Monday, May 30, 2022

Selected Poems by William Carlos Williams

Source of book: I own this

 

I picked up several American Poetry Project hardcovers (in small format) at library sales before Covid, and this is one of them. Robert Pinsky, one of my favorite poet sorts of modern times, selected the poems from throughout WCW’s career, including the late period in the 1960s, which isn’t as well known. I previously blogged about his early poems, from a paperback from Dover Publications. 

 

It was difficult to narrow down the poems for this post, although I also posted a few on facebook, so they could be savored by my poetically inclined friends. I discussed WCW’s biography in my previous writeup, so, except for some background to a biographical poem (see below), I will assume that the reader is familiar with his life. I find writers who had other jobs to be fascinating - maybe because I moonlight as a non-professional blogger while working a day job. But also, because life experience matters in writing, and outside experiences can inform art better than ensconcement in academia, in my experience. Frost had his farm, Dickinson her nature, and Larkin his library. 

 

These are the ones I liked best this time around. Let’s start with an astronomy-based one. 

 

Peace on Earth

 

The Archer is wake!

The Swan is flying!

Gold against blue

An Arrow is lying.

There is hunting in heaven—

Sleep safe till tomorrow.

 

The Bears are abroad!

The Eagle is screaming!

Gold against blue

Their eyes are gleaming!

Sleep!

Sleep safe till tomorrow.

 

The Sisters lie

With their arms intertwining;

Gold against blue

Their hair is shining!

The Serpent writhes!

Orion is listening!

Gold against blue

His sword is glistening!

Sleep!

There is hunting in heaven—

Sleep safe till tomorrow.

 

A number of friends found the line “gold against blue” particularly meaningful in light of the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. 

 

Also very much on point for our times is this early poem. 

 

Pastoral

 

When I was younger

it was plain to me

I must make something of myself.

Older now

I walk back streets

admiring the houses

of the very poor:

roof out of line with sides

the yards cluttered

with old chicken wire, ashes,

furniture gone wrong;

the fences and outhouses

built of barrel staves

and parts of boxes, all,

if I am fortunate,

smeared a bluish green

that properly weathered

pleases me best of all colors

 

               No one

will believe this

of vast import to the nation.

 

The “rat race” is turning on itself for my children’s generation, and I am seeing a renewed sense of common humanity, even as many of my parents’ generation wail about the change. 

 

I mentioned earlier a biographical poem. This one was written as a tribute to WCW’s grandmother, who was an important part of his life. It is an immigrant story, a messy personal story, and profoundly human. One of his best. 

 

Dedication for a Plot of Ground

 

This plot of ground

facing the waters of this inlet

is dedicated to the living presence of

Emily Dickinson Wellcome

who was born in England; married;

lost her husband and with

her five year old son

sailed for New York in a two-master;

was driven to the Azores;

ran adrift on Fire Island shoal,

met her second husband

in a Brooklyn boarding house,

went with him to Puerto Rico

bore three more children, lost

her second husband, lived hard

for eight years in St. Thomas,

Puerto Rico, San Domingo, followed

the oldest son to New York,

lost her daughter, lost her "baby,"

seized the two boys of

the oldest son by the second marriage

mothered them—they being

motherless—fought for them

against the other grandmother

and the aunts, brought them here

summer after summer, defended

herself here against thieves,

storms, sun, fire,

against flies, against girls

that came smelling about, against

drought, against weeds, storm-tides,

neighbors, weasels that stole her chickens,

against the weakness of her own hands,

against the growing strength of

the boys, against wind, against

the stones, against trespassers,

against rents, against her own mind.

 

She grubbed this earth with her own hands,

domineered over this grass plot,

blackguarded her oldest son

into buying it, lived here fifteen years,

attained a final loneliness and—

 

If you can bring nothing to this place

but your carcass, keep out.

 

I am a sucker for a well-turned nature poem, so I had to include this one. 

 

Willow Poem

 

It is a willow when summer is over,

a willow by the river

from which no leaf has fallen nor

bitten by the sun

turned orange or crimson.

The leaves cling and grow paler,

swing and grow paler

over the swirling waters of the river

as if loath to let go,

they are so cool, so drunk with

the swirl of the wind and of the river—

oblivious to winter,

the last to let go and fall

into the water and on the ground.

 

Oh, and a poem with a great musical metaphor. 

 

January

 

Again I reply to the triple winds

running chromatic fifths of derision

outside my window:

                                  Play louder.

You will not succeed. I am

bound more to my sentences

the more you batter at me

to follow you.

                                  And the wind,

as before, fingers perfectly

its derisive music.

 

“Chromatic fifths of derision.” That’s wonderful. 

 

There are a number of longer poems, and poem cycles, some of which are quoted in full, and others of which are given in excerpts. I loved “January Morning,” for example, but couldn’t decide what to quote. “Spring and All” was another, but I decided for that one to quote this passage: 

 

By the road to the contagious hospital

under the surge of the blue

mottled clouds driven from the

northeast-a cold wind. Beyond, the

waste of broad, muddy fields

brown with dried weeds, standing and fallen

 

patches of standing water

the scattering of tall trees

 

All along the road the reddish

purplish, forked, upstanding, twiggy

stuff of bushes and small trees

with dead, brown leaves under them

leafless vines—

 

Lifeless in appearance, sluggish

dazed spring approaches—

 

They enter the new world naked,

cold, uncertain of all

save that they enter. All about them

the cold, familiar wind—

 

Now the grass, tomorrow

the stiff curl of wildcarrot leaf

 

One by one objects are defined—

It quickens: clarity, outline of leaf

But now the stark dignity of

entrance—Still, the profound change

has come upon them: rooted, they

grip down and begin to awaken

 

That is a really amazing description of spring, and of awakening of plant life after winter. At his best, WCW makes language sparkle and dance. Here is a shorter one that I love. 

 

My Luv

 

My luv

is like

greenclass

insulator 

on

A blue sky.

 

I also love those old insulators.

A greenglass insulator on a blue sky. 
Pipe Spring National Monument, 2014 (picture by me)

On a much darker note, this poem has stayed with me. It is hard to be sure of the intended meaning. Was the deceased a horrible person? Or is death so horrible it taints the body and even the memory of the departed? Or both? 

 

Death

 

He's dead

the dog won't have to

sleep on his potatoes

any more to keep them

from freezing

 

he's dead

the old bastard—

He's a bastard because

 

there's nothing

legitimate in him any

more

           he's dead

He's sick dead

 

                         he's

a godforsaken curio

without

any breath in it

 

He's nothing at all

              he's dead

shrunken up to the skin

 

            Put his head on

one chair and his

feet on another and

he'll lie there

like an acrobat—

 

Love's beaten. He

beat it. That's why

he's insufferable—

 

            because

he's here needing a

shave and making love

an inside howl

of anguish and defeat—

 

He's come out of the man

and he's let

the man go—

                  the liar

 

Dead

       his eyes

rolled up out of

the light—a mockery

 

                                   which

love cannot touch—

 

just bury it

and hide its face

for shame.

 

Also dark is this poem, which seems both a prelude and counterpart to “Spring and All,” but also connects with “death.” Winter as death, but winter also as a metaphor for humankind’s stupidity - and perhaps war in particular. Stupidity and death as flip sides of the same coin, ignorance and obscurity, intellectual and physical death. 

 

These

 

are the desolate, dark weeks

when nature in its barrenness

equals the stupidity of man.

 

The year plunges into night

and the heart plunges

lower than night

 

to an empty, windswept place

without sun, stars or moon

but a peculiar light as of thought

 

that spins a dark fire –

whirling upon itself until,

in the cold, it kindles

 

to make a man aware of nothing

that he knows, not loneliness

itself – Not a ghost but

 

would be embraced – emptiness,

despair – (They

whine and whistle) among

 

the flashes and booms of war;

houses of whose rooms

the cold is greater than can be thought,

 

the people gone that we loved,

the beds lying empty, the couches

damp, the chairs unused –

 

Hide it away somewhere

out of the mind, let it get roots

and grow, unrelated to jealous

 

ears and eyes – for itself.

In this mine they come to dig – all.

Is this the counterfoil to sweetest

 

music? The source of poetry that

seeing the clock stopped, says,

The clock has stopped

 

that ticked yesterday so well?

and hears the sound of lakewater

splashing – that is now stone.

 

A lot of the poems use a three line stanza. Sometimes, the breaks feel natural. In others, like the one above, they contribute to a certain emphasis, but break lines and sometimes full thoughts. It is a fascinating technique. In the hands of Williams, the result is often breathtaking, although it is too often imitated badly by lesser poets. Here is another example of that stanza form. 

 

River Rhyme

 

The rumpled river

takes its course

lashed by rain

 

This is that now

that tortures 

skeletons of weeds

 

and muddy waters

eat their

banks the drain

 

of swamps a bulk

that writhes and fat-

tens as it speeds.

 

Also of interest in this poem is the way that the poem - like the river - starts out in a normal course, then increasingly breaks its bounds. The first stanza is self contained. Then, the next break comes in the middle of a sentence, but between two thoughts. But then, the break is in the middle of the thought, and a line breaks in the middle of a word. All the banks are overrun by the end. 

 

This next one contains perhaps the most famous line WCW wrote - although I doubt many know it was he that said “No ideas but in things.” At best, a few recollect it being a sort of motto for the imagists. In context, it is a devastating line. 

 

A Sort of a Song

 

Let the snake wait under

his weed

and the writing

be of words, slow and quick, sharp

to strike, quiet to wait,

Sleepless.

 

— through metaphor to reconcile

the people and the stones.

Compose. (No ideas

but in things) Invent!

Saxifrage is my flower that splits

the rocks.

 

While the various species of Saxifraga are widespread, I am most familiar with one that literally breaks the granite of the Sierra Nevada. WCW moves from the patient snake that strikes suddenly to the humble and fragile weed that works for centuries at splitting the ageless rocks to the idea of words carefully planned and metaphors carefully chosen to strike and fracture the psyche. I love it. 

 

I was also surprised to find that I enjoyed the later poems quite a bit. For many poets, the early poems make the reputation, and the later ones are either mailed in or not as revolutionary, or perhaps they are good but the world and style has moved on. It is, in some ways, a curse for an artist to live to an old age. However, I find that often the later works are as good, just not as revolutionary. In any case, the ones that follow are mostly from the last couple decades of Williams’ life. 

 

A Woman in Front of a Bank

 

The bank is a matter of columns,

like . convention,

unlike invention; but the pediments

sit there in the sun

 

to convince the doubting of

investments “solid

as a rock” —-upon which the world

stands, the world of finance,

 

the only world: Just there,

talking with another woman while

rocking a baby carriage

back and forth stands a woman in

 

a pink cotton dress, bare legged

and headed whose legs

are two columns to hold up

her face, like Lenin’s (her loosely

 

arranged hair profusely blond) or

Darwin’s and there you

have it:

a woman in front of a bank.

 

I am reminded of the way most of our media talk as if the stock market and “the economy” were the same thing. Williams reminds us that there are other ways of thinking, and in the long run, systems of finance are far less important than the real source of wealth: human labor and caretaking. And note the period between “like” and “convention.” That is intentional, and a way of showing the columns.

 

I want to mention “Asphodel, That Greeny Flower,” a long poem only part of which (but still a dozen pages) is quoted in this collection. Asphodel is, of course, a classical symbol of the afterlife, and peace after death. There are an abundance of great lines, and I recommend reading the whole thing. The poem was written during a period of trouble for the poet. He suffered a heart attack and a series of strokes, leading to increasingly poor - and precarious - health. He was also jerked around regarding a job, because of the McCarthy Era witch hunts against “communists” - he was suspected of being one, whatever that meant at the time. Oh, and he became so depressed he had to have in-patient psychiatric treatment. This poem was the result of this turmoil, and also of his determination to come clean to his long-suffering wife about his many past infidelities. It is unknown exactly how she took all of this, but in any case, the poem, with her at its center, has come to be considered one of his greatest late works. I wanted to mention a few lines. 

 

We lived long together

    a life filled,

        if you will,

with flowers. So that

    I was cheered

        when I came first to know

that there were flowers also

    in hell.

 

And this one:

 

I cannot say

    that I have gone to hell 

            for your love

but often

    found myself there

        in your pursuit.

 

I will end with an excerpt from a cycle in his last collection. Entitled “Pictures from Brueghel,” it gives poetic descriptions of certain famous paintings by that old master. I could pick any of them, but I think I will go with “Self Portrait,” because instead of the most famous painting of that name, WCW chooses a lesser known picture that I think is fabulous. Rather than show the serious painter, it portrays a jolly old man, full of good spirits. 

 

In a red winter hat blue

eyes smiling

just the head and shoulders

 

crowded on the canvas

arms folded one

big ear the right showing

 

the face slightly tilted

a heavy wool coat

with broad buttons

 

gathered at the neck reveals

a bulbous nose

but the eyes red-rimmed

 

from over-use he must have

driven them hard

but the delicate wrists

 

show him to have been a

man unused to

manual labor unshaved his

 

blond beard half trimmed

no time for any-

thing but his painting 

 


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