William Carlos Williams/Selected Poems
New Directions, 1968
See Also
Reznikoff, Complete Poems;
Thursday 26 May 2011
Someone please tell me the big deal about WCW, I’m halfway through this book and am not astounded, inspired, driven to write in response to his written responses. He doesn’t affect me the way Cardenal has, or Reznikoff, and Sanders…
Go home from Blue-Eye, if the tornadoes don’t kill me, and look up the section (encomium) on WCW in Allen’s Deliberate Prose.
Follow-up
Norton Anthology of Poetry: read WCW section
Williams, Illuminations
Williams, Paterson
Poems to record and reread from this library copy (trying to save money)
Danse Russe, 5
Dedication for a Plot of Ground, 6-7
Smell, 11
Tract, 12-14
Pastoral, 15
The Widow’s Lament in Springtime, 17-18
The Lonely Street, 20
The Red Wheelbarrow, 30
To Mark Anthony in Heaven, 51
This Is Just to Say, 55
Proletarian Portrait, 63 [do Palestine portraits, like of H.]
To a Poor Old Woman, 67-68
A Coronal, 89
Impromptu: The Seekers, 96-98
To Ford Maddox Ford in Heaven, 107-108
A Sort of Song, 108-109
Franklin Square, 121
Choral: The Pink Church, 122-125
The Horse Show, 127-128
The Three Graces, 131
To Daphne and Virginia, 133-137
The Sparrow, 138-141
Asphodel, That Greeny Flower, 142-155
Shadows, 157-159
Parable of the Blind, 162-163
The High Bridge above the Tagus River at Toledo, 170-171
The Gift, 171-173
Writing Topics
LK in 7th grade, already out?
When I was 25 [for SMH]
How is Fraulein Rohlfing now?
Her despair for a month after coming home
Introduction by Randall Jarrell
The first thing one notices about Williams’ poetry is how radically sensational and perceptual it is: “Say it! No ideas but in things.” X
Williams knowledge of plants and animals, our brothers and sisters in the world, is surprising for its range and intensity… xii
Paterson = he half-discovered, half-invented
Williams: It isn’t what he says that counts as a work of art, it’s what he makes, with such intensity of perception that it lives with an intrinsic movement of its own to verify its authenticity. Xvi
The mosaic organization of imagism
Musical, thematic organization of longer poems xvi
No one has written more accomplished and successful free verse
Guide to Better Poems—
The Widow’s Lament in Springtime
The yachts
These
Burning the Christmas Greens
To Waken an Old Lady
