Sonnet in Seach of an Author (William Carlos Williams)

I'd never heard of this poem by William Carlos Williams. My loss. I like it rather a lot.

It tells of a scene - two nudes under a tree and then lists, in building intensity, how each object that he filled his scene with in the first half of the poem can be described with the same word. To continue, the same word, but each telling brings to mind a different description. The odor of  pine needles is distinct from the odor of a man. The reader brings their own knowledge, their own interpretation to fill in the scene.

This poem, which in its title admits how it it searching for an author, makes each reader that missing one. Does that make this poem an ars poetica? Or an ars all-of-writing-ica?

God, I think I love this poem.

Favorite line: "a sonnet might be made of it"

Marriage (William Carlos Williams)

A short poem by William Carlos Williams.

It's a metephor, I suppose. Or a math equation. Marriage = man + woman = stream + field.

Both man and woman are unique individuals as a stream and field are unique entities, but both are needed to complete the scene, to make a marriage.

This poem seems fine, but also seems lazy.  I don't feel deeply as I read. I am not inspired by unique descriptors. Dunno, seems kind of dull to me.

Favorite line: "so different, this man"

So different, this man

This Is Just To Say (William Carlos Williams)

Continuing the food theme, today's is This Is Just To Say by William Carlos Williams which talks about plums (a gorgeous, delicious fruit).

It's short and sweet and tartly funny (eh, just like a plum - sweet/tart??). The language is plain and basic. It almost reads like a hand written note instead of a polished poem.

Its confessional tone is endearing and forgiveness is automatic. How could you be mad at someone who has such a child-like response to beauty? 'I had to have them - they were so meant to eaten, so perfect and so beautiful ('so sweet and so cold')'.

Favorite line: "Forgive me / they were delicious"

Forgive me they were delicious

Danse Russe (William Carlos Williams)

Another William Carlos Williams' poem: Danse Russe.

What I like about this poem is that it makes the unusual seems normal, explainable. Why is N dancing naked about the room? What does it matter? All other members of the house are asleep, it's N's secret. The poem is a shared secret. Huh. Not that N needs our ears. N is perfectly content with his actions and his conclusion: "Who shall say I am not/the happy genius of my household?" Of course he is, there is no space for rebuttal or response, the poem ends immediately after asking the question.

Favorite line: "if I in my north room/dance naked, grotesquely/before my mirror"

This Is Just To Say (William Carlos Williams)

Sure, I like this poem, but really I love the poem that is a variation on this theme, that I will hopefully find and talk about tomorrow. But before I get to that one, I must talk about this original. I think I like William Carlos Williams because he boils down big, big ideas into a single example using concrete language.

What I love about this poem is that it is so simple. It seems as though this was the hastily written apology scribbled on scratch paper--perhaps the back of a receipt--and stuck to the front of the fridge. But in that haste, poetry emerges: "so sweet/and so cold".

It starts with a single fact. The plums that were there have been taken. N imagines the owner's intentions regarding the fruits. "and which/you were probably/saving for breakfast". N then describes why he has taken the plums. "Forgive me/they were delicious". He talks about how they filled a sense within him. "so sweet/and so cold"

Okay, so expand-->Things happen. Writers imagine how things came to be. Writers then act themselves; they write to fill a void either in themselves or in their world. All three of those together equal a poem. Or a story. Or a novel. Any act of creation, I'd think.

Favorite line: "Forgive me/they were delicious/so sweet/and so cold"

The Dance (William Carlos Williams)

On a bit of a WCW kick. Today's poem is The Dance.

It's a technically neat poem. I don't see a meter (but I tend to be bad at that kind of thing), but it does have a dance-like rhythm. It also has, of course, the same line for the opening and the close of this twelve liner. Neat-o.

And maybe since I have never seen the painting, The Kermess, in real life, I have no real connection to this poem. I can like it for its technical merit, but I stop soon after that. I get no deep meaning, nothing applicable to all. Ah well. It's better to admire something for what it sets out to do than to look for what it doesn't strive to contain.

Favorite line: "the squeal and the blare and the/tweedle of bagpipes, a bugle and fiddles/tipping their bellies"

The Red Wheelbarrow (William Carlos Williams)

Can you tell that I like short poems? That I am often so tired that talking through the density of a many-stanza-ed verse is daunting. Given time I may feel more rested and willing to take on a lengthy poem, but today is not that day. Today is for a poem that I remember talking about in high school. Today's poem is by William Carlos Williams.

What I remember saying in that English class is that this poem is pretty nifty since each line is not a complete thought. You need the whole stanza (or even a couple stanzas) for any of the words to make any sense or to paint any kind of picture. Sure, whatever, it all depends on the red wheelbarrow, but the poem always depends on the following line. Everything is dependent on that that is coming up next, the unforeseen. It all matters.

Favorite line: "so much depends/upon/a red wheel/barrow"