In Which We Appropriate The Doctor For His More Run of the Mill Works of Genius

 

The problem with academic criticism is that it reappropriates writers for whatever seems most convenient. William Carlos Williams is the easiest poet in the twentieth century. He fits every possible mask laid over his work–doctor, writer of color, American/New Jersey, innovator/anti T.S. Eliot figure, and, of course, total master. Since most of his best work was far more normal than something like Spring and All, popular among the experimenty kids (and rightly so), or Paterson, which wasn’t really all that great anyway, or the fucking red wheelbarrow and plums which were admittedly cute, the better stuff gets ignored. He was a tremendous seer, a person of extraordinary empathy, and a total master. Here’s three of my favorites from his Selected. 

The Mind Hesitant

by William Carlos Williams

Sometimes the river
becomes a river in the mind
or of the mind
or in and of the mind

Its banks snow
the tide falling a dark
rim lies between
the water and the shore

And the mind hesitant
regarding the stream
senses
a likeness which it

will find–a complex
image: something
of white brows
bound by a ribbon

of sooty thought
beyond, yes well beyond
the mobile features
of swiftly

flowing waters, before
the tide will
change
and rise again, maybe

“Beer Cans On The Ground” — The DoubleHappys

“All You Need is Hate” — The Delgados

Seafarer

by William Carlos Williams

The sea will wash in
but the rocks–jagged ribs
riding the cloth of foam
or a knob or pinnacles
with gannets
are the stubborn man.

He invites the storm, he
lives by it! instinct
with fears that are not fears
but prickles of ecstasy,
a secret liquor, a fire
that inflames his blood to
coldness so that the rocks
seem rather to leap
at the sea than the sea
to envelope them. They strain
forward to grasp ships
or even the sky itself that
bends down to be torn
upon them. To which he says,
It is I! I who am the rocks!
Without me nothing laughs.

The Lonely Street

by William Carlos Williams 

School is over. It is too hot
to walk at ease. At ease
in light frocks they walk the streets
to while the time away.
They have grown tall. They hold
pink flames in their right hands.
In white from head to foot
with sidelong, idle look–
in yellow, floating stuff,
black sash and stockings–
touching their avid mouths
with pink sugar on a stick
like a carnation each holds in her hand–
they mount the lonely street.