William Carlos Williams: Selected Poems: (American Poets Project #14)

Looking like an unassuming college professor or a local pharmacist in all the photos that you'll ever see, William Carlos Williams was a man who was touched by genius, brilliance and even boldness. Here was a man who was surrounded by some of the great modern writers of his day and was beset on all sides by `New Modernists' and yet still had the strength not to acquiesce or cow-tow under the weight of the ivory tower grumblers. Becoming a literary great in his off time from being a General Practitioner was probably just a hobby for him that went further than he would've imagined. The New Modernists would struggle today to ignore someone like Williams, claiming a lack of form, meter and pacing. These people are all fools. If Bill Shakespeare were alive today he'd probably be writing haiku's with a sharpie on the bare bottoms of New York runway models at 3am - not policing writers to follow the iambic pentameter. In this book is a set of poems titled: Pictures from Brueghel (1962). All of these are poetic reflections upon Brueghel's paintings (with the h) and are all absolutely moving and thoughtful. These are some of my favourite poetic pieces from Western literature. I purchased this book in 2003 and have yet to remove it from my nightstand. William Carlos Williams delivers with a wry smile and a heavy shadow. As for the Red Wheelbarrow ... it never moved me either. Literally or figuratively.

You know the red wheelbarrow poem? The bloody dumb red wheelbarrow beside those idiot white chickens? Glistening in sunlight? The wheelbarrow, not the chickens. Glistening. Though if plucked and cooked for a good two hours at 275 degrees, the chickens are bound to glisten too. Fifteen years and many humbling events later, I can honestly say I've come around. Mr. Williams is an amazing and brilliant poet. I've even grown fond of The Red Wheelbarrow, mostly because it has remained a point of irritation and amusement. I guess it's like a little jazz riff of a poem. Williams' voice is said to be almost Cubist in language. Fractured. Yet the words recall simple things from rural life. Despite my initial dislike, The Red Wheelbarrow's a pretty good example of this. But it's his other poetry that I find really moving. I am reminded a bit of Steinbeck in his choice of images that are at times harsh and other times comforting. Just as Steinbeck was a very American author, Williams Carlos Williams is a very American poet. Politically liberal and Unitarian, Williams practiced medicine as a pediatrician and delivered over 2,000 babies in his lifetime. It seems bizarre to think that this very busy doctor, who actually visited his patients in home (complete with leather bag), had a succesful literary career and keen and discerning interest in poetry of a modern bent. Williams wrote in the evenings after work and on the weekends. The image of the in-call doctor is so old-fashioned. A good juxtaposition with his writing style.

In my poetry class we had this big discussion about Red Wheelbarrow and how it has a lot more going for it than meets the eye. Something with the etemology of "wheelbarrow" and the way he separates it in the second stanza.That said, the poem taken at face value is, as many of WCW's poems are, a simple, beautiful image. The stark contrast of the red wheelbarrow and white chickens on a gray rainy day instantly paints a picture in my mind. WCW had a lot of new ideas (at the time) of how poems should be written and what they should accomplish. He can write the most simple, poignant verse about a flower that on a closer examination turns out to be about atom bombs. He is a very accessible poet--even for those unitiated with this seemingly scary world--and yet offers so much for those who wish to analyze.