william carlos williams (1882-1963)

William Carlos Williams (1882-1963)

ENGL 3370: Modern American Poetry

Major American Writers: Wallace Stevens


William Carlos Williams,

Early Williams’ Poem “The Wanderer”

The verse is KeatsianThe poem’s muse is Williams’ grandmotherThe poem’s most important moment is the

poet’s plunge into “the filthy Passaic of experience”

Grandma Muse teaches the poet to be “mostly silent”


But the thing that stands eternally in the way of really good writing is always one: the virtual impossibility of lifting to the imagination those things which lie under the direct scrutiny of the senses, close to the nose. It is this difficulty that sets a value upon all works of art and makes them a necessity. The senses witnessing what is immediately before them in detail see a finality which they cling to in despair, not knowing which way to turn. Thus this so-called or scientific array becomes fixed, the walking devil of modern life. He who even nicks the solidity of this apparition does a piece of work superior to that of Hercules when he cleared the Augean stables.—William Carlos Williams, "Kora in Hell"


William Carlos Williams

Edgar Degas (1834-1917—famous Impressionist painter): I would like to write poetry but I don’t have any ideas.



Stéphane Mallarmé (1842-1898)—French symbolist poet): My dear Degas, poems are not made out of ideas. They are made out of words.

—Say it, no Ideas but in things.—William Carlos Williams, Paterson

found poem


Poetry

found poem



The white of the page, according to Williams = the c in Einstein’s E = mc2: the speed of light.


The Red Wheelbarrow

so much dependsupon

a red wheelbarrow

glazed with rainwater

beside the whitechickens.--William Carlos Williams

This Is Just To Say

I have eatenthe plumsthat were inthe icebox

and whichyou were probablysavingfor breakfast

Forgive methey were deliciousso sweetand so cold--William Carlos Williams

William Carlos Williams, The Red Wheelbarrow

so much dependsupon

a red wheelBarrow

glazed with rainWater

beside the whitechickens.


William Carlos Williams, “Danse Russe”

If when my wife is sleepingand the baby and Kathleenare sleepingand the sun is a flame-white discin silken mistsabove shining trees,–if I in my north roomdance naked, grotesquelybefore my mirrorwaving my shirt round my headand singing softly to myself:"I am lonely, lonely.I was born to be lonely,I am best so!”If I admire my arms, my face,my shoulders, flanks, buttocksagainst the yellow drawn shades,– Who shall say I am notthe happy genius of my household? ENGL 3370: Modern

American Poetry

Confessional Poetry

William Carlos Williams, “The Young Housewife”

AT ten A.M. the young housewifemoves about in negligee behindthe wooden walls of her husband's house.I pass solitary in my car. Then again she comes to the curbto call the ice-man, fish-man, and standsshy, uncorseted, tucking instray ends of hair, and I compare herto a fallen leaf.

The noiseless wheels of my carrush with a crackling sound overdried leaves as I bow and pass smiling.


Major American Writers: Wallace Stevens


William Carlos Williams, “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus”

According to Brueghelwhen Icarus fellit was spring

a farmer was ploughinghis fieldthe whole pageantry

of the year wasawake tinglingNear

the edge of the seaConcernedwith itself



sweating in the sunthat meltedthe wings' wax

Unsignificantlyoff the coastthere was

a splash quite unnoticedthis wasIcarus drowning


William Carlos Williams, Asphodel, That Greeny Flower



BOOK IOf asphodel, that greeny flower,

like a buttercupupon its branching

stem—save that it's green and wooden—

I come, my sweet,to sing to you.

We lived long togethera life filled,

if you will,with flowers. So that

I was cheeredwhen I came first to

knowthat there were flowers also

in hell.Today

I'm filled with the fading memory of those flowersthat we both loved,

even to this poor



BOOK Icolorless thing—

I saw itwhen I was a child—

little prized among the livingbut the dead see,

asking among themselves:What do I remember

that was shapedas this thing is

shaped?while our eyes fill

with tears.Of love, abiding love

it will be tellingthough too weak a wash of crimson

colors itto make it wholly credible.

There is somethingsomething urgent



BOOK II have to say to you

and you alonebut it must wait

while I drink inthe joy of your approach,

perhaps for the last time.And so

with fear in my heartI drag it out

and keep on talkingfor I dare not stop.

Listen while I talk onagainst time.

It will not befor long.

I have forgotand yet I see clearly enough

somethingENGL 3370: Modern

American Poetry


BOOK Icentral to the sky

which ranges round it.An odor

springs from it!A sweetest odor!

Honeysuckle! And nowthere comes the buzzing of a bee!

and a whole floodof sister memories!

Only give me time,time to recall them

before I shall speak out.Give me time,

time.When I was a boy

I kept a bookto which, from time



BOOK Ito time,

I added pressed flowersuntil, after a time,

I had a good collection.The asphodel,

forebodingly,among them.

I bring you,reawakened,

a memory of those flowers.

They were sweetwhen I pressed

themand retained

something of their sweetnessa long time.

It is a curious odor,a moral odor,

that brings me



BOOK Inear to you.

The colorwas the first to go.

There had come to mea challenge,

your dear self,mortal as I was,

the lily's throatto the hummingbird!

Endless wealth,I thought,

held out its arms to me.A thousand topics

in an apple blossom.The generous earth

itselfgave us lief.

The whole worldbecame my garden!



BOOK IBut the sea

which no one tendsis also a garden

when the sun strikes itand the waves

are wakened.I have seen it

and so have youwhen it puts all

flowersto shame.

Too, there are the starfishstiffened by the sun

and other sea wrackand weeds. We knew that

along with the rest of itfor we were born by the sea,

knew its rose hedgesto the very water's

brink.



BOOK IThere the pink mallow grows

and in their seasonstrawberries

and there, later,we went to gather

the wild plum.I cannot say

that I have gone to hellfor your love

but oftenfound myself there

in your pursuit.I do not like it

and wanted to bein heaven. Hear me

out. Do not turn away. ENGL 3370: Modern

American Poetry


BOOK II have learned much in my life

from booksand out of them

about love.Death

is not the end of it.There is a hierarchy

which can be attained,I think,

in its service.Its guerdon

is a fairy flower;a cat of twenty lives.

If no one came to try itthe world

would be the loser.It has been

for you and meENGL 3370: Modern American Poetry


BOOK Ias one who watches a storm

come in over the water.We have stood

from year to yearbefore the spectacle of our lives

with joined hands.The storm unfolds.

Lightningplays about the

edges of the cloudsThe sky to the north

is placid,blue in the afterglow

as the storm piles up.It is a flower

that will soon reachthe apex of its bloom.

We danced,in our minds,



BOOK Iand read a book together.

You remember?It was a serious

book.And so books

entered our lives.The sea! The sea!

Alwayswhen I think of the

seathere comes to mind

the Iliadand Helen's public

faultthat bred it.

Were it not for thatthere would have

beenno poem but the world

if we had remembered,those crimson petals



BOOK Ispilled among the stones,

would have called it simplymurder.

The sexual orchid that bloomed thensending so many

disinterestedmen to their graves

has left its memoryto a race of fools

or heroesif silence is a virtue.

The sea alonewith its multiplicity

holds any hope.The storm

has proven abortivebut we remain

after the thoughts it roused



BOOK Ito

re-cement our lives.It is the mind

the mindthat must be cured

short of death'sintervention,

and the will becomes againa garden. The poem

is complex and the place madein our lives

for the poem.Silence can be complex too,

but you do not get farwith silence.

Begin again.It is like Homer's

catalogue of ships:ENGL 3370: Modern American Poetry


BOOK Iit fills up the time.

I speak in figures,well enough, the

dressesyou wear are figures also,

we could not meetotherwise. When I

speakof flowers

it is to recallthat at one time

we were young.All women are not Helen,

I know that,but have Helen in their hearts.

My sweet,you have it also,

thereforeI love you

and could not love you otherwise. . . .Imagine you saw



BOOK IA field made up of women

all silver-whiteWhat should you do

but love thm?The storm bursts

or fades! It is notThe end of the world.

Love is something else,or so thought it,

A garden which expandsthough I knew you as a woman

and never thought you otherwise,Until the whole sea

has been taken upand all its gardens



BOOK IIt was the love of love,

the love that swallows up all else,a grateful love,

A love of nature, of people,animals,

a love engenderingGentleness and goodness

that moved meand that I saw in

you.I should have known

though I did not,that the lily-of-the-valley

is a flower makes many ill who whiff it.

We had our children,



BOOK Irivals in the general onslaught.

I put them asidethough I cared for

themas well as any man

could care for his childrenaccording to my

lights.You understand

I had to meet youafter the event

and have still to meet you. Love

to which you too shall bowalong with me—

a flowera weakest flower



BOOK I

shall be our trust and not because we are too feebleto do otherwise but because at the height of my powerI risked what I had to do, therefore to prove that we love each otherwhile my very bones sweated that I could not cry to you in the act.



BOOK IOf asphodel, that greeny flower,

I come, my sweet,to sing to you!

My heart rousesthinking to bring you news

of somethingthat concerns you

and concerns many men. Look atwhat passes for the

new.You will not find it there but in

despised poems.It is difficult

to get the news from poemsyet men die miserably every day

for lackof what is found there.

Hear me outfor I too am

concerned



BOOK Iand every man

who wants to die at peace in his bedbesides.



BOOK II . . .The poem

if it reflects the seareflects only

its danceupon that profound depth

whereit seems to triumph.

The bomb puts an endto all that.

I am remindedthat the bomb

alsois a flower

dedicatedhowbeit

to our destruction.ENGL 3370: Modern

American Poetry


BOOK II (ctd.)The mere picture

of the exploding bombfascinates us

so that we cannot waitto prostrate ourselves

before it. We do not believethat love

can so wreck our lives.The end

will comein its time.

Meanwhilewe are sick to death

of the bomband its childlike

insistence.Death is no answer,

no answer— ENGL 3370: Modern American Poetry


BOOK II (ctd.)to a blind old man

whose boneshave the movement

of the sea,a sexless old man

for whom it is a seaof which his verses

are made up.There is no power

so great as lovewhich is a sea,

which is a garden—as enduring

as the versesof that blind old man

destinedto live forever.



BOOK II (ctd.)

Few men believe thatnor in the games of children.

They believe ratherin the bomb

and shall die bythe bomb. . . .



BOOK III

What power has love but forgiveness?In other words

by its interventionwhat has been done

can be undone.What good is it

otherwise?Because of this

I have invoked the flowerin that

frail as it isafter winter's harshness

it comes againto delect us.

Asphodel, the ancients believed,in hell's despite

was such a flower. ENGL 3370: Modern American Poetry


BOOK III (ctd.)

With daisies piedand violets blue,

we say, the spring of the yearcomes in!

So may it bewith the spring of love's year

alsoif we can but find

the secret wordto transform it.

It is ridiculouswhat airs we put on

to seem profoundwhile our hearts

gasp dyingfor want of love.



BOOK III (ctd.)

Having your loveI was rich.

Thinking to have lost itI am tortured

and cannot rest.I do not come to you

abjectlywith confessions of my faults,

I have confessed,all of them.

In the name of loveI come proudly

as to an equalto be forgiven.



BOOK III (ctd.)

Let me, for I knowyou take it hard,

with good reason,give the steps

if it may beby which you shall mount,

again to think wellof me. . . .

Sweet, creep into my arms!I spoke hurriedly

in the spellof some wry impulse

when I boastedthat there was

any pride left in me.Do not believe it. ENGL 3370: Modern

American Poetry


BOOK III (ctd.)Unless

in a special way,a way I shrink to speak of

I am proud. After that mannerI call on you

as I do on myself the sameto forgive all women

who have offended you.It is the artist's failing

to seek and to yieldsuch forgiveness.

It will cure us both. . . .

There are many other flowersI could recall

for your pleasure:the small yellow sweet-scented violet

that grewin marshy places!



BOOK III (ctd.)

You were like thosethough I quickly

correct myselffor you were a woman

and no flowerand had to face

the problems which confront a woman.But you were for all that

flowerlikeand I say this to you now

and it is the thingwhich compounded

my tormentthat I never

forgot it.You have forgiven me

making me new again. ENGL 3370: Modern American Poetry


BOOK III (ctd.)

So that herein the place

dedicated in the imaginationto memory

of the deadI bring you

a last flower. Don't thinkthat because I say this

in a poemit can be treated

lightlyor that the facts will not uphold it.

Are facts not flowersand flowers facts

or poems flowersor all works of the imagination,

interchangeable?ENGL 3370: Modern

American Poetry


BOOK III (ctd.)

Which provesthat love

rules them all, for thenyou will be my queen,

my queen of loveforever more.



CODAInseparable from the fire

its lighttakes precedence

over it.Then follows

what we have dreaded—but it can never

overcome what has gone before.In the huge gap

between the flashand the thunderstroke

spring has come inor a deep snow

fallen.Call it old age.

In that stretchwe have lived to see



CODA (ctd.)a colt kick up his heels.

Do not hastenlaugh and play

in an eternitythe heat will not overtake the light.

That's sure.That gelds the bomb,

permittingthat the mind

contain it.This is that interval,

that sweetest interval,when love will

blossom,come early, come late

and give itself to the lover.Only the imagination is real!

I have declared ittime without end.



CODA (ctd.)If a man die

it is because deathhas first

possessed his imagination.But if he refuse death—

no greater evilcan befall him

unless it be the death of lovemeet him

in full career.Then indeed

for himthe light has gone out.But love and the imagination

are of a piece,swift as the light

to avoid destruction.ENGL 3370: Modern

American Poetry


CODA (ctd.)So we come to watch time’s flight

As we might watchSummer lightning

or fireflies, secure,by grace of the

imaginationsafe in its care.

For ifthe light itself

has escaped,the whole edifice opposed to it

goes down.Light, the imagination

and love,in our age,

by natural law,which we worship,

maintainall of a piece

their dominance.



CODA (ctd.)So let us love

confident as is the lightIn its struggle with

darknessThat there is as much to say

and morefor the one side

and that not the darkerwhich John Donne

for instanceamong many men

presents to us.In the controversy

touching the youngerand the older Tolstoi,

Villon, St. Anthony, Kung,Rimbaud, Buddha

and Abraham Lincolnthe palm goes



CODA (ctd.)always to the light;

Who most shall advance the light—Call it what you may!

The lightfor all time shall outspeed

the thunder crack.Medieval pageantry

is human and we enjoythe rumor of it

as in our world we enjoythe reading of Chaucer,

likewisea priest's raiment

(or that of a savage chieftain).It is all

a celebration of the light.All the pomp and ceremony

of weddings,ENGL 3370: Modern American Poetry


CODA (ctd.)“Sweet Thames, run softly

till I end my song,”—Are of an equal sort.

For our wedding, too,the light was wakened

and shone. The light!the light stood before us

waiting!I thought the world

stood still.At the altar

so intent was Ibefore my vows,

so moved by your presencea girl so pale

and ready to faintthat I pitied

and wanted to protect you.



CODA (ctd.)As I think of it now,

after a lifetime,it is as if

a sweet-scented flowerwere poised

and for me did open.Asphodel

has no odorsave to the

imaginationbut it too

celebrates the light.It is late

but an odoras from our wedding

has revived for meand begun again to penetrate

into all crevicesof my world.


william carlos williams (1882-1963)

Documents

modern american poetrybut

william carlos williamsthis

early williams poem

williams grandmotherthe

paterson engl

silent engl

red wheelbarrow

walking devil of modern