Kora in Hell

by William Carlos Williams

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

Genres: Poetry, Ebooks

88 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1920

About the author

William Carlos Williams was an American poet closely associated with modernism and Imagism. He was also a pediatrician and general practitioner of medicine. Williams "worked harder at being a writer than he did at being a physician," wrote biographer Linda Wagner-Martin. During his long lifetime, Williams excelled both as a poet and a physician.

Although his primary occupation was as a doctor, Williams had a full literary career. His work consists of short stories, poems, plays, novels, critical essays, an autobiography, translations, and correspondence. He wrote at night and spent weekends in New York City with friends—writers and artists like the avant-garde painters Marcel Duchamp and Francis Picabia and the poets Wallace Stevens and Marianne Moore. He became involved in the Imagist movement but soon he began to develop opinions that differed from those of his poetic peers, Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot. Later in his life, Williams toured the United States giving poetry readings and lectures.

In May 1963, he was posthumously awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Pictures from Brueghel and Other Poems (1962) and the Gold Medal for Poetry of the National Institute of Arts and Letters. The Poetry Society of America continues to honor William Carlos Williams by presenting an annual award in his name for the best book of poetry published by a small, non-profit or university press.

Williams' house in Rutherford is now on the National Register of Historic Places. He was inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame in 2009.

Reviews

[MJ Nicholls · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gilbert Sorrentino took the title of his novel Imaginative Qualities of Actual Things from this sequence of recondite, inscrutable, fleet-of-phrase prose-poems, a fact that pleased me enough to take the plunge. The cryptic, nonsensical nature of these made a wholly painless reading impossible, but for the isolate flecks of stunning phrase-making, this forgotten volume cannot accept upturned noses.

[Jonfaith · Rating 3 out of 5]

What a strange turn. It reminded me of Sorrentino, though I fear this lacked cubist construction. The early part of the book appears concerned with levels and vitality of imagination. I did reflect on that at length, though without success as to ascertain my own development. Then perpetually at an oblong angle remain Persephone. Hail the perennial. Dissemination!

These pieces keep a proximity to the earth, as such. Doctor and farmer are but two of the roles which occupy WCW. Decomposition earns its foreground, astride the wasted seed.

Matters then become abstracted and elongated into emotional whispers. Fidelity and the flesh harken to a Homeric shore. Williams notes each position but his prior wounds are never forgotten. Excerpts of letters from Pound, Stevens and HD illuminate while acting as scar tissue.

Memory remains a biological phenomenon, removed from the brocaded currency of writing-in-itself. I enjoyed these pieces, much mead for a thirsty soul.

[James Cook · Rating 4 out of 5]

The only reason this doesn't get five stars is WCW's painful need to put an explication beneath each one of the Improvisations. It seems to dull the edge and immediacy of the writing. Otherwise this is a great capture of Williams at his most experimental, and was a huge influence on my own early 'cubist' or 'modal' poetry, or whatever the hell I called it when I was 15.

[G · Rating 4 out of 5]

La Perséfone de William Carlos Williams. Es una prosa poética que flota como alfombra mágica. Hay iluminaciones que irrumpen con frecuencia. Frases cortas que no se pueden creer de tanta densidad. Puede ser ontológica o poética o de algo misterioso que satura el lenguaje hasta lo imposible. Parece estar a un paso del silencio. La belleza en Williams corre por ese borde extremo que desaparece si se tensa un milímetro. Kora se lee como navegar en ceñida, casi contra el viento. Bellísima edición de Barba de Abejas.

[pablo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesante propuesta. Este es el primer poemario (aunque no son poemas) de WCW. Los escritos -improvisaciones les llama el autor, son una combinación de prosa, poesía y observaciones que no podría clasificar en ninguna de ambas categorías. Algunas líneas resultan geniales, vislumbrando un genio que está buscando su forma y estilo. No he leído mas poemarios de WCW, pero sí poemas sueltos, y Kora en el Infierno no tiene el mismo estilo, sigue en la búsqueda de forma y propósito. Dicho esto, se nota su interés en lo cotidiano, en reimaginar o repensar lo diario, lo habitual, lo sencillo.

[Sylvia Flora · Rating 2 out of 5]

I guess I just didn't "get" the narrative of this in its entirety. However, I'm also not a fan of WCW's poetry...I was just interested in looking at this as a book-length poem...and for all I know it is brilliant...

[Steven · Rating 3 out of 5]

Even WCW wasn't sure what this book was. Reads mostly like a poet's journal and is full of private language.

[Vincent St. Clare · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the strangest books out there. Poetic gibberish, free association, imagism, and stream of consciousness.

[Matt Morris]

Read reviews of this & other books at https://miscmss.blogspot.com/2020/07/...

[Seth Arnopole · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kora in Hell is a self-consciously modernist experiment in improvisatory prose poems. In isolation, some of them are evocative and intriguing, but taken as a whole, it doesn't resonate.

[Marcus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Todo infierno es una interrupción. A veces el fuego desaparece; lo que queda es una imagen rabiosa, un gesto dislocado, una conciencia en fuga, un collage. Why go further?

[J.I. · Rating 3 out of 5]

The preface is marvelous, and the poems are interesting. Is this all there is to say? For me, nearly, yes. There is a narrative aspect, and a place between that and the dada aesthetic that Williams is dabbling in, which can be wonderful, where Williams has a note "explaining" the abstract poem above in such a way that while sometimes it will actually help to contextualize it, it often complicates the poem or is so completely different, not applicable at all, that understanding is actually frustrated.

Sadly, for me, I was not able to really tie it all together in a meaningful way. This is a collection that many have praised quite effusively, but there is something here I cannot grasp, quite, something leaning towards narrative that is decisively NOT narrative that eludes my understanding. Still, it is beautiful, much of the time, and worth much thought and discussion.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

my favorite from his catalog. so much so, i named my pup after it. I guess this one falls within what the 'literaries' call a bildungsroman. It's immensely powerful. I especially appreciate Kora when reading his later work; the ideas put down in this early, early work remain the focus of his career.

[Myles · Rating 2 out of 5]

Honestly, Kora in Hell is less interesting than the poetics he cobbles together in the introduction. Really brilliant stuff up in the first forty pages-- the ramblings of a pretentious madman.

[Ginger Gonzales-Price · Rating 3 out of 5]

Am I wrong to like the preface so much more than the rest of the work? The preface alone was worth the read.