William Carlos Williams

William Carlos Williams (sometimes known as WCW) (September 17, 1883 – March 4, 1963), was an American poet closely associated with Modernism. He was particularly concerned with developing poetry in a recognizably American idiom.

Style

Williams is best known for his poem The Red Wheelbarrow, which is considered the model example of the Imagist movement's style and principles (see also This Is Just To Say). He also coined the Imagist motto "no ideas but in things." However, Williams did not personally subscribe to Imagist ideas, which were more a product of Ezra Pound and H.D.. Williams is more strongly associated with the American Modernist movement in literature, which rejected European influences in poetry in favor of regional dialogues and influences. In particular, his call for more regionalism in American literature came on the heels of his brief collaboration with Ezra Pound in editing an early draft of T.S. Eliot's epic poem The Waste Land. T.S. Eliot's poem exemplified what Williams disliked about European influences on American poetics.

Related Topics:
The Red Wheelbarrow - Imagist - This Is Just To Say - Ezra Pound - H.D. - Modernist - T.S. Eliot's - The Waste Land

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Williams simplified the mystery of what makes good poetry when he said: "If it's not a pleasure, it's not a poem."

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Meter and Form

Williams disagreed with the values proclaimed in the works of Pound and especially Eliot. He felt both were too attached to European culture and traditions. Continuing to experiment with new techniques of meter and lineation, Williams tried to invent an entirely fresh form, an American form of poetry whose subject matter was centered on everyday circumstances of life and the lives of common people.

Related Topics:
Pound - Eliot - Meter - Lineation

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Variable Foot

The concept of the variable foot evolved from years of visual and auditory sampling of his world from the first person perspective as a part of the day in the life as a physician. The variable foot is rooted within the multi-faceted American Idiom. This discovery was a part of WCW's keen observation of how radio and newspaper influenced how people communicated and represents the "machine of words" (as he decribed a poem on one occasion) just as the mechanistic motions of a city can become a consciousness.

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Williams usually uses a kind of organic rhythm i.e., the poem is shaped to reflect the movement of thought, speech, or action in the poem. Therefore, WCW didn?t use traditional meter in most of his poems.

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Williams often referred to the convergence of his profession as physician and poet as the badge that allowed him into the underbelly of humanity, and the route of discovery of these various rhythms. His correspondence with Hilda Doolittle (H.D.) also exposed him to the relationship of sapphic rhythms to the inner voice of poetic truth:

Related Topics:
Rhythms - Hilda Doolittle - H.D. - Sapphic rhythms

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"Asteres men amphi kalan selannan

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aps' apukpuptoisi faenon eithos

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oppota plithoisa malista lampsi

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gan epi paisan"

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"The stars about the beautiful moon again hide their radiant shapes, when she is full and shines at her brightest on all the earth" Sappho.

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This is to be contrasted with a poem from "Pictures from Brueghel" titled Shadows:

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"Shadows cast by the street light

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under the stars,

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the head is tilted back,

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the long shadow of the legs

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presumes a world taken for granted

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on which the cricket trills"

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The breaks in the poem search out a natural pause spoken in the American idiom, that is also reflective of rhythms found within jazz sounds that also touch upon Sapphic harmony.

Related Topics:
Rhythms - Jazz - Sapphic

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Though readers are still able to sense a certain rhythm they are often aided by the visual appearance of the poems. The rhythm exists but is invisible to the reader. It is not trapped in an artificial structure (e.g. iambic pentameter).

Related Topics:
Rhythm - Iambic pentameter

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?Triadic? / ?Stepped line??

WCW never stopped searching for the perfect line. He experimented with different types of lines and eventually found the ?triadic? or ?stepped line??, a long line which is divided into three segments. This line is used in Paterson and in poems like ?To Elsie?. After some time he decided that he had to move on and didn?t use this concept anymore

Related Topics:
Triadic - Stepped line - Paterson

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Example: "Sunday in the Park"

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From Paterson Vol. II

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"Outside

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outside myself

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there is a world,

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he rumbled, subject to my incursions

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?a world

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(to me) at rest,

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which I approach

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concretely?"

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Here Dr. Paterson walks through the park of the city and thinks about poetic methods. The triadic follows the breathing of the poet and his steps through the park (maybe the park even is hilly, so the steps in the line would resemble his steps down a hill) and the inner movement of the poem.

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?No ideas but in things?

While he disliked Ezra Pound's and especially T.S. Eliot's (see The Waste Land) frequent use of allusions to foreign languages, religion, history or art, Williams drew his themes from what he called "the local."

Related Topics:
Ezra Pound - T.S. Eliot - The Waste Land - Allusions

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In this context he also coined the expression "No ideas but in things", his famous summation of his poetic method. What he meant is that poets should leave traditional poetic forms and unnecessary literaty allusions aside and try to see the world through the eyes of an ordinary person.

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According to Williams, a poet must write about "things with which he is familiar, simple things - at the same time to detach them from ordinary experience to the imagination" (Williams, The Autobiography, 197), to put it in other words: "Write about what you know." His work as a physician in a rural town helped him in many ways: He could draw from his patients' conversations when they came to see him; he had access to many different households when he visited patients on house-calls; and his environment contained many scenes of nature, ranging from the beginning life of a plant to decaying pieces of metal. Since the industrial city of Paterson was nearby, he could also draw from industrial themes.

Related Topics:
Industrial city - Paterson - Industrial

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