Tag Archives: William Carlos Williams

William Carlos Williams, “The Farmer”

25 Wednesday Mar 2020

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(Photo by Ian Livesey)

The farmer deep in thought

is pacing through the rain

among his black fields, with

hands in pockets,

in his head

the harvest already planted.

A cold wind ruffles the water

among the browned weeds.

On all sides

the world rolls coldly away:

black orchards

darkened by the March clouds-

leaving room for thought.

Down past the brushwood

bristling by

the rainsluiced wagonroad

looms the artist figure of

the farmer – composing

antagonist

 

 

There are so many things wonderful about this poem. In no systematic form are some observations:

The portrait: The portrait is remarkably well-drawn. Notice the farmer is shown in silhouette: we see his posture, but we have no description of his personal features. We don’t know the color of his clothes, his eyes, his hair, et cetera.

But the world has colors: browned weeds, black orchards, darkened.

We see the world around the farmer in fine details the wind ruffles the water, there are March clouds, the road is “rainsluiced”. But there are other aspects which are missing from the description.

The parties: The poem ends with the word “antagonist”. The farmer is plotting his attack upon this deranged world by putting it in order and planting his harvest. The farmer is also an artist, who has a vision of beauty which he is going to wrought in the world.

The world is cold, forbidding and filled with death: even the orchards are “black”. The world is one of chaos, and the farmer is going to overcome the chaos and make a thing of use and order.

There is an interesting aside, “the world rolls by … leaving room for thought”. To the farmer, the chaos is an opportunity for order. He sees his harvest and nothing has yet been planted.

The combination of artist and antagonist may be an echo of Genesis 1. The world having come into existence is still without order, “The world was without form and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep.” But God overcome the disorder as both antagonist and artist. The farmer here does the same thing.

In fact, God plants a garden and places the first human beings in that garden. The farmer here is planning on planting a garden and obtaining a harvest himself.

I cannot say that Williams is explicitly thinking of Genesis here. There are no unambiguous allusions to the English text of Genesis. But the form is here.

So the question: is it proper to make a connection or consider the comparison where the author has not necessarily forced the connection between the two?  Yes.

Here are some reasons: First, a comparison between any two things has the potential for providing information about both. A comparison may lead one to realize a connection which was not previously apparent. Whenever come to some-thing or some-one, we are making comparisons with other similar things or ones we already know. We understand the thing we are looking at by comparing it to our previous knowledge.

Thus, making a purposeful comparison may help us to see something which was already there but not previously noticed.

Second, there are certain forms of thought which seem to be inherent in human beings. The Golden Bough is an mountain of cultural comparisons of forms from many cultures and times. There are certain ideas which just seem to make sense to us people.

That store of common forms is even greater within a culture. The ideas of Genesis would likely be familiar to Williams merely by living in his world at that time. Biblical references would be commonplace. For example, in Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain makes a memorable joke based upon Tom’s lack of Biblical knowledge, but Twain’s counting on the reader knowing the facts immediately and without explanation.

There are myriad of details about the poem which deserves consider, such as three prepositional phrases built around “in” at the beginning of the poem: the farmer is in thought, his hands are in his pocket, his harvest is in his head.

Compare that to his pacing in his black fields – where he is thinking and the black orchards leave room for thought.

The structure of the poem is a marvel.

A final observation: Williams is an artist who is composing a portrait of the farmer. The farmer is an artist who is composing a portrait of a harvest.  Williams takes all of the unorganized, but very present details of the scene (there is a man walking on a blustery March day) and turns this into ordered art.

Aside

Trees, William Carlos William

20 Wednesday Nov 2019

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Crooked, black tree

on your little grey-black hillock,

ridiculously raised one step toward

the infinite summits of the night:

even you the few grey stars

draw upward into a vague melody

of harsh threads.

 

Bent as you are from straining

against the bitter horizontals of

a north wind – there below you

how easily the long yellow notes

of poplars flow upward in a descending

scale, each note secure in its own

posture – singularly woven.

 

all voices are blent willing

against the heaving contra-bass

of the dark but you alone

warp yourself passionately to one side

in your eagerness.

At one level this poem is silly: there is no music actually playing. The trees and flowers and stars are playing no melody. There is no blending of voices. A tree is certainly never passionate nor eager.

There is certainly something striking and picturesque about a tree bent against the wind. It is a common symbol of resolution before contrary forces.

Then what is the point of such a poem? What does Williams do with these words – if anything?

First, the poem permits us to see something of the world. We are so busy with our lives, that we easily fail to take notice or thought of what is before us. We live with pre-digested entertainment, carefully constructed to make sure we know exactly how we are supposed to feel.  We use things for what they can do for us. We become the center of our world.

But this poem does nothing for us: it will not make anyone richer. There is no secret embedded within. But also it is not particularly easy. It is not digested for us: it makes some demands up the reader with his observations.

The poem re-presents a moment of observation: He saw a tree on a hill bent against the wind and standing beneath the stars. The moment must have been lovely.

The measure and harmony between the earth and sky is striking.

In fact, as he looked from the poplars below to the crooked black tree on the hill and up to the stars, he sees a harmony and proportion between the trees and stars and the darkness. All of it comes together into a whole.

Hence, there is a music between the parts. It is not just that the scene is aesthetically pleasing; it is that the scene is harmonious: there is a sympathy from the trees to the stars.

Look at how he notes the trees reach to the sky:

 

ridiculously raised one step toward

the infinite summits of the night

 

The phrase “ridiculously raised” is the key: Yes, there is an infinite space from the tree to the stars. The tree cannot possibly hope to reach the stars; it is “ridiculous,” and yet the tree reaches.

 

The tree on its hill has been shaped from the conflict here on earth:

 

Bent as you are from straining

against the bitter horizontals of

a north wind

 

The tree becomes even more comic and endearing. It reaches to the sky while it strains against its own conflict. And then below, there is a place of peace: the yellow poplars. How we know the poplars are yellow in the dark and starlight is not explained. In fact, it is the music, not the trees which are yellow: long yellow notes.

 

The tree now occupies a place between heaven and earth: the earth comes to the tree; the tree reaches to the sky.

 

The objects are all singing a counter melody to the darkness; those things that are hang against what is not:

 

all voices are blent willing

against the heaving contra-bass

of the dark

 

But the tree occupies a unique space:

 

            but you alone

warp yourself passionately to one side

in your eagerness.

 

The tree again is comic: it is passionate and eager; it even warps itself in its straining so.

 

And so the poem brings us in a moment of Willams’ revery.  We can see a moment through his eyes from 100 years ago and look at this tree.

 

But is there is something more than just a quirky thought of a long dead physician? There is a way of seeing the world in harmony and sympathy. There is a pattern which runs through creation and engenders an affection for even a crooked black tree.

 

I remember being in college and trying to gain some important proposition out of a poem. But I now I understand something about poems like this which I did not understand then. Looking at the world as Williams did so long ago; imaging that moment of an evening by the trees, beneath the sky; has its own effect.

 

We often wonder and worry what effect this or that photograph or word or scene or videogame or movie or what not will do to someone. The world is stuffed full of wickedness and corruption and truly hateful things. And all such things have a corrosive effect upon us all.

 

But moments of beauty, the delight in the common grace which God has bestowed upon us all from his unending wealth and lavish care, have their own effect. I think we are better for such observations.

 

C.S. Lewis speaks of his salvation coming in through the idea of joy: why is there joy in a brutal meaningless world? Why is there beauty? How is that explained? Why is there harmony and sympathy through the creation?

 

 

Three Poems by William Carlos Williams, Part Three (A sight of a cynic)

17 Sunday Feb 2019

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The third poem in what appears to be a triptych of Williams is again named “Pastoral” as was the first in the series. Williams again takes the part of a detached but certainly not disinterested observer. While he does not involve himself in the matter under consideration, he deeply cares about it. Indeed, in this final poem he is “astonish me beyond words”.

This poem again comes around to the poor and their dignity — unknown and unobserved by those of Williams’ native world — but this time he begins with “little sparrows”:

The little sparrows
hop ingenuously
about the pavement
quarreling
with sharp voices
over those things
that interest them.

The scene is easy to understand for anyone who has ever seen a sparrow: the small birds are hoping about doing something and making their sharp sounds. But there are a few things here which are interesting:

First the intensity of the birds’ conduct: they hop, they quarrel, their voices are sharp. There is a great intensity to their conduct.

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(Photo by Jorma Peltoniemi)

Second, the birds have no concern for the poet watching them at their business: the birds hop ‘ingenuously’. There is a complete unstudied and unconcerned freedom about the birds conduct. They have their own world and the poet may not enter: he can see, but not participate. Also, the subject of their quarrel is their own concern: “those things/that interest them.” They simply don’t care about Williams.

The birds’ unconcern is matched by the human detachment:

But we who are wiser
shut ourselves in
on either hand
and no one knows
whether we think good
or evil.

We people “shut ourselves in”. We are “wiser” and so we don’t concern ourselves with these matters. We certainly do not tell anyone, “no one knows whether we think good/or evil.” We — in seeming dignity (as opposed to the undignified “ingenuous” birds) — do not let on our judgment.

There is an ironic allusion here to the Fall: our wisdom (“we who are wiser”) does not lead to us to judgment; no one even knows whether we judge this good or evil. The Fall described in Genesis 3, concerns the temptation of the shrewd serpent who tricked Eve into believing that eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil would make her wise and she would become as God (of the gods):

Genesis 3:5–6 (NASB95)
5 “For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
6 When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate.

All of this wisdom has resulted in a stultified judgment: we simply don’t concern ourselves with these lowly animals.

The faint allusion to the Bible is again hinted at in the next stanza.

Meanwhile
the old man who goes about
gathering dog-lime
walks in the gutter
without looking up
and his tread is more majestic than
that of the Episcopal minister
approaching the pulpit
of a Sunday.

Dog-lime is a riddle. Doing a little looking I found a message board of similarly stumped readers, and someone suggested that it may mean trying to find something to eat in the gutter, or possibly some residue of dog-feces. Whatever the meaning, it is obviously unbecoming: it is a mark of this man “in the gutter” who never looks up: he is the precise opposite of the Episcopal minister on a Sunday morning (the most dignified of men). But here is another use of “dog” and this rather unreverent man which we will consider in a moment.

The reference to “dog” is the exact opposite of “god” (which is an obvious joke made at length by Joyce in Ulysses — which Williams would not have known).

But there is a patent allusion to Wilde in Lady Windermere’s Fan:

Lord Darlington.  No, we are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.  [Sits down at C. table.]
Dumby.  We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars?  Upon my word, you are very romantic to-night, Darlington.

Our old man, very unromantically, does not even look up from the gutter: he is scrounging for some offal of some sort.

The old man is like the sparrows: he is about something intently. It is a matter of life and death to him, and he bears no pretense. He has no concern about the poet or anyone else. Like the sparrow he carries on his life in public.

Now let us return to the vague reference to dog-lime which seems to invoke the Cynic Diogenes who carried on his live in public, like a dog, with no concern about the thoughts of others.

Waterhouse-Diogenes

(John William Waterhouse, Diogenes)

Here are some references from Diogenes Laertius which may help explicate this poem. He writes of the first great cynic Diogenes as follows:

Through watching a mouse running about, says Theophrastus in the Megarian dialogue, not looking for a place to lie down in, not afraid of the dark, not seeking any of the things which are considered to be dainties, he discovered the means of adapting himself to circumstances. He was the first, say some, to fold his cloak because he was obliged to sleep in it as well, and he carried a wallet to hold his victuals, and he used any place for any purpose, for breakfasting, sleeping, or conversing. And then he would say, pointing to the portico of Zeus and the Hall of Processions, that the Athenians had provided him with places to live in.

Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, ed. R. D. Hicks (Kansas City Missouri: Harvard University Press, November 1, 2005), 25–27.

And one day when Plato had invited to his house friends coming from Dionysius, Diogenes trampled upon his carpets and said, “I trample upon Plato’s vainglory.” Plato’s reply was, “How much pride you expose to view, Diogenes, by seeming not to be proud.” Others tell us that what Diogenes said was, “I trample upon the pride of Plato,” who retorted, “Yes, Diogenes, with pride of another sort.”

Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, ed. R. D. Hicks (Kansas City Missouri: Harvard University Press, November 1, 2005), 27–29.

He would say that men strive in digging and kicking to outdo one another, but no one strives to become a good man and true.

And he would wonder that the grammarians should investigate the ills of Odysseus, while they were ignorant of their own. Or that the musicians should tune the strings of the lyre, while leaving the dispositions of their own souls discordant; [28] that the mathematicians should gaze at the sun and the moon, but overlook matters close at hand; that the orators should make a fuss about justice in their speeches, but never practise it; or that the avaricious should cry out against money, while inordinately fond of it. He used also to condemn those who praised honest men for being superior to money, while themselves envying the very rich.

At a feast certain people kept throwing all the bones to him as they would have done to a dog.Thereupon he played a dog’s trick and drenched them.

So I think it safe to say that this old man in the gutter seeking dog-lime is no romantic; rather, he is the precise opposite of the romantic. But he is also a man utterly without pretense or deception (although he is possessed of a very different pretense; yet, he is an animal and in parallel to the sparrows).

By setting the old man up as a cynic, Williams displays this old man as an honest man. The most famous incident of Diogenes involves a lamp, “He lit a lamp in broad daylight and said, as he went about, “I am looking for a man.” (λύχνον μεθʼ ἡμέραν ἅψας περιῄει λέγων “ἄνθρωπον ζητῶ.”)

Diogenes_looking_for_a_man_-_attributed_to_JHW_Tischbein

This dog-man is set up in direct contrast to the great master of dignity and civilization and Williams finds the Cynic (Greek for “dog”) more “majestic” than the minister.

The poem then ends with the self-abnegating lines:

These things
Astonish me beyond words.

The irony here is that Williams has actually provided words, may precise and well-calibrated words which make allusion to Oscar Wilde and a Greek philosopher. He is so “astonished” “beyond words” that he has given us words. What this must mean is that his poem aims at but does not achieve the end which he sought (which is the common element of anyone who has written and judged himself honestly).

So what then is the summary of Williams’ attitude to the poor? First, he cannot enter into their world. He is observes from a distance; he is astonished and finds great beauty and dignity; but he is still a world-apart. Second, he sees in them a dignity which transcends their circumstance. They are more “majestic” than the height of Williams’ own class and world. It is a sort of barbaric dignity and beauty which he sees.

Third, his poem is the connection which draws him into their world. He sees, frames, understands and makes their lives something intelligible him; even if that intelligibility leaves him at a distance. His words do something, but they cannot do all.

Three Poems by William Carlos Williams, Part Two

02 Saturday Feb 2019

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Al Que Quiere! - Wikipedia

In a previous post we noted that Williams wrote a series of three poems (published in Al Que Quiere! (1917)) concerning the poor. There was a certain ambiguity in the first poem Pastoral (there is a second poem also named “Pastoral”) concerning Williams’ relationship with the subject: was he mocking the poor or the pastoral form? Was he objectifying the poor and thus dehumanizing their plight? How should we resolve these questions.

In the second poem of the series, Apology, Williams considers not the home of the poor, but the poor themselves:

Apology

Why do I write today?

 

The beauty of

the terrible faces

of our nonentities

stirs me to it:

 

colored women

day workers –

old and experienced –

return home at dusk

in cast off clothing

faces like

old Florentine oak.

 

Also

 

the set pieces

of your faces stir me –

leading citizens-

but not in the same way.

 

Here, Williams considers the “terrible faces” of “our nonentities”.  First we must note that “terrible” does not have the connotations of extremely bad, poor quality, et cetera. Here are some contemporary uses of the phrase “terrible face”:

Quo Vadis, “She imagined him having a terrible face, an immovable malice in the features”. (1899) The Clash, 1922, “the terrible face of the wounded man”. A short story in Good Housekeeping, The River’s End, “It was a haunting and terrible face, a face heavy and deeply lined”. The courage of Captain Plum, 1924, “Nathaniel tried to stifle the cry on his lips, tried to smile, to speak — but the terrible face that stared up into his own held him silent, motionless.” [Both The River’s End and Captain Plum were written by James Oliver Curwood, he apparently like that phrase.] In fact, 1919, was the highpoint in the use of the phrase “terrible face”!

These faces are thus peculiarly striking, they are faces that do something to the observer.

Williams does not speak of horror of these faces, for he refers to the “beauty” of these “terrible faces”. He is walking along and arrested by the horror which has marked and the beauty which shows from the faces of these poor “colored women”. Here are the most downtrodden and he sees them.

There is nothing romanticized about their appearance, and he yet finds elegance here: their faces are beautiful and like “Florentine oak”: a phrase which has a whiff of the ancient world. When combined with the phrase “terrible face” it may not be reading too much allusion to think of some Roman demigod.  Their castoff clothing is then a kind of disguise.

But at the same time, these are poor women in poor clothes walking home from a difficult job as night descends. These women have become real to him. It is as if he has just noticed them.

And note the title, the poem is an “apology”: I am sorry, dear reader, leading citizen, that I have noticed the beauty and humanity of these fellow-creatures whom you have seeming not seen.

He then addresses his “leading citizens” directly: “your faces” — which are “set pieces” also have an affect upon me.

The last line then comes as a cut, “but not in the same way.”

There is nothing smug in Williams consideration of the poor. Rather than objectifying the poor, they have intruded into his conscious as real people. This is not to say he does not recognize a profound distance. He does not pretend to enter into their world. He offers no help. He does nothing to change a thing.

This is only a poem: not a call to some action. But I think for making itself a bare poem — without the pomposity and politics which mar most (all?) contemporary poetry (nothing is so dull and limiting as politics in poetry — the politics are jejune and the poetry is mundane) — makes it more powerful.

The poor who are so often not recognized have become quite real. They are there in beauty with their “terrible faces”. The “leading citizens” are criticized because they have missed what he has found.

These poor women must first become human beings in the eyes of the “leading citizens” before anything can be done. Otherwise, the response to these women will be render them something less than human, lacking agency: objects of the leading citizens’ largesse rather than human being deserving of respect on the same ground as any human: both good and bad.

These women, after all, have “terrible faces” and “beauty”.

Three Poems by William Carlos Williams (Part One)

29 Tuesday Jan 2019

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There are series of three poems from Al Que Quiere! (1917) which concern the same matter of the persons perhaps most likely neglected as objects of poetry. This attention would not be interesting in and of itself today: looking for outcasts, portraying the outcast is sure sign of artistic integrity.

Two of the poems are entitled “Pastoral”, their companion is “Apology”.  The first pastoral begins:

When I was younger

it was plain to me

I must make something of myself

 

The patter is five – five – eight. The longer line exhausts the idea and makes a bit of closure. What then is the idea: ambition: which ambition is going to contrasted with the wisdom of age:

 

Older now

I walk back streets

 

How the opposite of ambition. He is not in a place to be seen, here is in backstreets.

 

Admiring the houses

Of the very poor:

 

He then lists out the items he sees:

 

roof out of line with sides

the yards cluttered

with old chicken wire, ashes,

furniture gone wrong;

the fences and outhouses

built of barrel-staves

and parts of boxes, all,

if I am fortunate

smeared a bluish green

that properly weathered

pleases me best

of all colors.  

 

Before we come to the conclusion, we are left with a bit of a question: Is he ironic? Not ironic in finding the items visually interesting. There is something visually interesting in decay. Any number of photographers have used such things as either the subject or the backdrop for their images.

 

But the irony of saying such a color “pleases” him. There is a strange tone in the pastoral subject of poetry were the poet idealizes another’s poverty as a place of serenity and tranquill beauty – away from whatever ambition and hurry has ceased the poet and his world. But we never see the poet volunteer to become poor. (Dickens, to his credit may idealize some poor people, but he does not romanticize poverty per se.)

 

Is Williams merely finding beauty where it can be found – is it a realization that his ambition is of little good except for beauty? Is there a mocking of the “pastoral”?

 

 

He ends with

 

            No one

will believe this

of vast importance to the nation.

 

What is of no importance? His vision of beauty? The fact that he likes the color? The lives of the poor?

 

We know that he has gotten something wrong – his early ambition has given way to looking at the poor and seeking beauty in their ramshackle existence.

 

The next poem, “Apology” may help understand the first (assuming he holds a consistent position).

Winter Trees

02 Thursday Jan 2014

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WINTER TREES

By William Carlos Williams

All the complicated details
of the attiring and
the disattiring are completed!
A liquid moon
moves gently among
the long branches.
Thus having prepared their buds
against a sure winter
the wise trees
stand sleeping in the cold.

Take the first line: “All the complicated details”. He has done something more than merely speak of a tree losing its leaves; dropping leaves entails nothing “complicated”. Yet by calling the process of loss “complicated details” one must stop and think: how does a tree know to prepare for winter? I say “know” because Williams calls such trees “wise”. Only intelligent agents have “wisdom”. Stop and think, what must a tree do to lose its leaves (but only for the winter).

Next he uses the verb “attriring” and the unusual “disattiring”: one knows what he means by “disattiring”, but the unusual verb puts the emphasis upon a deliberate act of costume. The tree does not lose its leaves, it takes them off for winter.

“A liquid moon/moves”: One would not normally call the moon “liquid”. Yet, in speaking of the moon moving between the branches, the word “liquid” has the light from the moon moving over and through the branches. The light now bathes the branches — not merely shining through the branches. The “gentlely” makes the interaction dear, sweet.

By speaking of the winter moon (as opposed to sun), the scene is cold. Williams stands at the base of the tree, looking up at the moon and thinks of spring “prepared their buds”. The tree wisely falls to hibernation (sleeping in the cold).

The poem does two things: First, he merely observes and describes the tree. Second, he think of the wisdom of the tree. In thinking of the wisdom, Williams points toward something beyond the tree (for trees do not have a self-conscious wisdom). Here the moon comes back again: there is a system, something bigger than either a tree or the moon. Then we return to the complicated details.

A great poem is shy. It does not disclose all its beauty on the first glance.