The Collected Poems, Vol. 2: 1939-1962

by William Carlos Williams, Christopher MacGowan (Editor)

'And when the second and final colume of Williams' 'Collected Poems' is published, it should become even more apparent that he is this century's major American poet.' --Larry Kart, 'Chicago Tribune'

Genres: Poetry, Classics, American, Literature, The United States Of America, 20th Century, Fiction

552 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1967

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

[Ulysse · Rating 5 out of 5]

so there you
have it
I've read all

the poems
William Carlos
Williams

ever wrote
every one of them
it's true

most were
delicious I can
tell you

like sundry
fruit pouring out of a
cornucopia

thank you
William
Carlos Williams

the juice of your words
has stained forever
my lips and fingers

[Tony · Rating 5 out of 5]

You really need to read the Collected to understand Williams. The various Selecteds out there really don't do this remarkable poet justice (though the review I read of Pinsky's new edited volume of Williams was positive--haven't checked that out yet). Williams was not just an Imagist poet, writing about how much depends on that red wheelbarrow, not just a free verse confessional poet of the late books, inspiration to Robert Lowell, the one who allowed him and Snodgrass and Plath and Sexton to "break through back into life." Williams was a radically experimental, avant-garde poet who explicitly modeled his poetic practice on modernist industrial design, on Duchamp's readymade esthetics, on Cubist simultaneity and fractured depth and ground, on Transcendentalist notions of "notching the present moment on your stick," to misquote Thoreau, of basically "being here now" in the moment of the reading experience, experiencing reading as an almost religious act. He gave his whole heart and mind and life to the craft and study and practice of poetry, and is not easily summed up. Get Vol. 1 as well!

[Stuart Marlatt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just as the nature of briars
is to tear flesh,
I have proceeded
through them.
Keep
the briars out,
they say.
You cannot live
and keep free of
briars.
- from "The Ivy Crown"


WCW is a mixed bag: romantic, prolific, innovative, influential and often deeply moving, but he fails as often as he succeeds. Fortunately, his successes are truly phenomenal. Everyone knows The Red Wheelbarrow and far too much self-conscious ink has been spilled on that little poem for me to add any here. Many of his other works, however, should by rights overshadow TRW, and deserve much more attention than they seem to receive: The Descent, The Ivy Crown and Landscape with the Fall of Icarus should be required reading for all poets or readers of poetry. Love that "American Variable Foot!"

(this review applies to both Vol. I and II)

[Sincerae Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book of poems had to grow on me. At first I wasn't touched by some of the early poems in the volume, but as I read further I came to love William Carlos Williams' use of imagery and language. Much of humanity and life are in these poems: average Americans including a few black people,scenes from other countries and eras, "translations" of some ancient Chinese poets. Also poems from Pictures from Brueghel are here for which he won a posthumous Nobel Prize. It took me a very long time to get into this book of poetry, but in the end reading this collection was worth it.

[M.W.P.M. · Rating 5 out of 5]

The second volume of The Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams includes The Wedge , The Clouds , The Pink Church , The Desert Music , Journey to Love , and Pictures from Brueghel .

In addition, Williams's uncollected poems are arranged chronologically and inserted between the individual books.

It was outside a place
across the track -
We'd been going all day.

But you know - none
of us had any dough we
're all on relief -

I told the Chief about
it this morning and
he wanted to pick him up.

But you know - he's
my best friend. I don't
mind a shiner but look

at this here. I showed
it to my wife when
I got home and she says,

Those are tooth marks!
Then it started to
swell on me, right down

to the ankle. Look,
these three little marks
here and those others

down there under them.
That looks like teeth
don't you think so?

All I want to know is
is it dangerous? That's
all I care about it.
overheard by:
William Carlos Williams
- The Fight (from Poems 1939 - 1944, pg. 28)

There they were
stuck
dog and bitch
halving the compass

Then when
with his yip
they parted
oh how frolicsome

she grew before him
playful
dancing and
how disconsolate

he retreated
hang-dog
she following
through the shrubbery
- April Is the Saddest Month (from Poems 1945 - 1948, pg. 117)

That's the kind of books
they read.
They love their filth.
Knee boots
and they want to hear
it suck
when they pull 'em out.
- Drugstore Library (from Poems 1949 - 1953, pg. 230)

No pretense no more than the
French painters of
the early years of the nineteenth century

to scant the truth
of the light itself as
it was reflected from

a ballerina's thigh this Ginsberg
of Kaddish falls apart
violently to a peal of laughter or to

wrenched imprecation from a
man's head nothing can
stop the truth of it art is all we

can say to reverse
the chain of events and make a pileup
of passion to match the stars

No choice but between
a certain variation
hard to perceive in a shade of blue
- Cézanne (from Poems 1955 - 1962, pg. 376)

It's worth mentioning that Williams wrote the introduction to Ginsberg's Howl

The uncollected poems also includes translations of Yvan Goll (such as "Jean Sans Terre at the Final Port") and Paul Éluard (such as "Curfew"), along with a selection of Chinese poems translated and adapted in collaboration with David Rafael Wang (such as "Society of Poets")...

John Landless sailing on a helmless boat
Through waveless oceans towards shoreless sands
Lands on a dawnless day at a townless port
Knocks at a houseless door with his boneless hands
- Jean Sans Terre at the Final Port to Claire Sans Lune (from Poems 1939 - 1944, pg. 37)

So what the door was guarded
So what we were imprisoned there
So what the street was barred off
So what the town was under attack
So what she was famished
So what we were without arms
So what night had fallen
So what we made love.
- Curfew (from Poems 1945 - 1948, pg. 104)

Silk-hatted gentlemen have swamped the capital,
While you, the poet, are lean and haggard.
If the new of heaven is not narrow,
Why should you be banished when you are old?
Ten thousand ages will remember your warmth;
When you are gone the world is silent and cold.
- Society of Poets (from Poems 1955 - 1962, pg. 362)

[Illiterate · Rating 4 out of 5]

Williams still attends to images but his voice is more humane and confessional.

[Dane Cobain · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, here we go – this is the last review that I have to write for the site, and once I finish this off, I’m done – I’ll have reviewed every book that I’ve ever read, and I’ll only have to worry about reviewing the books that I read in the future. Awesome!

I’ve read both of William Carlos Williams’ Collected Poems books, and whilst they are pretty heavy going at 558 pages, they’re a lot of fun and you enjoy every step of the way. Williams had a gift for using evocative language, and even when he’s not giving you concrete details, you still feel the feeling that he’s trying to communicate. Here’s a typical example of his style:

“Yesterday the heat was oppressive. Dust clogged the leaves’ green and bees from the near hive, parched, drank, overeager, at the birdbath and were drowned there. Others replaced them from which the birds were frightened. The fleece-light air!”

For me, Williams is one of the earliest poets whose work really resonates me, because he writes in a way that makes it easy to read his words and to assimilate his sensual assault on the brain, which is effectively what his work is. In some ways, he reminds me of Charles Bukowski, in that he uses simple language to paint an evocative picture in the mind of the reader, and it’s something that I try to emulate in my own work – it’s difficult to get it right, especially while establishing your own creative style, but it’s awesome once you get it right, and Williams was one of the early masters of it.

Let’s take a look at another quote, because I have another 250 words to fill out before we’re done here: “Armed with a brass-violin horn / clarinet and fiddle go four / poor musicians trudging the snow / between villages in the cold.” It’s poems like that which really show how Williams’ simplistic style can tell a whole story in just a few simple words, and this book is full of examples of that.

Unfortunately, there are also points at which it develops into lengthy prose, and whilst it isn’t necessarily a bad thing to read it, it’s nowhere near as fun as the rest of the book is. Why? Again, it comes back to brevity – Williams is always at his best when he’s using as few words as possible, and long chunks of prose can take a long time to read through, with less of a pay off. Still, I wouldn’t recommend skipping it – just be warned, and tread carefully.

Overall, then, I’d recommend both of William Carlos Williams’ Collected Poems books, but I do feel as though this book, which contains the work from his later life, is the better of the two collections. But the thing is that these collections are so comprehensive that if you read them both, you’ve effectively read every book that Williams put out in his lifetime – it’d be crazy to read one and not the other. You might as well read them both for the sake of completion – plus, they’re reasonably cheap for what you get from them. My copy of Collected Poems II cost £18.95, which I guess is around $30 – not much at all,

[Truls Ljungström · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jag skall vara ärlig och konstatera att jag definitivt föredrar hans tidiga produktion framför hans senare, men det är en bra volym allt som allt.

[Alejandro Teruel · Rating 3 out of 5]

An exhaustive second volume of William Carlos Williams' poetry arranged by chronological order of his published books: The Wedge (1944), The Clouds(1948), The Pink Church(1949), The Desert Music(1954), Journey to Love(1955), Pictures from Brueghel(1962). The “epic” Paterson is not included. These poems appear in the same order they appeared in the published books; the astonishing number of poems not incorporated into books are arranged in strict chronological order and grouped by chronological intervals between published books: 1939-1944, 1945-1948, 1949-1953, 1955-1962.

On the one hand, this arrangement helps study Williams' evolution as a poem, his struggle to find the appropriate structure for Paterson; on the other hand it heightens the sense of unevenness and deepens the enigma of his selection criteria for publication. It also highlights the variety of his translation efforts from the French (Yvan Goll, Nicolas Calas, Paul Eluard, René Char), Spanish (Luis Palés Matos, Octavio Paz, Alí Chumacero, Álvaro Figueredo, Nicanor Parra, Silvina Ocampo, Pablo Neruda, ), Greek (Theocritus), and Chinese(Meng Hao-Jan, Li Po, Liu Cung-Yuan, Ho Chih-Chang, MWang Wei, Cho Wen-Cun, Tu Fu, Wang Ch'ang-Ling, Li Yu, Li Ts'un-Hsu, Kuo Mo-Jo, Ping Hsin, Tsang K'o-Chia, Mao Tse-Tung), even though these are more in the nature of personal responses and exploratory exercises rather than any sustained effort (with the possible exception of Yvan Goll).

In the poetry written between 1939-1944 one find the close observer with penchant for sardonic, brutal, almost callous end-twists. Here is an example titled The Deceptrices:

Because they are not,
they paint their lips
and dress like whores.

Because they are uncertain,
they put on the bold
looks of experience.

This is their youth, too
soon gone, too soon
the unalterable conclusion.

These wry twists sometimes spring from an inner conversation between his personae, as in The Poet and His Poems, a fascinating glimpse into his meta-poetics and his mockery of conventional poetic expectations:

 1
The poem is this:
a nuance of sound
delicately operating
upon a cataract of sense.

Vague. What a stupid
image. Who operates?
And who is operated 
on? How can a nuance

operate on anything?
It is all in the sound. A song.
Seldom a song. It should

be a song -made of 
particulars, wasps,
a gentian -something
immediate, open

scissors, a lady's
eyes -the particulars
of a song waking
upon a bed of sound.

2
Stiff jointed poets
or the wobble
headed who chase
vague images and think-

because they feel
lovely movements
upon the instruments
of their hearts-

that they are gifted
forget the 
exchange, how much
is paid and how little

when you count it
in your hand you 
get for it later
in the market [...]

Williams uses poetry as a wedge to open up reality, poetry delivers sense as an obstetrician delivers babies -neither process is a pretty sight. Consider another 1940 poem, River Rhyme:

The rumpled river
takes its course
lashed by rain

That is that now
that tortures 
skeletons of weeds

and muddy waters
eat their
banks the drain

of swamps a bulk
that writhes and fat-
tens as it speeds.

This openness to the coarser grain of life comes through again and again. In The A B and C of it:

a. Love's very fleas
 are mine. Enter me
 worms and al
 till I crumble
[...]
b. But the fleas
 were too shy
 didn't want to
 offend

 recoiled from 
 the odors
 and could't 
 unbend

c. Take me then
 Spirit of Loneliness
 insatiable
 Spirit of Love

 and let be-
 for Time without
 odor is Time
 without me

Out of such coarseness, surprising flowers bloom, as for example, in The Wrong Door:

Gi' me a reefer, Lawd
cause I wan' to think different
I wan' to think
all around this subject

I wan' to think
I wan' to think where I is
an' I wan' to think my way out
of where I is by a new door

After all, as Williams pleads, in a different context, in his poignant and confessional Asphodel, that Greeny Flower:

Are facts not flowers?
 And flowers facts

or poems flowers
 or all works of the imagination
 interchangeable?

Williams casts a deservedly long shadow over twentieth century American poetry, not because he panders to ease but because his unique take on language, poetry and reality repays careful reading and provides material enough for many enriching readings and rereadings.

[Suzy · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Rewaking

Sooner or later
we must come to the end
of striving

to re-establish
the image the image of
the rose

but not yet
you say extending the
time indefinitely

by
your love until a whole
spring

rekindle
the violet to the very
lady's slipper

and so by
your love the very sun
itself is revived

Williams is amazing, his poetry feels like breathing to me. He crammed in his writing at night after busily delivering babies all day and his poems are bursting with real life as seen by someone with all his senses open. That was the last poem he wrote, by the way--old, sick, and still in love with his wife, with poetry, and with the world. Here's to living every day possible in the same spirit!

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

As much as I loved Volume I - I loved this collection better. It shows a more mature poet. It shows a poet both expanding his talents and also spreading them in and through his other passions and loves. It is a very strong collection of the poems of this doctor/writer/artist/lover of life. Brilliant!

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

You must read the poems in Dessert Music and Journey to Love. Well, if you're a poet and at all interested in that wonderful triadic line that Williams does, you must read those poems.

[Gabe Redel · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's definitely a maturity in his later work, but he lost a bit of that youthful passion that made his early works so good.

[Jen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this directly after reading Volume 1 of his collected poetry. I continued to enjoy Williams' poetry throughout the 437 pages of this second volume. However, I marked far, far fewer for rereading after 1949, not quite half way through this volume. The poet was 66 at that point and had begun suffering strokes. Yet he still wrote copiously until his death and some of my favorites occur in those later years, such as The Orchestra, which can be read here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poet...

It's a long poem, which is not characteristic of Williams. Those who prefer shorter poems would enjoy reading Williams.

Here is one of my favorite shorter poems titled "Approach to a City":

Getting through with the world--
I never tire of the mystery
of these streets: the three baskets
of dried flowers in the high

barroom window, the gulls wheeling
above the factory, the dirty
snow--humility of the snow that
silvers everything and is

trampled and lined with use--yet
falls again, the silent birds
on the still wires of the sky, the blur
of wings as they take off

together. The flags in the heavy
air move against a leaden
ground--the snow
pencilled with the stubble of old

weeds: I never tire of these sights
but refresh myself there
always for there is small holiness
to be found in braver things.

The love of the everyday world expressed in that poem saturates most of his poetry. He is aware and in love. I think that is a large part of what I love about him. And he clearly has a keen mind that exercises itself on what he sees.

The last poem of this volume, written in his late 70s, is another favorite.

The Rewaking

Sooner or later
we must come to the end
of striving

to re-establish
the image the image of
the rose

but not yet
you say extending the
time indefinitely

by
your love until a whole
spring

rekindle
the violet to the very
lady's-slipper

and so by
your love the very sun
itself is revived

He wrote more about his relationship with his wife Flossie as he grew older. In this one the enjambment, so takes on a new meaning, a reluctance to let things finish ultimately. After 1954, he began writing in three line stanzas almost exclusively. If there was a philosophy underlying that decision, I didn't catch it in the many notes at the end of the book.

I've read several collected volumes over the past few years and these (vol 1 and 2) have been the least onerous. Even those poems that didn't strike a particular spark for me were still enjoyable. It was like going on a walk with a particularly perceptive and intelligent guide. His later poems became more internal and had less of this feel, which may explain why I was less smitten by them. It's a shame he didn't win the Pulitzer earlier in his career. It was awarded posthumously for his last volume, Pictures From Brueghel, and I can only think it was amending an error ("Oops, we never gave Bill a Pulitzer, did we?"). Perhaps there's something in Pictures From Brueghel that I'm missing. Or perhaps they were surprised that he was still writing so much and so well when he was almost 80. He remained fascinated with the world and continued to write despite declining health.

[Brad Bevers · Rating 3 out of 5]

After reading The Rage and Bone Shop of the Heart, I realized that Williams' poems in the book were consistently my favorite. I bought this set and have now read every poem he wrote, and I can say that I probably shouldn't have. I enjoyed it and it will be a good reference, but if you are looking for great work his poems in the anthology are still my favorite, and their are much smaller 'best of' collections that are much easier to get through. Maybe this is true for all poets . . . haven't read enough to know . . . but the best were so much better than the others that its hard to recommend reading everything. Buy if you must read them all, but don't start here.

[sam °❀⋆.ೃ࿔* · Rating 4 out of 5]

Asphodel (that greeny flower) was the masterpiece of this collection and a poem to revisit as Williams' writes at the end of his life to his faithful wife to forgive his transgressions.

The Jean Sans-Terre translations also stuck with me long after reading them as striking surrealist pieces that portrays an anguish associated with the fictional Jean Landless' pure transcendence in the lack of facticity.

Interesting to note I finished this book on the day of Williams' passing (March 4th RIP)

[hjh]

"Everything I do/ everything I write/ drives me/ from those I love" (23)

Because they are uncertain/ they put on the bold/ looks of experience (3)

Poems still conserve/ the language/ of old ecstasies (6)

I have implicit faith in/ the Boy Scouts (24)

I drank of that water no light has fondled (38)

Sunk in my misery I drown my star (39)

The world is gloomy and new/ and mostly silent (49)

Green is a solace (64)

The sky! Velvet as a leaf (78)

Wavelet, a jewelled thing, a Sapphic bracelet (113)

Torment, in the daisied fields before Troy (113)

Old husks make new designs (123)

The moon which/ they have vulgarized recently/ is still/ your planet (255)

"Do you want to live/ forever? --/ That/ is the essence/ of poetry./ But it does not/ always/ take the same form./ For the most part/ it consists/ in listening/ to the nightingale/ or fools" (308)

"I wish to make a noise with my feet/ I want my soul to find its proper body" (351)

"How long can youth last?/ Our hair is peppered with white./ Half of our friends are ghosts/ It's so good to see you alive... Tomorrow I have to cross the mountain/ Back to the mist of the world " (371)

[Steven Logan · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is a great collection of some really good poems.

[Ethan Morin · Rating 5 out of 5]

William Carlos Williams does not miss.

[Mark Metcalf · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing

[Laurie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love that red wheel barrow

[Keith · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Desert Music/Journey to Love
These two books epitomize William's variable foot and three line triads that represented much of his later poetry, and no where else does he make better use of this form (except, maybe, parts of Paterson). These books also brood on many themes and images common in Williams: love, imagination, flowers, mortality, and poetry. In fact, these appear themes appear so often in both books that they give the sense of one long piece.

The Descent and The Desert Music stand out in the first collection, and Asphodel, That Greeny Flower is the highlight of the second, with this famous passage:

It is difficult
To get the news from poems
yet men die miserably every day
for lack
of what is found there.

Williams is an outstanding poet, and one I admired much in my younger days. But his themes don't necessarily speak strongly to me any more. He's something of a Romantic writing in a materialistic age. His insight and images are strong, but in style and content, there are other poets I prefer.

[Donnie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This one was better.

[Cindi Van Meir · Rating 3 out of 5]

So much depends upon a red wheelbarrow

[Rynell · Rating 5 out of 5]

W.C.W. is one of my all-time favorites.

I love his pared down words. And images.

[Josh]

Best Modernist.

[Catherine]

poetry

[Julianna · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the creativity behind the author's work, and his style in general. His poetry is eye catching and exciting regardless of how old it is.

[Michael Gossett · Rating 5 out of 5]

Where Vol. 1 puts WCW's work in perspective, Vol. 2 gives us this good stuff.