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.

Williams and Modern Art

During his time in New York City (about 1906-1910), Williams became friends with the avant-garde modern artists Francis Picabia and Marcel Duchamp. Around this time he got to know the Dadaist movement. That is why many of his earlier poems are influenced by Dadaist and Surrealist principles.

Related Topics:
New York City - Avant-garde - Francis Picabia - Marcel Duchamp - Dadaist - Surrealist

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In general, he found modern art very inspiring. Just like Marcel Duchamp with his ?objets trouvés?, he started experimenting with montage and other modern art techniques. Duchamps, for example, showed the formal properties of a urinal or a bicycle wheel by their displacement and by renaming them (He called the urinal "Fountain").

Related Topics:
Modern art - Marcel Duchamp - Objets trouvés - Montage

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Some modernist artists also modelled objects of everyday life as wireframes that just showed their form, but took away their traditional use by using wire as material.

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In this tradition, Williams displaced everyday language, showing that all language is poetic. He took unchanged fragments of everyday language out of their original context and reassembled them into a poem. He made these fragments poetic and in the same moment he took away their original use; what remained was a hollow "wireframe" that was filled with new poetic properties.

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WCW did not choose his phrases "trouvés" randomly or by accident. He wanted to show that things which before had been seen as not poetic by traditionalists do have certain poetic qualities i.e., a list of ice cream flavors, advertising slogans or a grocery list:

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"2 partridges

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2 Mallard ducks

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a Dungeness crab

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24 hours out

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of the Pacific

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and 2 live-frozen

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trout

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from Denmark"

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(Williams, Collected Poems 2, 208-09)

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Here again one of Williams aims is to show the truly American (opposed to European traditions) rhythm which is unnoticed but present in everyday American language.

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For the frontispiece of his Kora in Hell, Williams used a picture by modern artist Stuart Davis (1894-1964).

Related Topics:
Kora in Hell - Stuart Davis

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Williams even was involved in the "Armory Show" in 1913 (read the link). He was part of a group of artists called Others. They gathered in his house in April of 1916.http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jconte/Images/Others.gif

Related Topics:
Armory Show - 1913 - Others - 1916

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See also the external link on Williams and the visual arts and on the armory show at the bottom of the page.

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