William Carlos Williams
Sourced
- One thing I am convinced more and more is true and that is this: the only way to be truly happy is to make others happy. When you realize that and take advantage of the fact, everything is made perfect.
- Letter to his mother, written from the University of Pennsylvania (12 February 1904), published in The Selected Letters of William Carlos Williams (1957) edited by John C. Thirlwall, p. 5
- To tell the truth, I myself never quite feel that I know what I am talking about — if I did, and when I do, the thing written seems nothing to me. However, what I do write and allow to survive I always feel is worth while and that nobody else has ever come as near as I have to the thing I have intimated if not expressed. To me it's a matter of first understanding that which may not be put to words. I might add more but to no purpose. In a sense, I must express myself, you're right, but always completely incomplete if that means anything.
- To Harriet Monroe (October 14 1913), published in The Selected Letters of William Carlos Williams (1957) edited by John C. Thirlwall, p. 26
- It's a strange world made up of disappointments for the most part.
I keep writing largely because I get a satisfaction from it which can't be duplicated elsewhere. It fills the moments which otherwise are either terrifying or depressed. Not that I live that way, work too quiets me. My chief dissatisfaction with myself at the moment is that I don't seem to be able to lose myself in what I have to do as I should like to.- Letter to Robert McAlmon (8 August 1943), published in The Selected Letters of William Carlos Williams (1957) edited by John C. Thirlwall, p. 216
- Why do we live? Most of us need the very thing we never ask for. We talk about revolution as if was peanuts. What we need is some frank thinking and a few revolutions in our own guts; to hell with what most of the sons of bitches that I know and myself along with them if I don't take hold of myself and turn about when I need to — or go ahead further if that's the game.
- Letter to Robert McAlmon (4 September 1943), published in The Selected Letters of William Carlos Williams (1957) edited by John C. Thirlwall, p. 217
- Poets are being pursued by the philosophers today, out of the poverty of philosophy. God damn it, you might think a man had no business to be writing, to be a poet unless some philosophic stinker gave him permission.
- Letter to James Laughlin (14 January 1944), published in The Selected Letters of William Carlos Williams (1957) edited by John C. Thirlwall, p. 219
- What is the use of reading the common news of the day, the tragic deaths and abuses of daily living, when for over half a lifetime we have known that they must have occurred just as they have occurred given the conditions that cause them? There is no light in it. It is trivial fill-gap. We know the plane will crash, the train be derailed. And we know why. No one cares, no one can care. We get the news and discount it, we are quite right in doing so. It is trivial. But the haunted news I get from some obscure patient's eyes is not trivial. It is profound.
- The Autobiography of William Carlos Williams (1951), Ch. 43: Of Medicine and Poetry
- There's a lot of bastards out there!
- Remark (c. 1957), as quoted in the introduction to the poem "Death News" by Allen Ginsberg: Visit to W.C.W. circa 1957, poets Kerouac Corso Orlovsky on sofa in living room inquired wise words, stricken Williams pointed thru window curtained on Main Street: "There's a lot of bastards out there!"
- The art of the poem nowadays is something unstable; but at least the construction of the poem should make sense; you should know where you stand. Many questions haven't been answered as yet. Our poets may be wrong; but what can any of us do with his talent but try to develop his vision, so that through frequent failures we may learn better what we have missed in the past.
- Interview with Stanley Koehler (April 1962), in The Paris Review : Writers at Work, 3rd series, Viking Penguin, p. 29 ISBN 0-14-00.4542-2
Al Que Quiere! (1917)
- I lie here thinking of you:—
the stain of love
is upon the world!- "Love Song"
- It's a strange courage
you give me ancient star:Shine alone in the sunrise
toward which you lend no part!- "El Hombre"
- Brother!
— if we were rich
we'd stick our chests out
and hold our heads high!It is dreams that have destroyed us.
There is no more pride
in horses or in rein holding.We sit hunched together brooding
our fate.Well —
all things turn bitter in the end
whether you choose the right or
the left way
and —
dreams are not a bad thing.- "Libertad! Igualidad! Fraternidad!"
- Who shall say I am not
the happy genius of my household?- "Danse Russe"
Spring and All (1923)
- so much depends
upona red wheel
barrowglazed with rain
waterbeside the white
chickens- "The Red Wheelbarrow"
- By the road to the contagious hospital
under the surge of the blue
mottled clouds driven from the
northeast — a cold wind.- "Spring and All"
- 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 leafBut now the stark dignity of
entrance — Still, the profound change
has come upon them: rooted, they
grip down and begin to awaken.- "Spring and All"
- The pure products of America
go crazy —- "To Elsie"
Sour Grapes (1921)
- Among the rain
and lights
I saw the figure 5
in gold
on a red
firetruck
moving
tense
unheeded
to gong clangs
siren howls
and wheels rumbling
through the dark city.- "The Great Figure"
- Old age is
a flight of small
cheeping birds
skimming
bare trees
above a snow glaze.
Gaining and failing
they are buffeted
by a dark wind —
But what?
On harsh weedstalks
the flock has rested —
the snow
is covered
with broken
seed husks
and the wind tempered
with a shrill
piping of plenty.- "To Awaken an Old Lady", originally publised in The Dial (August 1920)
Collected Poems 1921-1931 (1934)
- I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the iceboxand which
you were probably
saving
for breakfastForgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold- "This Is Just to Say"
- He's come out of the man
and he's let
the man go —
-
-
- the liar
Dead
- the liar
- his eyes
-
- rolled up out of
the light — a mockery
-
-
-
- which
- which
-
-
-
- love cannot touch —
just bury it
and hide its face
for shame.- "Death"
- Your case has been reviewed by high-minded
and unprejudiced observers (like hell
they were!) the president of a great
university, the president of a noteworthy
technical school and a judge too old to sit
on the bench, men already rewarded for
their services to pedagogy and the enforcement
of arbitrary statutes. In other words
pimps to tradition —- "Impromptu: The Suckers"
- It's all you deserve. You've got the cash,
what the hell do you care? You've got
nothing to lose. You are inheritors of a great
tradition. My country right or wrong!
You do what you're told to do. You don't
answer back the way Tommy Jeff did or Ben
Frank or Georgie Washing. I'll say you
don't. You're civilized. You let your
betters tell you where you get off. Go
ahead —- "Impromptu: The Suckers"
An Early Martyr and Other Poems (1935)
- Among
of
greenstiff
old
brightbroken
branch
comewhite
sweet
Mayagain
- "The Locust Tree in Flower"
Complete Collected Poems (1938)
- 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- "These"
The Wedge (1944)
- 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.- "A Sort of a Song"
Collected Later Poems (1950)
- Not now. Love itself a flower
with roots in a parched ground.
Empty pockets make empty heads.
Cure it if you can but
do not believe that we can live
today in the country
for the country will bring us
no peace.- "Raleigh Was Right" (1940)
The Desert Music and Other Poems (1954)
- I think
of the poetry
of René Char
and all he must have seen
and suffered
that has brought him
to speak only of
sedgy rivers,
of daffodils and tulips
whose roots they water,
even to the free-flowing river
that laves the rootlets
of those sweet-scented flowers
that people the
milky
way- "To a Dog Injured in the Street"
- The cries of a dying dog
are to be blotted out
as best I can.
René Char
you are a poet who believes
in the power of beauty
to right all wrongs.
I believe it also.
With invention and courage
we shall surpass
the pitiful dumb beasts,
let all men believe it,
as you have taught me also
to believe it.- "To a Dog Injured in the Street"
Asphodel, That Greeny Flower
- Of asphodel, that greeny flower,
-
-
- like a buttercup
-
- upon its branching stem —
- upon its branching stem —
-
- like a buttercup
-
- save that's green and wooden —
-
- I come, my sweet,
-
- to sing to you.
- to sing to you.
-
- I come, my sweet,
-
- We lived long together,
-
- a life filled,
-
- if you will,
- if you will,
-
- a life filled,
-
- with flowers. So that
-
- I was cheered
-
- when I first came to know
- when I first came to know
-
- I was cheered
-
- that there were flowers also
-
- in hell.
-
- Today
- Today
-
- in hell.
-
- I'm filled with the fading memory of those flowers
-
- that we both loved,
-
- even to this poor
- even to this poor
-
- that we both loved,
-
- colorless thing —
-
- I saw it
-
- when I was a child —
- when I was a child —
-
- I saw it
-
- little prized among the living
-
- but the dead see,
-
- asking among themselves:
- asking among themselves:
-
- but the dead see,
-
- What do I remember
-
- that was shaped
-
- as this thing is shaped?
-
- that was shaped
-
- while our eyes fill
-
- with tears.
-
- Of love, abiding love
-
- with tears.
-
- it will be telling
-
- though too weak a wash of crimson
-
- colors it
-
- though too weak a wash of crimson
-
- to make it wholly credible.
-
- There is something
-
- something urgent
-
- There is something
-
- I have to say to you
-
- and you alone
-
- but it must wait
-
- and you alone
-
- while I drink in
-
- the joy of your approach,
-
- perhaps for the last time.
-
- the joy of your approach,
-
- And so
-
- with fear in my heart
-
- I drag it out
-
- with fear in my heart
-
- and keep on talking
-
- for I dare not stop.
-
- Only give me time,
-
-
- time to recall them
-
- before I shall speak out.
-
- time to recall them
-
- Give me time,
-
- time.
-
- When I was a boy
-
- I kept a book
-
- to which, from time
-
- I kept a book
-
- to time,
-
- I added pressed flowers
-
- until, after a time,
-
- I added pressed flowers
-
- I had a good collection.
-
- The asphodel,
-
- forebodingly,
-
- The asphodel,
-
- among them.
-
- I bring you,
-
- reawakened,
-
- I bring you,
-
- a memory of those flowers.
-
- They were sweet
-
- when I pressed them
-
- They were sweet
-
- and retained
-
- something of their sweetness
-
- a long time.
-
- something of their sweetness
-
- It is a curious odor,
-
- a moral odor,
-
- that brings me
-
- a moral odor,
-
- near to you.
- Endless wealth,
-
-
- I thought,
-
- held out its arms to me.
-
- I thought,
-
- A thousand tropics
-
- in an apple blossom.
-
- The generous earth itself
-
- in an apple blossom.
-
- gave us lief.
-
- The whole world
-
- became my garden!
-
- The whole world
-
- But the sea
-
- which no one tends
-
- is also a garden
-
- which no one tends
-
- when the sun strikes it
-
- and the waves
-
- are wakened.
-
- and the waves
-
- I have seen it
-
- and so have you
-
- when it puts all flowers
-
- and so have you
-
- to shame.
- I cannot say
-
-
- that I have gone to hell
-
- for your love
-
- that I have gone to hell
-
- but often
-
- found myself there
-
- in your pursuit.
-
- found myself there
-
- I do not like it
-
- and wanted to be
-
- in heaven. Hear me out.
-
- and wanted to be
-
- Do not turn away.
- I have learned much in my life
-
- from books
-
- and out of them
-
- from books
-
- about love.
-
- Death
-
- is not the end of it.
-
- Death
-
- The storm unfolds.
-
-
- Lightning
-
- plays about the edges of the clouds.
-
- Lightning
-
- The sky to the north
-
- is placid,
-
- blue in the afterglow
-
- is placid,
-
- as the storm piles up.
-
- It is a flower
-
- that will soon reach
-
- It is a flower
-
- the apex of its bloom.
- When I speak
- of flowers
-
- it is to recall
-
- that at one time
-
- it is to recall
-
- we were young.
-
- All women are not Helen,
-
- I know that,
-
- All women are not Helen,
-
- but have Helen in their hearts.
-
- My sweet,
-
- you have it also, therefore
-
- My sweet,
-
- I love you
-
- and could not love you otherwise.
-
- The storm bursts
-
-
-
-
- or fades! it is not
-
-
-
- the end of the world.
-
- Love is something else,
-
- or so I thought it,
-
- Love is something else,
-
- a garden which expands,
-
- though I knew you as a woman
-
- and never thought otherwise,
-
- though I knew you as a woman
-
- until the whole sea
-
- has been taken up
-
- and all its gardens.
-
- has been taken up
-
- It was the love of love,
-
- the love that swallows up all else,
-
- a grateful love,
-
- the love that swallows up all else,
-
- a love of nature, of people,
-
- of animals,
-
- a love engendering
-
- of animals,
-
- gentleness and goodness
-
- that moved me
-
- and that I saw in you.
-
- that moved me
-
- I come, my sweet,
-
-
-
-
- to sing to you!
-
-
-
- My heart rouses
-
- thinking to bring you news
-
- of something
-
- thinking to bring you news
-
- that concerns you
-
- and concerns many men. Look at
-
- what passes for the new.
-
- and concerns many men. Look at
-
- You will not find it there but in
-
- despised poems.
-
- It is difficult
to get the news from poems
-
- yet men die miserably every day
-
- for lack
- for lack
-
- yet men die miserably every day
- of what is found there.