I Wanted to Write a Poem: The Autobiography of the Works of a Poet

Some of you might know Williams for his "Red Wheelbarrow" poem. Others of you might know his poem "Paterson", an epic about the New Jersey city. Even if you don't know Williams' work, this is necessary reading, as "I Wanted..." showcases an artist at the tail end of his career documenting his artistic evolution by commenting on everything he has ever published. And indeed, there is much to document. But despite his prolificness -- rarely did a year go by without Williams producing a volume -- Williams was not a figure in the popular consciousness for the first few decades of his career. Time and again through the book, he comments on his lack of exposure, his small print runs, and his feeling of laboring in the shadows of TS Eliot and his acolytes. Perhaps due to not having the classical grounding of Eliot and Pound, Williams worked within his own "limitations" to forge a conversational style that takes the Whitman legacy and builds on it.I recommend this book to those of you who want to write serious work, or to simply understand the lifetime's apprenticeship that goes into serious work being created. Not surprisingly, by the way, I recovered this volume from a library discard pile, which only goes to show one more example of a society too willing to discard quiet works of grace for corporate billboards in the detention halls that double as public schools.