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Death the Barber
'The alphabet of
the trees
is fading in the
song of the leaves'
Filled with bright, unforgettable images, the deceptively simple work of William Carlos Williams revolutionized American verse, and made him one of the greatest twentieth-century poets.
Penguin Modern: fifty new books celebrating the pioneering spirit of the iconic Penguin Modern Classics series, with each one offering a concentrated hit of its contemporary, international flavour. Here are authors ranging from Kathy Acker to James Baldwin, Truman Capote to Stanislaw Lem and George Orwell to Shirley Jackson; essays radical and inspiring; poems moving and disturbing; stories surreal and fabulous; taking us from the deep South to modern Japan, New York's underground scene to the farthest reaches of outer space.
the trees
is fading in the
song of the leaves'
Filled with bright, unforgettable images, the deceptively simple work of William Carlos Williams revolutionized American verse, and made him one of the greatest twentieth-century poets.
Penguin Modern: fifty new books celebrating the pioneering spirit of the iconic Penguin Modern Classics series, with each one offering a concentrated hit of its contemporary, international flavour. Here are authors ranging from Kathy Acker to James Baldwin, Truman Capote to Stanislaw Lem and George Orwell to Shirley Jackson; essays radical and inspiring; poems moving and disturbing; stories surreal and fabulous; taking us from the deep South to modern Japan, New York's underground scene to the farthest reaches of outer space.
56 pages, Paperback
Published February 22, 2018
7 people are currently reading
609 people want to read
About the author
William Carlos Williams
413 books828 followersWilliam 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 87 reviews
January 11, 2023
These
Is this the counterfoil to sweetest
music? The source of poetry that
seeing the clock stopped, says,
The clock has stopped
that ticked yesterday so well?
and hears the sound of lakewater
splashing - that is now stone.
(Fragment from These)
This tiny selection of thirty-nine free verse poems offered a fine introduction to the poetry of the prolific American poet and writer William Carlos Williams (1883-1963), who has more than 40 volumes of poetry, short stories, novels and plays to his name. Williams signified my first encounter with an exponent of imagism, the early twentieth century Anglo-American poetry movement which avoided the themes of romanticism and Victorian poetry and ‘emphasized simplicity, clarity of expression, and precision through the use of exacting visual images’.
Deceivingly casually touching on themes like nature, the seasons, transience, death and sublimated longing, visually focussing on concrete tableaux featuring trees, lakes, starlings, sparrows, a wrecked car, an old man, a curious cat, domestic things like curtains or glass, this sampling illustrates deftly why Williams is known as the poet who ‘succeeds in making the ordinary appear extraordinary through the clarity and discreteness of his imagery’. Through what appears as a casual conversation, a scribbled note, the presentation of moments of realness averse from symbolism, descriptions evoke emotions without the mediation of symbols and speak of lust for life, the human condition and the fragility of life in between the lines of the stanza’s. The visible, tangible, sensuous world is framed in subtle rhythm and sound repetitions, alliteration, unobtrusive rhyme, line breaks, dashes, the scarcity of punctuation accentuating the cogency and simple beauty of the words – a distinct style with at times reminded me of some of Raymond Carver's poems (in the bilingual English-Dutch collection Het woord liefde).
Richly coloured, observant, laconic, precisely composed, luminous and sensory, at times almost cinematic, at times a still frozen in time like a verbal still-life, to close these impressions jotted down after a first reading, I let the poetry speak for itself and insert four of the shorter poems of which I particularly enjoyed the delicate suggestiveness of Nantucket and the moving intimacy of the refrigerator note This is Just to say.
El Hombre
It’s a strange courage
you give me ancient star:
Shine alone in the sunrise
toward which you lend no part!
Nantucket
Flowers through the window
lavender and yellow
changed by white curtains –
Smell of cleanliness –
Sunshine of late afternoon –
On the glass tray
a glass pitcher, the tumbler
turned down, by which
a key is lying – And the
immaculate white bed
This is Just to Say
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
Flowers by the Sea
When over the flowery, sharp pasture’s
edge, unseen, the salt ocean
lifts its form—chicory and daisies
tied, released, seem hardly flowers alone
but color and the movement—or the shape
perhaps—of restlessness, whereas
the sea is circled and sways
peacefully upon its plantlike stem
(pictures by Joyce Tenneson)
Is this the counterfoil to sweetest
music? The source of poetry that
seeing the clock stopped, says,
The clock has stopped
that ticked yesterday so well?
and hears the sound of lakewater
splashing - that is now stone.
(Fragment from These)
This tiny selection of thirty-nine free verse poems offered a fine introduction to the poetry of the prolific American poet and writer William Carlos Williams (1883-1963), who has more than 40 volumes of poetry, short stories, novels and plays to his name. Williams signified my first encounter with an exponent of imagism, the early twentieth century Anglo-American poetry movement which avoided the themes of romanticism and Victorian poetry and ‘emphasized simplicity, clarity of expression, and precision through the use of exacting visual images’.
Deceivingly casually touching on themes like nature, the seasons, transience, death and sublimated longing, visually focussing on concrete tableaux featuring trees, lakes, starlings, sparrows, a wrecked car, an old man, a curious cat, domestic things like curtains or glass, this sampling illustrates deftly why Williams is known as the poet who ‘succeeds in making the ordinary appear extraordinary through the clarity and discreteness of his imagery’. Through what appears as a casual conversation, a scribbled note, the presentation of moments of realness averse from symbolism, descriptions evoke emotions without the mediation of symbols and speak of lust for life, the human condition and the fragility of life in between the lines of the stanza’s. The visible, tangible, sensuous world is framed in subtle rhythm and sound repetitions, alliteration, unobtrusive rhyme, line breaks, dashes, the scarcity of punctuation accentuating the cogency and simple beauty of the words – a distinct style with at times reminded me of some of Raymond Carver's poems (in the bilingual English-Dutch collection Het woord liefde).
Richly coloured, observant, laconic, precisely composed, luminous and sensory, at times almost cinematic, at times a still frozen in time like a verbal still-life, to close these impressions jotted down after a first reading, I let the poetry speak for itself and insert four of the shorter poems of which I particularly enjoyed the delicate suggestiveness of Nantucket and the moving intimacy of the refrigerator note This is Just to say.
El Hombre
It’s a strange courage
you give me ancient star:
Shine alone in the sunrise
toward which you lend no part!
Nantucket
Flowers through the window
lavender and yellow
changed by white curtains –
Smell of cleanliness –
Sunshine of late afternoon –
On the glass tray
a glass pitcher, the tumbler
turned down, by which
a key is lying – And the
immaculate white bed
This is Just to Say
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
Flowers by the Sea
When over the flowery, sharp pasture’s
edge, unseen, the salt ocean
lifts its form—chicory and daisies
tied, released, seem hardly flowers alone
but color and the movement—or the shape
perhaps—of restlessness, whereas
the sea is circled and sways
peacefully upon its plantlike stem
(pictures by Joyce Tenneson)
February 27, 2020
Williams' poems are easily digestible because he manages to describe the mundane with the shortest and most simple lines, which is impressive in itself. Sometimes his observations seem a little too mundane for my taste, other times I could only marvel at the beauty and angles he finds in his surroundings and manages to describe on point like Flowers by the Sea.
February 10, 2025
Penguin Modern Boxset 40/50
(I'm reading them in order!)
Williams writes simple, impersonal poems. They are barebone sketches, that have a slippery feeling. It's easy to drift through them but I think there's a skill in that, for them to be almost barely there? I can see why this will be not adored by many, for the words are plain and lacking passion. However, as someone who reads poems and has a personal preference, this first introduction to Williams was disappointing but not unsettling. These poems aren't terribly unpleasant or unbalanced to me, they are carefully constructed. I can appreciate their minimalism though I disdain their lack of aesthetic.
There were definitely many better poets that could have been included to represent 20th century poetry: Rilke, Rimbaud, Oliver, Auden, Plath, Neruda [...]
Favourite poems: This Is Just To Say, Polar Bear
(I'm reading them in order!)
Williams writes simple, impersonal poems. They are barebone sketches, that have a slippery feeling. It's easy to drift through them but I think there's a skill in that, for them to be almost barely there? I can see why this will be not adored by many, for the words are plain and lacking passion. However, as someone who reads poems and has a personal preference, this first introduction to Williams was disappointing but not unsettling. These poems aren't terribly unpleasant or unbalanced to me, they are carefully constructed. I can appreciate their minimalism though I disdain their lack of aesthetic.
There were definitely many better poets that could have been included to represent 20th century poetry: Rilke, Rimbaud, Oliver, Auden, Plath, Neruda [...]
Favourite poems: This Is Just To Say, Polar Bear
September 17, 2018
The fortieth Penguin Modern publication is a collection of poetry by William Carlos Williams, entitled Death the Barber. The poems here are 'filled with bright, unforgettable images... [which] revolutionised American verse, and made him one of the greatest twentieth-century poets.' I do not recall having read any of Williams' work prior to this, and was expecting something akin to e.e. cummings. Whilst I was able to draw some similarities between the work of both poets, their work is certainly distinctive and quite vastly different from one another's.
The poems in Death the Barber are taken from various collections published between 1917 and 1962. Whilst I recognised 'This Is Just to Say', the rest of the poems here were new to me, and have certainly sparked an interest within me to read more of Williams' work. There is so much of interest here, and the varied themes and imagery made it really enjoyable. Whilst some of the poems seem simplistic at first, there is a lot of depth to them. I shall end this review with two of my favourite extracts from this brief collection.
From 'Pastoral':
The little sparrows
hop vigorously
about the pavement
quarrelling
with sharp voices
over those things
that interest them.
But we who are wiser
shut ourselves in
on either hand
and no one knows
whether we think good
or evil.'
From 'To Waken an Old Lady':
Old age is
a flight of small
cheeping birds
skimming
bare trees
above a snow glaze.
The poems in Death the Barber are taken from various collections published between 1917 and 1962. Whilst I recognised 'This Is Just to Say', the rest of the poems here were new to me, and have certainly sparked an interest within me to read more of Williams' work. There is so much of interest here, and the varied themes and imagery made it really enjoyable. Whilst some of the poems seem simplistic at first, there is a lot of depth to them. I shall end this review with two of my favourite extracts from this brief collection.
From 'Pastoral':
The little sparrows
hop vigorously
about the pavement
quarrelling
with sharp voices
over those things
that interest them.
But we who are wiser
shut ourselves in
on either hand
and no one knows
whether we think good
or evil.'
From 'To Waken an Old Lady':
Old age is
a flight of small
cheeping birds
skimming
bare trees
above a snow glaze.
March 23, 2022
Την παγκόσμια ημέρα ποίησης, κατάφερα στα πολύ γρήγορα να διαβάσω μια συλλογή απο τα ποιήματα του William Carlos Williams, σε μια πρώτη επαφή με τον συγγραφέα.
Θα μπορούσε να πει κανείς, πως η γραφή του είναι φαινομενικά απλοική. Μια προσεκτική ανάγνωση θα δείξει πως κάτι τέτοιο είναι πέρα για πέρα αναληθές. Όπως έχει συμβεί και με άλλους ποιητές, δεν μπορώ να προσδιορίσω τι ειναι αυτό ακριβώς που με έκανε να μου αρέσει τόσο πολύ η ποίηση του. Γνωιρίζω μόνο, πως μου θύμισε σε μεγάλο βαθμό έργα του Magritte χωρίς όμως να μιλάμε για σουρεαλισμό.
Αλλά αυτή δεν είναι η ομορφιά της ποίησης; Δεν χρειάζεται να σκέφτεσαι, απλά να νιώθεις.
Το ποίημα, Death the Barber έχει μπει αυτομάτως στα αγαπημένα μου ποιήματα.
Θα μπορούσε να πει κανείς, πως η γραφή του είναι φαινομενικά απλοική. Μια προσεκτική ανάγνωση θα δείξει πως κάτι τέτοιο είναι πέρα για πέρα αναληθές. Όπως έχει συμβεί και με άλλους ποιητές, δεν μπορώ να προσδιορίσω τι ειναι αυτό ακριβώς που με έκανε να μου αρέσει τόσο πολύ η ποίηση του. Γνωιρίζω μόνο, πως μου θύμισε σε μεγάλο βαθμό έργα του Magritte χωρίς όμως να μιλάμε για σουρεαλισμό.
Αλλά αυτή δεν είναι η ομορφιά της ποίησης; Δεν χρειάζεται να σκέφτεσαι, απλά να νιώθεις.
Το ποίημα, Death the Barber έχει μπει αυτομάτως στα αγαπημένα μου ποιήματα.
March 10, 2022
munching a plum on
the street a paper bag
of them in her hand
They taste good to her
They taste good
to her. They taste
good to her
uneori plăcerea unei prune e enough
the street a paper bag
of them in her hand
They taste good to her
They taste good
to her. They taste
good to her
uneori plăcerea unei prune e enough
March 29, 2019
I was surprised that I had so much trouble with most poems of William Carlos Williams- a beautiful name for a poet, if there ever was one - since I expected simple observations about daily reality, and some certainly were, but I found most of them hermetic, perhaps because I do not master the English idiom and lexicon up to the point where the words can stream as images.
It feels nice to read poetry aloud, though, when being on your own.
It feels nice to read poetry aloud, though, when being on your own.
August 20, 2018
If you can bring nothing to this place
but your carcass, keep out.
but your carcass, keep out.
March 28, 2022
مثل این میماند که شاعر راز گاهی مکث کرده، نگاه کرده و توصیف کرده و نوشته. مثل قاب عکس هستند اغلب این شعرهای کوتاه. یک آن. یک دم. یک هنگام. مثلا:
«آن دم
که گربه
به روی آن
گنجهی تا
خرخره پر
پرید
و پنجهی راستش را
با مهارت تمام
به روی آن نهاد،
به عقب جهید و خیز
به سوی آن گلدان
خالی از گل نمود.»
یا
«نشستهاند کنار پنجره
گلهای یاسی و زرد
رقص پردههای سپید
عطر پاکی و سپیدی را در فضا آکنده -
تلالو تارهای آفتاب بعد از ظهر
به روی طبق شیشهای
یک پارچ شیشهای
و لیوانی سر و ته مقرر است
و در کنارشان
یک کلید و تخت خواب
تماما تمیزی آرمیدهاست.»
به نظر میرسد تقطیع جملات در ترجمه فارسی که گاهی عجیب به نظر میرسند، یا استفادههای نامتعارف علائم نگارشی، به تبعیت از رسم نگارش خود شاعر رعایت شدهاند. مثلا در شعر اول انگاری که انتظار و انقباض مرحله به مرحله بدن گربه قبل از پرش در چینش پلکانی کلمات تداعی پیدا کرده باشد.
یادم باشد ترجمه انگلیسی برخی اشعارش رو بررسی کنم. کمی با لحن جدی و سنگین برخی شعرها مشکل داشتم و فکر کردم شاید. مشکل از ترجمه ست اما در یکی دو شعر زبان راحتتر و عامیانه هم بود که باعث شد حدس بزنم یحتمل لحن خود شاعر گاهی آنی کلمات سنگین در ترجمه فارسی را ایجاب کرده.
«آن دم
که گربه
به روی آن
گنجهی تا
خرخره پر
پرید
و پنجهی راستش را
با مهارت تمام
به روی آن نهاد،
به عقب جهید و خیز
به سوی آن گلدان
خالی از گل نمود.»
یا
«نشستهاند کنار پنجره
گلهای یاسی و زرد
رقص پردههای سپید
عطر پاکی و سپیدی را در فضا آکنده -
تلالو تارهای آفتاب بعد از ظهر
به روی طبق شیشهای
یک پارچ شیشهای
و لیوانی سر و ته مقرر است
و در کنارشان
یک کلید و تخت خواب
تماما تمیزی آرمیدهاست.»
به نظر میرسد تقطیع جملات در ترجمه فارسی که گاهی عجیب به نظر میرسند، یا استفادههای نامتعارف علائم نگارشی، به تبعیت از رسم نگارش خود شاعر رعایت شدهاند. مثلا در شعر اول انگاری که انتظار و انقباض مرحله به مرحله بدن گربه قبل از پرش در چینش پلکانی کلمات تداعی پیدا کرده باشد.
یادم باشد ترجمه انگلیسی برخی اشعارش رو بررسی کنم. کمی با لحن جدی و سنگین برخی شعرها مشکل داشتم و فکر کردم شاید. مشکل از ترجمه ست اما در یکی دو شعر زبان راحتتر و عامیانه هم بود که باعث شد حدس بزنم یحتمل لحن خود شاعر گاهی آنی کلمات سنگین در ترجمه فارسی را ایجاب کرده.
January 20, 2024
Gosto de muitos poemas do WCW (inclusive alguns que estão aqui), mas neste livro eles não foram unanimidade. Em alguns casos, achei cansativo o uso do enjambement, que geralmente me agrada. No entanto, sei também que não me dei tanto tempo com o livro, apesar da demora em terminá-lo, e planejo uma releitura. Volto aqui quando ela acontecer.
November 2, 2018
3,5 von Sternen
Wie üblich in einer Lyrik Sammlung gab es auch hier wieder für mich herausragende Poems und welche mit denen ich nichts anfangen konnte.
Wie üblich in einer Lyrik Sammlung gab es auch hier wieder für mich herausragende Poems und welche mit denen ich nichts anfangen konnte.
March 20, 2023
not my type of poetry
2/5
2/5
Read
July 23, 2022sorry jana, un llibre menys pel meu challenge
February 3, 2023
I really do not like his poetry sorry
July 3, 2019
The prose that William Carlos Williams gives to us has been beautiful tricks such as repetition, no grammar, odd grammar, juxtaposition, and often, frustratingly, unavailable absurdity.
Williams poetry is speakable. It desires to read aloud and listened to. The flow, startled and maintained by existent and non-existent grammar, of the poetry demands auditory consumption. It is not written with 'reading grammer' rather it is written for dramatic voice.
At times however words jumble together in nonsensical and inaccessible ways making for poor lines amidst strong poems.
Themes of celebrated, vibrant and vivid life which strongly color Williams poetry; food and love, cold and heat. And short relatable snapshot stories so well formed anyone could bite into it and recognize a familiar taste.
Williams poetry is speakable. It desires to read aloud and listened to. The flow, startled and maintained by existent and non-existent grammar, of the poetry demands auditory consumption. It is not written with 'reading grammer' rather it is written for dramatic voice.
At times however words jumble together in nonsensical and inaccessible ways making for poor lines amidst strong poems.
Themes of celebrated, vibrant and vivid life which strongly color Williams poetry; food and love, cold and heat. And short relatable snapshot stories so well formed anyone could bite into it and recognize a familiar taste.
October 16, 2018
I'm in love with this tiny little book. I was never a huge poetry fan, but I really like William Carlos Williams. I really enjoy just reading these poems aloud to myself. Is that weird? Maybe, but I don't care.
May 23, 2025
«از مرگ
به من گفت
آن آرایشگر
آن آرایشگر
آن دم
که حیاتم را
با خواب، کوتاه میکرد
تا موهایم را بچیند ـ
سپس چنینم گفت
شباهنگام،
آن دم که میمیریم
تنها لحظهای بیش نیست ـ
و از
شیوههای نوینِ
رشد مو
بشارتم داد
چنینش گفتم
که مرگ،
برهنه و بیپرواست
از تبارِ آن چراغِ چینی
و از جنسِ آن پیرمردِ
با یکجفت دندانِ
اضافه رزرو
از همان پیرمردی
که جلوی دَر ـ
گفت که
امروز هوا آفتابیست!
و بهخاطرِ همین جمله،
مرگ
هر هفته دوبار
سرش را میتراشد.»
ویلیامز از جمله شعرای ویتمنی دونسته میشه با اختلاف زمانی تقریباً یک قرنی. در واقع، بومیگرایی، سادگی زبانی و توجه به زندگی روزمره در اشعار هر دو به نحوی برجسته میشه. البته زندگی آمریکایی. ویتمن در شهر (نیویورک) پرسه میزنه و صدای شلوغیها، جمعیت و تنوع انسانی در شعرش پیچیده؛ ویلیامز، شاعر-پزشکِ نیوجرسی، بیشتر با حومه، خانههای معمولی و فضای طبیعت سر و کار داره. برای همین طبیعت در شعرهای ویلیامز برجستهتره. تفاوتهاشون در بلندی شعرهای ویتمن و موجز بودن شعرهای کارلوسه. ویتمن کلنگره و ویلیامز جزئینگر، اما هر دو تجربهگران. منِ ویتمن همه جا هست، اما منِ ویلیامز چندان پررنگ نیست و بیشتر ناظره. از جمله فیگورهای پررنگ توی شعرهای این مجموعه پیرمرد و پیرزن بود که شاید به فرسودگی جسمانی اشاره داره یا بیمارهایی که به مطبش میومدن در کنار این، طبیعت هم حضوری مداوم و سیال داره: نه بهعنوان چشمانداز رمانتیک، بلکه در تماس نزدیک با زندگی روزمره و ملموس. در کل شعرهای منتخبِ مترجم رو چندان دوست نداشتم. برای همین یه شعری که خودم خوندم رو اینجا میارم که خیلی جالبه:
Oh strong-ridged and deeply hollowed
nose of mine! what will you not be smelling?
What tactless asses we are, you and I,
bony nose, always indiscriminate,
always unashamed,
and now it is the souring flowers of the bedridden
invalid—
smells rich and rotten and—sudden,
a whiff of the combed-out hair of graves—
the clotted lungs of the dead—
only the wall to blunt us—
an odor!
surely they won’t
notice it?
it is too delicate
and, worse, it is too well known:
the staleness of noon—
the sun’s hot breath on the city—
the sour, unwashed, moist smell of the backhouse
door of the restauranteur.
And then the delicate
whiff of kerosene
as the gardener slips in
to set the wick alight, or the sinewy scent
of things just passed and yet
abiding—the cool odor of stone,
the morning smell of man’s
ground.
به من گفت
آن آرایشگر
آن آرایشگر
آن دم
که حیاتم را
با خواب، کوتاه میکرد
تا موهایم را بچیند ـ
سپس چنینم گفت
شباهنگام،
آن دم که میمیریم
تنها لحظهای بیش نیست ـ
و از
شیوههای نوینِ
رشد مو
بشارتم داد
چنینش گفتم
که مرگ،
برهنه و بیپرواست
از تبارِ آن چراغِ چینی
و از جنسِ آن پیرمردِ
با یکجفت دندانِ
اضافه رزرو
از همان پیرمردی
که جلوی دَر ـ
گفت که
امروز هوا آفتابیست!
و بهخاطرِ همین جمله،
مرگ
هر هفته دوبار
سرش را میتراشد.»
ویلیامز از جمله شعرای ویتمنی دونسته میشه با اختلاف زمانی تقریباً یک قرنی. در واقع، بومیگرایی، سادگی زبانی و توجه به زندگی روزمره در اشعار هر دو به نحوی برجسته میشه. البته زندگی آمریکایی. ویتمن در شهر (نیویورک) پرسه میزنه و صدای شلوغیها، جمعیت و تنوع انسانی در شعرش پیچیده؛ ویلیامز، شاعر-پزشکِ نیوجرسی، بیشتر با حومه، خانههای معمولی و فضای طبیعت سر و کار داره. برای همین طبیعت در شعرهای ویلیامز برجستهتره. تفاوتهاشون در بلندی شعرهای ویتمن و موجز بودن شعرهای کارلوسه. ویتمن کلنگره و ویلیامز جزئینگر، اما هر دو تجربهگران. منِ ویتمن همه جا هست، اما منِ ویلیامز چندان پررنگ نیست و بیشتر ناظره. از جمله فیگورهای پررنگ توی شعرهای این مجموعه پیرمرد و پیرزن بود که شاید به فرسودگی جسمانی اشاره داره یا بیمارهایی که به مطبش میومدن در کنار این، طبیعت هم حضوری مداوم و سیال داره: نه بهعنوان چشمانداز رمانتیک، بلکه در تماس نزدیک با زندگی روزمره و ملموس. در کل شعرهای منتخبِ مترجم رو چندان دوست نداشتم. برای همین یه شعری که خودم خوندم رو اینجا میارم که خیلی جالبه:
Oh strong-ridged and deeply hollowed
nose of mine! what will you not be smelling?
What tactless asses we are, you and I,
bony nose, always indiscriminate,
always unashamed,
and now it is the souring flowers of the bedridden
invalid—
smells rich and rotten and—sudden,
a whiff of the combed-out hair of graves—
the clotted lungs of the dead—
only the wall to blunt us—
an odor!
surely they won’t
notice it?
it is too delicate
and, worse, it is too well known:
the staleness of noon—
the sun’s hot breath on the city—
the sour, unwashed, moist smell of the backhouse
door of the restauranteur.
And then the delicate
whiff of kerosene
as the gardener slips in
to set the wick alight, or the sinewy scent
of things just passed and yet
abiding—the cool odor of stone,
the morning smell of man’s
ground.
October 7, 2018
This Is Just To Say
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
William Carlos Williams
- - -
A small collection of poems by William Carlos Williams. Due to my low control of English, I was scared by the size and complexity of the actual books of him (like Paterson or others), so I guess this was the right choice for starting to appreciate the simple, clear grace of this amazing poet.
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
William Carlos Williams
- - -
A small collection of poems by William Carlos Williams. Due to my low control of English, I was scared by the size and complexity of the actual books of him (like Paterson or others), so I guess this was the right choice for starting to appreciate the simple, clear grace of this amazing poet.
November 28, 2022
[3.5 stars]
"It is I! I who am the rocks! Without me nothing laughs."
tbh I liked it less than I thought I would, but still, quite some beautiful words put together. not my style, but one can clearly see mr. williams' talent through his verses. interesting view on male vs. female (very fruity might I add...), and plums. plums everywhere.
"It is I! I who am the rocks! Without me nothing laughs."
tbh I liked it less than I thought I would, but still, quite some beautiful words put together. not my style, but one can clearly see mr. williams' talent through his verses. interesting view on male vs. female (very fruity might I add...), and plums. plums everywhere.
Read
September 22, 2023freshly plucked plum in an icebox, soft blackened chunks of plum in a warm jar of jam, plum in a wizened dotted hand, pit of a stolen plum drifting beneath a bridge, blunt teeth always breaking into a plum like flesh
August 1, 2018
This was great, but I was always going to enjoy it because I like Williams’ poetry. I’ve actually already his collected poems, but this would be a nice little intro to his work. You’ll enjoy it.
August 23, 2024
i feel like his poetry is overly simple and overly opaque at the same time. maybe that’s my big dum dum american head tho
May 9, 2025
El Hombre
It's a strange courage
you give me ancient star:
Shine alone in the sunrise
to which you lend no part!
Williams does a huge amount with very little.
I find the free verse flow on between stanzas frustrating at times. Why should an idea be broken in half across stanzas? I guess they're all distinct images, and it's a bit like looking at a series of slides. Perhaps I'm just hoping for more of a movie than a slideshow. Often the break up of the images seemed to really stilt the poem. Imagine if you slowed a claymation down, such that each scene flashed for 5 seconds, rather than seamlessly merging together. Or when you're at a rave and a slow pulsing strobe gives you these snapshots rather than a continuous image. If the images are powerful, which in Williams' case they often are, then it can work. But if they're not then the effect can be quite frustrating.
Read
December 16, 2025Note to all smarmy politicians:
"If you can bring nothing to this place but your carcass, keep out."
And that is why I am in Camp Williams.
"If you can bring nothing to this place but your carcass, keep out."
And that is why I am in Camp Williams.
March 27, 2018
This is a collection of 39 poems by the twentieth century poet William Carlos Williams. It’s a short volume, and is part of Penguin’s Modern Classics -- a series of short works (small short story collections, novellas, and poetry collections; all less than 100 pages) that feature writers from the past century or so. Like many, my experience with Williams didn’t extend much beyond his red wheelbarrow (not included herein) and so it was nice to get a taste of a broader range of his poems.
The poetry is free verse with experimental feel. The gathered poems are as short as a few lines and as long as two-ish pages, but most fall in the one to one-and-a-half page range. Williams was an imagist, and these poems reflect that focus on creating vivid imagery while using economy of words. While imagery is given priority, Williams doesn’t completely ignore sound, using alliteration and repetition to create interesting aural effects here and there. Nature is a common theme, but not an exclusive one in these works.
Among the more noteworthy poems are the titular poem (“Death the Barber”), “Dedication for a Plot of Ground” [an elegy to his grandmother, Emily Dickinson Wellcome (not the poet sharing the same first two names),] “Young Sycamore,” “Death,” “The Botticellian Trees,” and “The Bitter World of Spring.”
I enjoyed this little collection and that it wasn’t just a greatest hits -- which in Williams’ case would revolve around his famous “Red Wheelbarrow.”
The poetry is free verse with experimental feel. The gathered poems are as short as a few lines and as long as two-ish pages, but most fall in the one to one-and-a-half page range. Williams was an imagist, and these poems reflect that focus on creating vivid imagery while using economy of words. While imagery is given priority, Williams doesn’t completely ignore sound, using alliteration and repetition to create interesting aural effects here and there. Nature is a common theme, but not an exclusive one in these works.
Among the more noteworthy poems are the titular poem (“Death the Barber”), “Dedication for a Plot of Ground” [an elegy to his grandmother, Emily Dickinson Wellcome (not the poet sharing the same first two names),] “Young Sycamore,” “Death,” “The Botticellian Trees,” and “The Bitter World of Spring.”
I enjoyed this little collection and that it wasn’t just a greatest hits -- which in Williams’ case would revolve around his famous “Red Wheelbarrow.”
April 1, 2018
On page 24 (plums, icebox) I realised that I was in fact not reading Walt Whitman but rather the quite different William Carlos Williams. O, I thought - My realisation that I liked old Walt more than I had thought was clearly in error.
Back to Wills.I.Are - fab imagist renderings, always most interesting because of the need to interrogate what the cellotape between the images might mean. Some are immediate and wonderful; some more resistant to a crampon of understanding. I will revisit this volume, which is, I guess, pretty high praise for poetry.
Back to Wills.I.Are - fab imagist renderings, always most interesting because of the need to interrogate what the cellotape between the images might mean. Some are immediate and wonderful; some more resistant to a crampon of understanding. I will revisit this volume, which is, I guess, pretty high praise for poetry.
Read
May 1, 2018I bought this little collection in hopes of finding more poems I would enjoy as much as ''This Is Just to Say''. Unfortunately there were none that spoke to me in the same way. Ever tried, ever failed.
August 1, 2023
This Is Just to Say
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
March 28, 2023
William Carlos Williams’ poetry volume, Death the Barber, is probably one of those collections that I will remember for a while and most likely return to. As I am writing poetry myself, his poems represent a source of inspiration. My first encounter with his work was during my university years, when our teacher included his poems in the mandatory reading list for our American Poetry course, alongside Gertrude Stein, E.E. Cummings and Ezra Pound – which I am grateful they did as he is the literal embodiment of Modernism and Imagism.
Williams is without a doubt one of the outstanding contemporary poets: he succeeds at transposing multiple features of Modernism and Imagism in poems comprised in Death the Barber. As a leading poet of the Imagist movement, his pieces are freed from the historical weight of his predecessors and previous literary movements and embrace reality in order to make a contact with the tangible, what can be reached, and is rather physical than metaphorical. In this sense, symbolism and rudimentary metaphors are either rejected or replaced with raw individual experience. Predominantly reverberations of the image, Williams’ poems are centred around visual representations of deep personal emotions. As a representative of Imagism, avoiding generalities, adopting a colloquial language and precise imagery is definitory for his poems as well as soft consonants.
While these features are reflected in most of the poems included in the collection, I do have a couple of favourites and these include The Last Word of My English Grandmother,The Bare Tree and Dedication for a Plot of Ground. If anything, the last two lines of the latter one are definitory of what we can only assume his purpose was when writing poetry: “If you can bring nothing to this place/but your carcass, keep out”.
Williams is without a doubt one of the outstanding contemporary poets: he succeeds at transposing multiple features of Modernism and Imagism in poems comprised in Death the Barber. As a leading poet of the Imagist movement, his pieces are freed from the historical weight of his predecessors and previous literary movements and embrace reality in order to make a contact with the tangible, what can be reached, and is rather physical than metaphorical. In this sense, symbolism and rudimentary metaphors are either rejected or replaced with raw individual experience. Predominantly reverberations of the image, Williams’ poems are centred around visual representations of deep personal emotions. As a representative of Imagism, avoiding generalities, adopting a colloquial language and precise imagery is definitory for his poems as well as soft consonants.
While these features are reflected in most of the poems included in the collection, I do have a couple of favourites and these include The Last Word of My English Grandmother,The Bare Tree and Dedication for a Plot of Ground. If anything, the last two lines of the latter one are definitory of what we can only assume his purpose was when writing poetry: “If you can bring nothing to this place/but your carcass, keep out”.
January 6, 2025
I enjoyed this short book of poetry, having never read Williams before. Three I particularly enjoyed were "Dedication for a Plot of Ground," "The Yachts," and "Labrador." As I often do with these slim Penguin Modern books, I wish this collection had an introduction of any sort. Brief Googling tells me that Williams was an "imagist" who sought the poetic in ordinary things. Indeed, many of these poems begin with a description of an object (often natural, sometimes manmade) and, using sparse language, connect it somehow to people or to himself. Often, though, I didn't feel much of a connection, and the images were just images. I enjoyed the poems with more political or moral messages, like the wonderful "The Yachts."
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