Poetry of William Carlos Williams

Question 4: Using the prose selection from Spring and All to help you set a context, assess the relationship between form and meaning in two of the following poems by Williams: "This is Just to Say"; "The Locust Tree in Flower"; "The Yachts"; " The Ivy Crown".



In my essay, I shall be discussing the relationship between form and meaning in the poetry of William Carlos Williams, and explaining how the two are strongly linked. The poems I shall be discussing in relation to this are: "This is Just to Say", and "The Ivy Crown".
William Carlos Williams was renowned for his unusual prosody. His poems, although rhythmical, had no fixed poetic metre or foot. Williams coined the phrase "variable feet" to describe the phenomenon. As well as this, the layout of his poems was often unusual. In his earlier poems, he often wrote in tercets, with a full blank line between each tercet. The poetry he wrote in tercets is frequently graphic.(Berry E.) He observes a scene with the eye of a painter or journalist. It is possible that he favoured stanzaic tercets in these poems because their punchy layout resembles that of a newspaper. In his later poems, however, we see the emergence of a type of typography known as "step down lines". These do not have the sharp edges of the stanzaic tercets, hence "step down lines" tend to occur in his more lyrical works.(Berry E.)
Although this explains the different types of typography found in Williams's poetry, it does not explain why he decided to write this way. A clue to his motives may be found in the prose section of his prose/poems, Spring and All. This section is essentially Williams's manifesto as a poet, incorporating a fantasy sequence in which the earth is destroyed and then reborn. Williams wanted to demolish traditional poetry so that he could create it anew. He wanted to start again from the very beginning, (hence the frequent references to Spring in his poetry). A pitfall he feels he must avoid, is the temptation to simply repeat the evolution of poetry as it had gone before. That said, when one contrasts Williams's earlier work with his later, more traditional compositions, it appears that he has tumbled headlong into this trap.

"This is Just to Say", written in 1934, would be classed as one of Williams's earlier poems. It originally was written as a note, left by Williams on the refrigerator door, apologising to his wife Flossie. It is a sparse, vivid poem that uses no unnecessary language or obvious metaphors. The poem starts out in an Anapaestic metre, but this breaks down after the 6th line, and thereafter it relies only on the natural rhythm that certain phrases have in speech - "Forgive me", some alliteration - "so sweet", and consonance - "so cold" to supply the beat. The word that breaks this Anapaestic metre is the word "saving", and it has a line all to itself. It is possible that Williams's chose this word to stand out because this is the point where he realises that he has wronged her. The lines up to this point are spoken/read at a faster speed, due to the Anapaestic metre, because Williams wants us to experience the rush of his impulse. In the first tercet, this poem is purely concerned with physical action "I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox". In the second stanza, the focus switches to the mental as he appreciates that his actions will have consequences for others. In the third stanza, the poet asks for forgiveness, yet, the way he graphically relives the pleasure of eating the plums seems to express a note of defiance. He is sorry, but does he regret his actions? Also, the way in which the "F" of "Forgive me" is oddly capitalised implies a sardonic tone.
Although the poem appears deceptively simple, it can be interpreted in many different ways. Perhaps the eating of the plums is an allegory for Eve eating the serpent's apple in the garden of Eden. Even as it stands, this poem is a succinct and subtle exploration of temptation. It seems that when Williams wants to highlight just a word or two, he gives a whole line to them. Thus " so sweet" and "so cold" are isolated in this fashion to make the reader aware of the sensory pleasure derived from his transgression. However, ending the poem, as he does, on the word "cold", sounds an ominous note. The pleasure may have been sweet but it left him cold. Throughout his marriage, Williams was unfaithful many times. As this poem was originally a note intended for his wife Flossie, consciously or unconsciously, it perhaps indicates the tense undercurrents that eventually ripped apart their marriage. The way Williams uses the typography of this poem to bring into sharper focus certain aspects of it, illustrates how form and meaning intertwine in his work. Like Emily Dickinson's dashes almost a hundred years previous, Williams uses eccentric typography to shape, and craft his poetry.
Another possible reason for Williams's irregular prosody was to break the link with poetry's past. As he put it in Spring and All: "For the first time, everything IS new. Now at last the per feet effect is being witlessly discovered. The terms "veracity" "actuality" "real" "natural" "sincere" are being discussed at length..." (For accuracy, it should be noted that this passage refers to the period just before the world/world of poetry stops replicating the old one) In other words, Williams believes that regular poetic metre is an unnatural, restrictive force, one which hinders the imagination. "...nearly all writing, up to the present, if not all art, has been especially designed to keep up the barrier between sense and the vaporous fringe which distracts the attention from its agonized approaches to the moment. It has always been the search for "the beautiful illusion" Very well. I am not in search of "the beautiful illusion...I am addressed-To the imagination...To refine, to clarify, to intensify that eternal moment in which we alone live there is but a single force - the imagination."
Not only does Williams attempt to use a more natural prosody, but also the language in his earlier poetry is clear. This is consistent with Williams's desire to break with the past and make poetry accessible to ordinary people. He wanted to create what he called an "American Idiom". In other words, he wanted to write in the vernacular of the American people rather than constantly referring to the works of British authors, or the writers of antiquity. A striking example of this in "This is Just to Say", is when he uses the word "icebox", a word rarely heard outside America.
In Williams's "The Ivy Crown", the stanzas are triadic verses written using "step down lines". These do not have the blunt impact of the tercets of "This is Just to Say", nevertheless they still serve to focus the reader's attention on specific words and phrases.(Berry E.) Like "This is Just to Say", "The Ivy Crown" does not have a clearly defined metre. The visual layout of the poem, with its diagonal branching, is reminiscent of a crown made from ivy. In this way, the poem's form mirrors one of its central images. Also reflected in the poem's formal aspects is the content of the poem's propensity to diverge tangentially. For example, this poem juxtaposes ideas of love, rebirth, hope, power and childhood.
In "The Ivy Crown", each stanza is not self contained:
"It has its seasons,
for and against,
whatever the heart
fumbles in the dark
to assert
toward the end of May.
Just as the nature of briars
is to tear flesh,
I have proceeded
through them.
Keep
the briars out,
they say...."

This constant use of enjambment lends the poem a flowing, lyrical tone. It gives the poem an accidental feel, almost as if we are eavesdropping on the poet's stream of consciousness. The exception to this rule, is the last stanza:
"We will it so
and so it is
past all accident"
Unlike the others, this stanza is a self contained unit. (Berry E.) The poet has clearly intended for it to be written so, and this air of intention is echoed in the words of the stanza - "We will it so...". It closes the poem with a sense of finality.
"The Ivy Crown" was written in 1955, 21 years after "This is Just to Say". As regards language and content, it seems that Williams has become more conservative. As I have previously noted, "This is Just to Say" contains no obvious similes or metaphors. Yet they abound in "The Ivy Crown". A thorny rose symbolises love- one of poetry's oldest clichés. In the same vein, Spring symbolises rebirth. Also, the poem's language is more opaque than in "This is Just to Say". For example:
"The whole process is a lie,
unless,
crowned by excess,
it break forcefully,
one way or another,
from its confinement."
According to Spring and All, the most heinous crime of all that he could commit as a poet would be to reference Classical works, or those of long dead British authors. In the opening chapters of Spring and All, he envisages going to war and annihilating the Europeans. He pours scorn on those who bow down before the demigods of European literature, and calls their work "a perfect plagiarism". In his opinion, the result of this type of name referencing is to keep poetry the preserve of a small academic clique. And then, in "The Ivy Crown", we find these lines:
"Anthony and Cleopatra
were right;
they have shown
the way. I love you
or I do not live
at all."
This manages to reference both a dead British author, and Classical history.
Thus, when Williams attempted to forge a completely new style of poetry, it seems that he was only partly successful. His aims were ambitous, perhaps overly so, but it is to his credit that he even attempted such an undertaking. He opened the doors for formal experimentation in way that few poets before him had. His genius however lies in the fact that his was not merely arbitrary experimentation, experimentation for the sake of it, but instead was a way of enhancing the very meaning of his poetry. With Williams, form and meaning are utterly inter-dependant. In the way this shifted the emphasis from the oral to the written, he was truly a modern poet.
























Bibliography/Works Cited:


1. “The New Anthology of American Poetry, Vol 2, Modernisms 1900-1950”. pp. 216-257. Edited by Steven Gould Axelrod, Camille Roman, Thomas Travisano. Published in 2005 by Rutgers University Press, New Jersey, USA.
2. “William Carlos Williams's Triadic-Line Verse: An Analysis of Its Prosody, by Eleanor Berry.” from Twentieth Century Literature. Vol. 35, No. 3, William Carlos Williams Issue. (Autumn, 1989), pp. 364-388. Published in 1989 by Hofstra University Press.
3. “William Carlos Williams: The Unity of His Art” from The Bulletin of the Midwest Modern Language Association > Vol. 2, Papers of the Midwest Modern Language Association, Number 1. Poetic Theory/Poetic Practice (1969), pp. 136-144 . Article author: Linda Welshimer Wagner
4. “Private Exchanges and Public Reviews: Marianne Moore's Criticism of William Carlos Williams” from Twentieth Century Literature > Vol. 30, No. 2/3, Marianne Moore Issue (Summer, 1984), pp. 160-174. Article author: Celeste Goodridge.5. “The Differing Impulses of William Carlos Williams” from American Literary History > Vol. 3, No. 3 (Autumn, 1991), pp. 614-622. Article author: Stephen Cushman.
6. “William Carlos Williams and Ezra Pound: Two Examples of Open Poetry” from College English > Vol. 22, No. 6 (Mar., 1961), pp. 387-389. Article author: Glauco Cambon
7. “"Somehow Disturbed at the Core": Words and Things in William Carlos Williams” South Central Review > Vol. 11, No. 3 (Autumn, 1994), pp. 25-44 Article author: Neil Easterbrook
8. “Pound / Williams: Selected Letters of Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams.” Contributors: Ezra Pound - author, William Carlos Williams - author, Hugh Witemeyer - editor. Publisher: New Directions. Place of Publication: New York. Publication Year: 1996.