infinitely fine, infinitely rigid penetrates the Milky Way without contact--lifting from it--neither hanging nor pushing-- The fragility of the flower unbruised penetrates space -- William Carlos Williams

A poem that demands not so much to be read as to be fingered.

Aseem

[Martin adds]

I'm not, in general, a big fan of Williams, but this was an amazing poem.
Right from the blatantly provocative opening line, the images kept me
enthralled with their careful dissonances and their almost mathematical
beauty. As Aseem says, there's something very tactile about the poem, a
promise of precise, crystalline delicacy that demands to be fingered as much
as read - an "infinitely fine, infinitely rigid" rendering of the rose that
despite its inanimate imagery is not in the least bit sterile.

Note the strong undercurrent of Platonic philosophy -

 to engage roses
 becomes a geometry--

speaks of the Platonic ideal of a Rose, and the senses' heavy "copper roses,
steel roses" gradually refine themselves until we're back to the "infinitely
fine, infinitely rigid", the ethereal nature remanifesting itself. And then
the word 'unbruised' at the end simultaneously reminds us that the rose *is*
indeed capable of being bruised (back to imperfect matter), and is
nonetheless unbruised and "penetrating space", uniting the twin threads of
matter and geometry. Exquisite indeed.

martin

Poem -- William Carlos Williams

Guest poem sent in by Aseem Kaul

(Poem #659) Poem As the cat climbed over the top of the jamcloset first the right forefoot carefully then the hind stepped down into the pit of the empty flowerpot. -- William Carlos Williams

It's so incredibly simple isn't it. There's a cat. It moves from point A to
point B. That's all. But Williams captures the instinctive soft-footedness of
that movement so well. The first time I read this poem, I BRISTLED with
excitement, literally. The words themselves so sleekly feline, and the last
paragraph leaping down on to the page so nimbly that just reading the words,
just hearing the sound of them, you can see the cat moving. One of my
favourite Williams.

Aseem

Links:

poem #83 for a biography of Williams and what is probably his best
known poem.

Hunters in the Snow -- William Carlos Williams

The third poem in this week's theme:

(Poem #484) Hunters in the Snow The over-all picture is winter icy mountains in the background the return from the hunt it is toward evening from the left sturdy hunters lead in their pack the inn-sign hanging from a broken hinge is a stag a crucifix between his antlers the cold inn yard is deserted but for a huge bonfire that flares wind-driven tended by women who cluster about it to the right beyond the hill is a pattern of skaters Brueghel the painter concerned with it all has chosen a winter-struck bush for his foreground to complete the picture -- William Carlos Williams

What I find most interesting about William Carlos Williams' take on Brueghel's
'Hunters in the Snow' is that unlike the other poets we've featured, Williams
talks, not about the scene shown in the painting, but about the painting itself.
There's an extra level of indirection here which is subtle but (I think) quite
important - especially given the context of Williams' work and the Imagist
movement.

The poem itself is simple and direct, a perfect example of Williams' inimitable
minimalism. It also stays true to the Imagist mantra "Show, don't tell"; the
difference, though, is that what's being shown is not a scene, but an image of
one. In that, it reminds me irresistibly of another painting I once saw - I
don't remember the name, but I'm pretty sure it was by Matisse; could some kind
soul on this mailing list illuminate me? - of a painting, which in turn showed
the view out of a window, and was placed directly in front of that window.
Strange loops, self-reference, wheels within wheels... Lovely.

thomas.

This Is Just To Say -- William Carlos Williams

(Poem #274) 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. -- William Carlos Williams

I remember this as the first Imagist poem - indeed, the first 'modern' poem of
any sort - that I ever read. Having been schooled on Wordsworth, de la Mare and
Rossetti [1], it came as a bit of a shock to me when I stumbled upon Williams'
laconic beauty in an anthology discovered at a relative's house, one summer
vacation many years ago. This, poetry? Where were the rhymes? Where were the
sunsets and flowers and cute furry animals? Where was the Good Advice for the
Younger Generation [2]? And what was the poem about, anyway?

As faithful readers of my posts have no doubt realized by now, it was the
beginning of a lifelong affair. Recent excursions into the Romantics, the Beats,
the Movement and the Elizabethans notwithstanding, Eliot, Pound, Williams and
their ilk remain among my favourite poets...

thomas.

PS. Oh, you wanted commentary on the poem? I'm sorry, why didn't you say so?

[1] Good poets all; don't get me wrong.
[2] To use Martin's elegant phrase :-)

[Minstrels Links]

A Williams biography can be found at poem #83 along with the first poem
of his to be run on the Minstrels, 'The Red Wheelbarrow'.

Another typical Williams slice-of-life is 'The Artist', which you can read
at poem #213

More on Imagism can be found in the essay accompanying Amy Lowell's
'Generations', Minstrels poem #102, at poem #102

One of my favourite poems by an Imagist poet is Ezra Pound's 'The River
Merchant's Wife: A Letter', which you can read at poem #70

And of course, you can read all our other poems at
http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/

The Artist -- William Carlos Williams

(Poem #213) The Artist Mr T. bareheaded in a soiled undershirt his hair standing out on all sides stood on his toes heels together arms gracefully for the moment curled above his head. Then he whirled about bounded into the air and with an entrechat perfectly achieved completed the figure. My mother taken by surprise where she sat in her invalid's chair was left speechless. Bravo! she cried at last and clapped her hands. The man's wife came from the kitchen: What goes on here? she said. But the show was over. -- William Carlos Williams

One of those 'slice of life' poems which are so incredibly difficult to pull off
convincingly... I suppose the problem is that most of our lives are terribly
boring and humdrum; it takes a poet to find beauty and meaning in them, to give
voice to 'the music of what happens' [1].

thomas.

[1] A truly lovely phrase, don't you think? It's from Seamus Heaney's poem
'Song', Minstrels Poem #61

[Minstrels Links]

A Williams biography can be found at poem #83
along with the one poem of his that I've run before, 'The Red Wheelbarrow'.

More on Imagism can be found in the essay accompanying Amy Lowell's
'Generations', Minstrels poem #102

One of my favourite poems by an Imagist poet is Ezra Pound's 'The River
Merchant's Wife: A Letter', which you can read at poem #70

And of course, you can read all our other poems at
http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/

[Afterthought]

Re-reading the poem, I notice a distinct lengthening of the lines towards the
end. I'm not sure if this is intentional, but (this being a Williams poem) I
suspect that it is. And I can't quite put my finger on the 'poetic' effect of
this mode of construction... perhaps it has something to do with the rhythm of
the dancer and the tempo of the actions being portrayed. Comments, anyone?

The Red Wheelbarrow -- William Carlos Williams

(Poem #83) The Red Wheelbarrow so much depends upon a red wheel barrow glazed with rain water beside the white chickens. -- William Carlos Williams

Simple, elegant, and wonderfully evocative... this is more painting than
poem.

thomas.

"Reading this poem is like peering at an ordinary object through a pin
prick in a piece of cardboard. The fact that the tiny hole arbitrarily
frames the object endows it with an exciting freshness that seems to
hover on the verge of revelation."
    - Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren, Understanding Poetry.

[Biography]

William Carlos Williams was born September 17, 1883 in Rutherford, New
Jersey, to middle-class parents who were lovers of literature and visual
art. But Williams showed little interest in art until he attended the
University of Pennsylvania's medical school. It was there that he became
enamoured with poetry and was for some time torn between his parents'
wishes that he become a doctor and his own, less conventional
aspirations. While in Pennsylvania, Williams befriended the poet Ezra
Pound, a relationship that he later termed a watershed in his literary
career. Pound not only helped Williams develop his aesthetic of magism -
a poetic approach that emphasized the concrete over abstractions - but
also introduced him to a literary circle that included the flamboyant
poet Hilda Doolittle (H. D.). By the time Williams completed his
studies, he was committed to his writing; yet he still pursued a medical
career and maintained a private practice in Rutherford for over forty
years. From his medical practice Williams gained not only the financial
freedom to write what he wished, but also a rare and intimate insight
into the lives of common people.

Williams's immersion in and attachment to the lives of Rutherford's
townsfolk was mirrored in the aesthetic principles he developed over the
years. He consistently advocated and wrote literature that took its
themes from ordinary life and its voice from the patterns of common
speech. During much of his poetic career, however, these values ran
counter to those of the critically acclaimed poetry of the day - namely,
the classicist, academic, and formal poetry exemplified by T. S. Eliot
and Wallace Stevens. During the 1920s and 1930s Williams labored largely
in obscurity; with the publication of the first Paterson volumes in the
1940s, however, he gained wider recognition, and the emerging Beat
Movement poets of the 1950s venerated him for his rejection of
formalism. Shortly after receiving a Pulitzer Prize, Williams died on
March 4, 1963.

[Commentary]

The opening lines set the tone for the rest of the poem. Since the poem
is composed of one sentence broken up at various intervals, it is
truthful to say that "so much depends upon" each line of the poem. This
is so because the form of the poem is also its meaning. This may seem
confusing, but by the end of the poem the image of the wheelbarrow is
seen as the actual poem, as in a painting when one sees an image of an
apple, the apple represents an actual object in reality, but since it is
part of a painting the apple also becomes the actual piece of art.

Notice how the monosyllabic words in line 3 elongate the line, putting
an unusual pause between the word "wheel" and "barrow." This has the
effect of breaking the image down to its most basic parts. The reader
feels as though he or she were scrutinizing each part of the scene.
Using the sentence as a painter uses line and color, Williams breaks up
the words in order to see the object more closely.

The word "glazed" evokes another painterly image. Just as the reader is
beginning to notice the wheelbarrow through a closer perspective, the
rain transforms it as well, giving it a newer, fresher look. This new
vision of the image is what Williams is aiming for.

The last lines offer up the final brushstroke to this "still life" poem.
Another color, "white" is used to contrast the earlier "red," and the
unusual view of the ordinary wheelbarrow is complete. Williams, in
dissecting the image of the wheelbarrow, has also transformed the common
definition of a poem. With careful word choice, attention to language,
and unusual stanza breaks Williams has turned an ordinary sentence into
poetry.

    - from the Gale Poetry Resource Center
http://www.gale.com/gale/poetry/poetset.html