The Poet's Art - Perfect word choices

William Carlos Williams (1883-1963) lived almost his entire life in New Jersey. He was a quintessential American poet. He was a physician which helps to explain the surgical nature of the construction of his poems. Unfortunately, he did not enjoy much fame or renown in his lifetime. He won the Pulitzer Prize posthumously. His status as the mentor, the "grandfather" if you will, of some of the most well known contemporary poets was not common knowledge in his lifetime. The fact remains though, that today he is a widely recognized and appreciated master of American poetry. I come back to him time after time when I'm struggling with syntax or appropriateness of word choice. These are the elements he mastered. His short, clear phrases ring with power and meaning. I attended a course in Modern Poetry early in my college career and the professor started the first minute of the first class by handing out a copy of a Williams poem and asking the class if it was poetry and why. It remains one of my favorites:

                                              The Red Wheelbarrow
                             
                                               so much depends
                                               upon

                                               a red wheel
                                               barrow

                                               glazed with rain
                                               water

                                               beside the white
                                               chickens.

Consider the first four words: so/much/depends/upon... It's imperative to read poetry aloud to really "hear" it. When one reads that there is a staccato rhythm to it, and a seriousness of tone, which the poet turns on it's head with the next phrase: a red wheelbarrow. This is a completely unexpected coupling of thought and image. And lest we fail to conjure up the right picture of a red wheelbarrow, the poet finishes the painting with precise description: glazed with rain water... beside the white chickens. The choice of the word glazed is masterful for both the sound and the meaning, and, of course, the chickens had to be white. It is highly American to write an ode about the necessity of tools that help get basic things done. I mean, truly, how rich is this one sentence?

For me, poetry succeeds when the words on the page create a picture or mental image in the reader's mind that is memorable, suggestive, and powerful. Consider the first two verses of "Fish":

It is the whales that drive
the small fish into the fiords.
I have seen forty or fifty
of them in the water at one time.
I have been in a little boat
when the water was boiling
on all sides of us
from them swimming underneath.

The noise of the herring
can be heard nearly a mile.
So thick in the water, they are,
you can't dip the oars in.
All silver!

Consider the difference between - they are so thick in water, and "so thick in the water, they are" - one is a longitudinal statement you might find in an essay, the other is the replication of the spoken word. You can hear a fisherman saying it just like that. Subtle distinctions in word choice and word order are at the core of what makes Dr. Williams such an interesting poet.

In "The Dance", Williams describes a painting he'd seen by Breughel, "The Kermess". Now, many poets and would-be poets have described works of art to varying degrees of success. Some have been described as wonderful translations of the original painting. I think the word translation is not at all a complement to the poet. Translation is blue collar work. The poet as an artist should not translate a visual work of art in their poetry, they ought to transform it instead. And that is what Williams does as he brings the reader right into the middle of the action (a dance) that can be seen on the canvas.

It is our good fortune that much of WCW's work can be accessed. His poems appear in a multitude of anthologies and collections and his complete works are available as well. If you appreciate language manipulated as a jazzman manipulates musical notes you must expose yourself to this man's work. We close this posting with another of my favorites, and as it always does, WCW's work speaks most loudly for itself:

                                                                       Poem

                                                               As the cat
                                                               climbed over
                                                               the top of

                                                              the jamcloset
                                                              first the right
                                                              forefoot

                                                              carefully
                                                              then the hind
                                                              stepped down

                                                              into the pit of
                                                              the empty
                                                              flowerpot