The Clouds

by William Carlos Williams

Genres: Poetry

64 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1948

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

[Kent · Rating 4 out of 5]

Williams' objectivism can sometimes feel like a bolt of joy. At other times, it feels as though he has a theory of how and why it should work, and that theory is supposed to support the existence of the poem. The Clouds drifts between these two points. In poems like "A Place (Any Place) to Transcend All Places" and "The Night Rider," Williams invigorates a common scene with an energy that seems to glow at the seams of the place. The language is simple, but charged. The line breaks are surprising. Another poem, though, like "The Brilliance" rests on the supposition that a poem about an object should work. The impulse for the poem feeling more theoretical than inspired.

[Illiterate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Williams is secular and pessimistic, but he finds solace and hope at romantic sites like nature, imagination, art. Top tip: The Clouds.

[M.W.P.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Clouds, like Williams's earlier collections, is dominated by natural imagery. Superficially, Williams appears to derive much of his inspiration from nature. But Williams is always describing more than nature. For example, his place in the world - that is, humanity's place in the world. Moreover, what sets The Clouds apart from other poets of a common inclination is Williams's use of description. It's not the"flowery language" one expects from poetry about nature. On the contrary, Williams's attributes many abstract qualities upon his landscape. It's not "pathetic fallacy" but something else. (Perhaps there's a term for it that I don't know.)

in a field a goat, befouled,
shagbellied, indifferent to
the mind's ecstasies,
flutters its blunt tail
and turns a vacant face
lop-eared, sleepy-eyed to stare,
unblinking, meditant -
listless
in its assured sanctity.
- The Goat

The horse moves
independently
without reference
to his load

He has eyes
like a woman and
turns them
about, throws

back his ears
and is generally
conscious of
the world....
- The Horse

When the world takes over for us
and the storm in the trees
replaces our brittle consciences
(like ships, female to all seas)
when the few last yellow leaves
stand out like flags on tossed ships
at anchor - our minds are rested
- Lear

Williams's interest in nature is addressed in a poem entitled "Education A Failure", in which the poet turns his back on the modern world, dominated by absurdities and minor stupidities, focusing instead on a natural scene. The pessimism with which Williams addresses the modern world - that is, the civilized world, the world of bridges - is overshadowed by the optimism with which he addresses the natural world - that is, the world of cats and birds. The poem can either be read as an inquiry into the apocalyptic preoccupations of WWII-era poets, or as an affirmation of Williams's poetic preoccupation that aligns itself with the transcendentalists.

The minor stupidities
of my world
dominate that world -
as when

with two bridges across
the river and one
closed for repairs
the other also

will be closed by
the authorities
for painting! But then
there is heaven

and the ideal state
closed also
before the aspiring soul.
I had rather

watch a cat threading
a hedge with
another sitting by
while the bird

screams overhead
athrash
in the cover of the
low branches.
- Education A Failure

Williams appears to enjoy commenting on form more than he enjoys playing with form. Which is alright because his commentary is always clever, or humorous, or thought provoking, or all of the above...

The old horse dies slow.
By gradual degrees
the fervour of his veins
matches the leaves'

stretch, day by day. But
the pace that his
mind keeps is the pace
of his dreams. He

does what he can, with
unabated phlegm,
ahem! but the pace that
his flesh keeps -

leaning, leaning upon
the bars - beggars
by far all pace and every
refuge of his dreams.
- When Structure Fails Rhyme Attempts to Come to the Rescue

The table describes
nothing: four legs, by which
it becomes a table. Four lines
by which it becomes a quatrain,

the poem that lifts the dish
of fruit, if we say it is like
a table - how will it describe
the contents of the poem?
- The Dish of Fruit