Well, I am going to be brutally honest: I had never heard of William Carlos Williams or any of his poetry before The Well-Educated Mind Reading Challenge, and I do not think I was missing anything. At least from the suggested list. If that was his best...pfff.

I know -- I talk like I know poetry. I don't.

But I can read something and know if it was worth it or if it was impressive or beautiful or if I can at least relate to it or take away something from it. Williams' poetry was mostly experimental; he is called an Imaginist. He did not follow rules of writing poetry (or made them up as he wrote). He did not write sentences with punctuation. He just improvised in style. In the poetry world, I suppose it was successful because here he is on a list for me to read. But I could have just skipped it and I would not have missed anything. Except one or two, which I will get to in a moment, which were above acceptable.

Here were the suggested titles I had read, and following is a brief impression of each..

Asphodel That Greeny Flower (Love letter asking wife for forgiveness. Somewhat interesting.)
The Descent of Winter (journal writings…really long and not interesting)
Landscape with the Fall of Icarus (about Bruegel’s painting! Clever.)
The Last Words of My English Grandmother (That was odd.)
Proletarian Portrait (I think he lost me.)
The Red Wheelbarrow (really experimental)
Self-Portrait (very weird)
Sonnet in Search of an Author (WHAT DID I JUST READ??)
Spring and All (OK, better…)
This is Just to Say (I forgot.)
Tract (I have no idea.)
To Elsie (depressing)

Overall, I gave Williams three stars because some of his poetry was agreeable, though mostly I found it tolerable, which means: I tolerated it (but I don't know how). His topics were widely varied, which was fine, but his expression of them were very peculiar; and again, I do not understand why poetry has to be strangely obscure.

"Landscape with the Fall of Icarus" was my only favorite because it caused me to revisit the painting by Bruegel. Williams pointed out that no one had noticed what had happened to Icarus, even the fisherman at the water's edge, a few feet from where Icarus entered the water. It was all kind of humorous. Possibly, Bruegel meant it to be, and Williams was moved to write about it.

And "Asphodel," the love letter to his wife (or ex-wife), was worthwhile, too. He wrote it near the end of his life or when he was very ill, and he was convicted to ask her forgiveness for his unfaithfulness. What a way to do it, if you can write poetry.

* * * ( )

happy. ( )

Back when I was in High School I read The Red Wheelbarrow. I didn't really get it. I didn't get how it was a poem, but I thought it was interesting.

Now that I read this select collection of poems from William Carlos Williams, I can see that he paints images with words. Williams happens to do this very effectively as well. Upon reading the poems, I could visualize the settings of everything he was describing. Now, the thing about poetry is that I am not good at it. I can appreciate it I suppose, but I am not your College Professor in that sense. All I can say is that this is a collection that made me feel pleasant. That is all. this book is further improved by the fact that it contains information on Williams and how he wrote. Though I guess most anthologies of poems will do that to some extent, especially ones focusing on one poet.

I will return to most poems by Williams eventually, though it might take some time. ( )

To be fair, I read this for a WCW class and had to zoom through 200 poems in about a week. But so many of them didn't make sense to me. References felt obscure and... well, I just had trouble enjoying most of the poems. My favorites, though, were "El Hombre" and "The Manouevre." ( )

This is the first full book of WCW's poetry I've read and I was pleasantly surprised by his range, considering it's only his more spare poems that get anthologized. I really have never understood why "The Red Wheelbarrow" has been singled out for so much press. It's instructional value? As an example of imagism? Now that I've read more of his work, I think it's even more ridiculous that "The Red Wheelbarrow" has become representative of his poetry because it really isn't.

I also feel vindicated in my earlier purchase of a two volume set of his collected poems and look forward to reading those as time allows. This 200 page volume was discovered at a used bookstore for $1.50 and I just couldn't pass it up. And I'm glad I didn't, not only because it has whetted my appetite for the collected works but because it will make a great loaner to others curious about him.

I'm not quite finished with this book. The last 40 pages are excerpts from his long poem "Paterson," which I'm finding I need to read slowly to catch how he's layering things. Thus far I'm finding it a very interesting poem. The same person who put together the collected volumes has also brought out an edition of Paterson and it's now on my amazon wish list. ( )