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Pictures from Brueghel and Other Poems
This collection makes available work of one of our greatest American poets in the last decade of his life. The first section, Pictures from Brueghel, contains previously uncollected short poems, while the second and third parts are the complete texts of The Desert Music (1954) and Journey to Love (1955), originally published by Random House. In these books, Dr. Williams perfected his "variable foot" metric and achieved full mastery of the "American idiom" which was his lifelong first concern. Among the poems of this period is the long "Asphodel, That Greeny Flower" which W. H. Auden has called "one of the most beautiful love poems in the language." Pictures from Brueghel was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry only two months after William Carlos Williams' death on March 4, 1963.
186 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1962
38 people are currently reading
1444 people want to read
About the author
William Carlos Williams
414 books827 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 86 reviews
November 10, 2020
beauty is a shell
from the sea
where she rules triumphant
till love has had its way with her
scallops and
lions paws
sculptured to the
tune of retreating waves
undying accents
repeated till
the ear and the eye lie
down together in the same bed
— — —
The rose fades
and is renewed again
by its seed, naturally
but where
save in the poem
shall it go
to suffer no diminution
of its splendor
— — —
Bird with outstretched
wings poised
inviolate unreaching
yet reaching
your image this November
planes
to a stop
miraculously fixed in my
arresting eyes
— — —
Nude bodies like peeled logs
sometimes give off a sweetest
odor, man and woman
under the trees in full excess
matching the cushion of
aromatic pine-drift fallen
threaded with trailing woodbine
a sonnet might be made of it
Might be made if it! odor of excess
odor of pine needles, odor of
peeled logs, odor of no odor
other than trailing woodbine that
has no odor, odor of a nude woman
sometimes, odor of a man
January 2, 2018
The poem
if it reflects the sea
reflects only
its dance
upon that profound depth
where
it seems to triumph.
Reading these poems this frozen afternoon, I sensed almost a dislocation and then swift reconstruction of my faculties. WCW was offering me thinking lessons. My congery of indifference may be sliding towards despair but I harbor a measured hope. The early miniatures required a few readings. I discovered some kinship reading about the farmers with their scythes and reflecting that the wheat-shearing scene in Anna Karenina was Proust's favorite. The later poems depict an aging poet finding joy at the limits of his craft. There’s perhaps a shared warmth in muted loneliness.
if it reflects the sea
reflects only
its dance
upon that profound depth
where
it seems to triumph.
Reading these poems this frozen afternoon, I sensed almost a dislocation and then swift reconstruction of my faculties. WCW was offering me thinking lessons. My congery of indifference may be sliding towards despair but I harbor a measured hope. The early miniatures required a few readings. I discovered some kinship reading about the farmers with their scythes and reflecting that the wheat-shearing scene in Anna Karenina was Proust's favorite. The later poems depict an aging poet finding joy at the limits of his craft. There’s perhaps a shared warmth in muted loneliness.
December 12, 2019
The Parable of the Blind
“This horrible but superb painting
the parable of the blind
without a red
in the composition shows a group
of beggars leading
each other diagonally downward
across the canvas
from one side
to stumble finally into a bog
where the picture
and the composition ends back
of which no seeing man
is represented the unshaven
features of the des-
titute with their few
pitiful possessions a basin
to wash in a peasant
cottage is seen and a church spire
the faces are raised
as toward the light
there is no detail extraneous
to the composition one
follows the others stick in
hand triumphant to disaster“
“This horrible but superb painting
the parable of the blind
without a red
in the composition shows a group
of beggars leading
each other diagonally downward
across the canvas
from one side
to stumble finally into a bog
where the picture
and the composition ends back
of which no seeing man
is represented the unshaven
features of the des-
titute with their few
pitiful possessions a basin
to wash in a peasant
cottage is seen and a church spire
the faces are raised
as toward the light
there is no detail extraneous
to the composition one
follows the others stick in
hand triumphant to disaster“
January 8, 2015
When I was a lad of 19 or so and first reading poetry seriously I found William Carlos Williams and declared him my favorite poet. Over the years I've read many new poets who turned my head and whom I came to love. I almost forgot my youthful adoration for Good Doctor Williams. So, going back to this collection, and reading it cover to cover, was a sweet experience, and not only nostalgic. It is, in a word, magnificent. So, hakuna matata, I have come full circle, and now I want to declare, again, that William Carlos Williams is my favorite poet.
January 23, 2008
William Carlos Williams, Pictures from Breughel and Other Poems (New Directions 1962)
Pictures from Breughel, the 1962 Pulitzer Prizewinner in poetry, is an excellent example of how far poetry has strayed from where it should be. I doubt you will find a serious scholar of twentieth-century American poetry anywhere on the planet who would dispute the influence of William Carlos Williams on almost everything that has come since, and you will probably find even less who would be willing to come right out and say there's anything in this book deserving of less than worship. But there are dissenting opinions, and mine is one of them.
When Williams was on his game, he was one of America's finest poets. Problem is, Williams wasn't always on his game. A non-trivial amount of the work in this collection-perhaps a quarter of it, all told-is that hobgoblin of all poetry magazine editors, "prose cut up into lines." There is simply nothing poetic about some of the poems therein. While I was still in college, one of my professors mentioned that Williams (in the long poem Paterson, not a part of this book) used a grocery list as a piece of a poem, and then went on to ask us whether that was actually poetry. It was obvious from the context that he was looking for a yes. I thought then, and I still think, the answer to that question is painfully obvious, and I would have gotten it wrong in that class. And we wonder why poetry today isn't read?
Don't get me wrong. There is much here of great worth, including the classic love poem "Asphodel, The Greeny Flower." It is long, and stumbles in places, but is still one of the finest examples of the long poem in twentieth-century American poetry. This is a book well worth the time and effort, but if you stumble across something in it and find yourself wondering why both author and publisher considered it a poem, rest assured you're not alone. *** ½
Pictures from Breughel, the 1962 Pulitzer Prizewinner in poetry, is an excellent example of how far poetry has strayed from where it should be. I doubt you will find a serious scholar of twentieth-century American poetry anywhere on the planet who would dispute the influence of William Carlos Williams on almost everything that has come since, and you will probably find even less who would be willing to come right out and say there's anything in this book deserving of less than worship. But there are dissenting opinions, and mine is one of them.
When Williams was on his game, he was one of America's finest poets. Problem is, Williams wasn't always on his game. A non-trivial amount of the work in this collection-perhaps a quarter of it, all told-is that hobgoblin of all poetry magazine editors, "prose cut up into lines." There is simply nothing poetic about some of the poems therein. While I was still in college, one of my professors mentioned that Williams (in the long poem Paterson, not a part of this book) used a grocery list as a piece of a poem, and then went on to ask us whether that was actually poetry. It was obvious from the context that he was looking for a yes. I thought then, and I still think, the answer to that question is painfully obvious, and I would have gotten it wrong in that class. And we wonder why poetry today isn't read?
Don't get me wrong. There is much here of great worth, including the classic love poem "Asphodel, The Greeny Flower." It is long, and stumbles in places, but is still one of the finest examples of the long poem in twentieth-century American poetry. This is a book well worth the time and effort, but if you stumble across something in it and find yourself wondering why both author and publisher considered it a poem, rest assured you're not alone. *** ½
May 27, 2023
I came across this work happenstance. That is to say, I knew not what to expect nor how to appreciate. This before all points is the caveat of my rating — totally a limitation of this reader’s previous knowledge as well as uncertainty of what to make of those poems that seem to lack clarity.
The three collections found within reverberate differently. The first, Pictures of Bruegel and Other Poems, at first seems indeed to respond to visions of a painting. Though with the Other Poems I did not find consistency between the poems within, the myriad poems seemed to flow quite well. I loved the first three stanzas of “Calypsos I”:
The second collection, The Desert Music and Other Poems, was the best of the bunch, and was where Williams began to incorporate his signature triadic stance with indentations and what I image as a kind of representation of a suggested vocalization. It was in the final poem, “The Desert Music”, that I really felt I found Williams measure and variable foot; “The Desert Music” actually had rather complex structure and recalled dark themes from Roberto Bolaño’s 2666, who, knowing that he was a literati and connoisseur I wonder what he made of this poem.
The third collection is named, The Journey to Love, was the section I felt most at home with Williams structure and words and yet also most distant from understanding. It felt ungrounded, very differently than the start of Paterson.
I guess the aspect I found difficult of some poems is the theme, setting and poet’s voice was absent. Upon those where a clarity exists, Williams passes through profound linguistic value, if not necessarily meaning.
The three collections found within reverberate differently. The first, Pictures of Bruegel and Other Poems, at first seems indeed to respond to visions of a painting. Though with the Other Poems I did not find consistency between the poems within, the myriad poems seemed to flow quite well. I loved the first three stanzas of “Calypsos I”:
Well God is
love
so love me
God
is love so
love me God
is
love so love
me well
The second collection, The Desert Music and Other Poems, was the best of the bunch, and was where Williams began to incorporate his signature triadic stance with indentations and what I image as a kind of representation of a suggested vocalization. It was in the final poem, “The Desert Music”, that I really felt I found Williams measure and variable foot; “The Desert Music” actually had rather complex structure and recalled dark themes from Roberto Bolaño’s 2666, who, knowing that he was a literati and connoisseur I wonder what he made of this poem.
The third collection is named, The Journey to Love, was the section I felt most at home with Williams structure and words and yet also most distant from understanding. It felt ungrounded, very differently than the start of Paterson.
I guess the aspect I found difficult of some poems is the theme, setting and poet’s voice was absent. Upon those where a clarity exists, Williams passes through profound linguistic value, if not necessarily meaning.
November 22, 2019
Three stars only for being the forefather of beat poetry. Other than that, while I loved every bit about nature in the collection, his poems about men, women, and race, which are rather few in this collection, have the distinct tone of a 1950s era male consciousness, which about ruined the whole thing for me.
Like the bit about a black woman’s thighs causing her to waddle, or the other bit about a woman’s unkempt hair making her repulsive, or that a woman’s mind caaan be keen, like, it’s possible. Cool. Let’s do two stars actually.
Like the bit about a black woman’s thighs causing her to waddle, or the other bit about a woman’s unkempt hair making her repulsive, or that a woman’s mind caaan be keen, like, it’s possible. Cool. Let’s do two stars actually.
Read
July 25, 2024when you wrote
you did not
know
the power of
your words
you did not
know
the power of
your words
January 15, 2023
Llegit com a part del club de lectura El Chal
Tendríssim i concís.
Que algú em mire com William Carlos Williams mira a Brueghel. Que algú m’escriga com William Carlos Williams li escriu a la seua Flossie un feliç aniversari.
Tendríssim i concís.
Que algú em mire com William Carlos Williams mira a Brueghel. Que algú m’escriga com William Carlos Williams li escriu a la seua Flossie un feliç aniversari.
November 21, 2020
Williamą Carlosą Williamsą labai banaliai norėjau paskaityti nuo pat filmo "Patersonas". Bet kas tinka ir patinka filme, nebūtinai patinka tekste; matyt, WCW poezija - tiesiog ne mano tekstai. Jie labai gražūs, pirma rinkinio dalis - ekfrazės, kai tekstas atgaivina paveikslą (tai čia visas ciklas - Brueghelio paveikslai), kitos - apie žmones, apie meilę. Man didžioji dauguma neprakalbėjo - pirma, visai neišmanau amerikiečių poezijos tradicijos, antra - kažkaip neužkabino aprašymai ir ypač pasakojamieji eilėraščiai, ta paprasta kalba. Gal atbukau ir nebeperskaitau grožio, bet paskutiniu metu norisi kažkokių egzistencinių tekstų :)
Vis tiek keli užkabino net ir mano atbukusią akį. Va vienas iš Brueghelio ciklo, tarsi nieko nevyksta, bet -
Nieko nevyksta, grynas aprašymas, - bet skaitai ir supranti, kad visgi vyksta, kad tas vyksmas - tai žiūrinčios akies judėjimas: per plaukus, per detales - šunį, šaukštą prie skrybėlės, - atkuriama - prikuriama! - nuotaika: nejaukumo, keistumo; atrodo, patys tie vestuvių dalyviai irgi tampa sutrikę, nelabai besidomintys tuo, kas jiems prieš nosį (whatnot). Man Brueghelio tos grupinės panoramos visada atrodydavo labai gyvos, knibždančios visko, apie nejaukumą nebūčiau pagalvojus, - gal apie liūdesį, - bet dabar kažkaip kitaip pasimatė. O taip visai juokingai anksčiau atrodė tie su kepiniais paveiksle, kažkas guli, kažkam bloga - toks Donelaitis. O čia toks labiau Vaižgantas.
Nu ir šitas buvo labai gražus, nurašau tik pradžią, nes užima kelis puslapius. Tik per goodreadse neišeina jo pacituoti, nėra kaip atitraukti eilučių, o čia ir esmė, kad jos smarkiai visos atitraukinėtos, ir skaitant akys šokinėja, tu net paklysti nuo to chaoso. Ir sykiu atitraukta eilutė - kaip netikėta išvada, kuri čia vientisam nuoraše visai pasiklysta.
- ir toliau apie paukščius ~ ligoninės gyventojus, ir kaip šv. Pranciškus (kaip galimybė turbūt, nes realiai juk nepasirodo) perkeičia pilną žmonių knibždėlyną (psichiatrinę ligoninę) į paukščius, turinčius kiekvienas tikslą, savo giesmę ir pasakojimą. Prisiminiau Sexton eilėraščius iš / apie Bedlamą - visai kitas intensyvumas, tarsi jos skausmingumą čia atsvertų kažkoks pusiau religinis įprasminimas ir metaforizavimas.
Nu o kiti eilėraščiai - visoki, taip pat ir apie tai, kad nesišukavusios moterys atgrasu :D Bet šiaip - tiesiog tokie, kuriems reikia laiko, reikia pasekti tą judančią akį, persikeičiančius vaizdus, atpažinti Keatso citatą, pamąstyti, ką duoda ta Keatso citata. Man tai reiktų pirma daugiau dar Keatso paskaityti...
Vis tiek keli užkabino net ir mano atbukusią akį. Va vienas iš Brueghelio ciklo, tarsi nieko nevyksta, bet -
V PEASANT WEDDING
Pour the wine bridegroom
where before you the
bride is enthroned her hair
loose at her temples a head
of ripe wheat is on
the wall beside her the
guests seated at long tables
the bagpipers are ready
there is a hound under
the table the bearded Mayor
is present women in their
starched headgear are
gabbing all but the bride
hands folded in her
lap is awkwardly silent simple
dishes are being served
clabber and what not
from a trestle made of an
unhinged barn door by two
helpers one in a red
coat a spoon in his hatband
(p. 7)
Nieko nevyksta, grynas aprašymas, - bet skaitai ir supranti, kad visgi vyksta, kad tas vyksmas - tai žiūrinčios akies judėjimas: per plaukus, per detales - šunį, šaukštą prie skrybėlės, - atkuriama - prikuriama! - nuotaika: nejaukumo, keistumo; atrodo, patys tie vestuvių dalyviai irgi tampa sutrikę, nelabai besidomintys tuo, kas jiems prieš nosį (whatnot). Man Brueghelio tos grupinės panoramos visada atrodydavo labai gyvos, knibždančios visko, apie nejaukumą nebūčiau pagalvojus, - gal apie liūdesį, - bet dabar kažkaip kitaip pasimatė. O taip visai juokingai anksčiau atrodė tie su kepiniais paveiksle, kažkas guli, kažkam bloga - toks Donelaitis. O čia toks labiau Vaižgantas.
Nu ir šitas buvo labai gražus, nurašau tik pradžią, nes užima kelis puslapius. Tik per goodreadse neišeina jo pacituoti, nėra kaip atitraukti eilučių, o čia ir esmė, kad jos smarkiai visos atitraukinėtos, ir skaitant akys šokinėja, tu net paklysti nuo to chaoso. Ir sykiu atitraukta eilutė - kaip netikėta išvada, kuri čia vientisam nuoraše visai pasiklysta.
THE MENTAL HOSPITAL GARDEN
It is far to Assisi,
but not too far:
Over this garden,
brooding over this garden,
there is a kindly spirit,
brother to the poor
and who is poorer than he
who is in love
when birds are nesting
in the spring of the year?
They came
to eat from his hand
who had nothing,
and yet
from his plenty
he fed them all.
All mankind
grew to be his debtors,
a simple story.
Love is in season.
(p. 97)
- ir toliau apie paukščius ~ ligoninės gyventojus, ir kaip šv. Pranciškus (kaip galimybė turbūt, nes realiai juk nepasirodo) perkeičia pilną žmonių knibždėlyną (psichiatrinę ligoninę) į paukščius, turinčius kiekvienas tikslą, savo giesmę ir pasakojimą. Prisiminiau Sexton eilėraščius iš / apie Bedlamą - visai kitas intensyvumas, tarsi jos skausmingumą čia atsvertų kažkoks pusiau religinis įprasminimas ir metaforizavimas.
Nu o kiti eilėraščiai - visoki, taip pat ir apie tai, kad nesišukavusios moterys atgrasu :D Bet šiaip - tiesiog tokie, kuriems reikia laiko, reikia pasekti tą judančią akį, persikeičiančius vaizdus, atpažinti Keatso citatą, pamąstyti, ką duoda ta Keatso citata. Man tai reiktų pirma daugiau dar Keatso paskaityti...
August 14, 2022
The Brueghel poems are good. The poems to family are moving. (Includes Desert Music & Journey Love.)
January 14, 2023
Ojalá las imágenes y las cosas nos interpelen con tanta fuerza como a William Carlos Williams. Como dice de una señora en uno de los poemas, este libro es "amable y persistente". Una sucesión de cuadros a los que asomarnos. Lo más cozy que podría leerse ahora mismo.
September 27, 2024
Short but sweet review because my phone battery is running low and the power's still out in my neighborhood: this is my second William Carloa Williams poetry collection completed, and I really loved it. Most of the first set of poems are short, but the longer works are great. Highly recommend.
August 28, 2022
I read this over far to long to have any concise impression. Everything was good and beautiful. But maybe not memorable for me. I’ll have to wait and see.
November 6, 2022
The poems seem very considered without seeming obsessive or insecure which is great. The "Journey to Love" section is a definite 5 stars but the others fall short.
January 20, 2022
The collection is composed of
The Desert Music
,
Journey to Love
, and Pictures from Brueghel.
Unlike The Desert Music and Journey to Love the poems of Pictures from Brueghel aren't written in triadic stanza form, with the exception of "The Gift" and "The Turtle"...
For the most part, Pictures from Brueghel is a return to form - specifically the early poems that forego the use of punctuation.
The most prominent poem in the collection is the titular poem. "Pictures from Brueghel" is a cycle of ten poems, each based on a painting by Pieter Bruegel.
Williams's last collection includes poems about/addressed to his wife ("To Be Recited to Flossie on Her Birthday" and "To Flossie") and grandchildren ("3 Stances", "Suzy", and "The Turtle")...
Unlike The Desert Music and Journey to Love the poems of Pictures from Brueghel aren't written in triadic stanza form, with the exception of "The Gift" and "The Turtle"...
Staying here in the country
on an old farm
we eat our breakfasts
on a balcony under an elm.
The shrubs below us
are neglected. And
there, penned in,
or he would eat the garden,
lives a pet goose who
tilts his head
sidewise
and looks up at us,
a very quiet fellow
who writes no poems.
- To Daphne and Virginia (from The Desert Music)
Come on!
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.
- Come On! (from Journey to Love)
As the wise men of old brought gifts
guided by a star
to the humble birthplace
- The Gift (from Pictures from Brueghel)
For the most part, Pictures from Brueghel is a return to form - specifically the early poems that forego the use of punctuation.
how shall we tell
the bright petals
from the sun in the
sky concentrically
crowding the branch
save that it yields
in its modesty
to that splendor?
- The Chrysanthemum (from Pictures from Brueghel)
The wild red-wing black-
bird croaks frog-
like though more shrill
as the beads of
his eyes blaze over the
swamp and the o-
dors of the swamp vodka
to his nostrils
- The Red-Wing Blackbird (from The Clouds)
you are forever April
to me
the eternally unready
forsythia a blond
straight-
legged girl
whom I myself
ignorant
as I was taught
to read the poems
my arms
about your neck
we clung together
peril-
ously
more than a young
girl
should know
a burst of frost
nipped
yellow flowers
in the spring
of
the year
- Song (from Pictures from Brueghel)
If I
could count the silence
I could sleep, sleep.
But it
is one, one. No head even
to gnaw. Spinning.
If I
Could halt the lazed
spinning, surface of glass,
my mind
could shove in its fingers
and break apart
the smooth
singleness of the night -
until sleep dropped as rain
upon me.
- Song (from The Pink Church)
The most prominent poem in the collection is the titular poem. "Pictures from Brueghel" is a cycle of ten poems, each based on a painting by Pieter Bruegel.
According to Brueghel
when Icarus fell
it was spring
a farmer was ploughing
his field
the whole pageantry
of the year was
awake tingling
near
the edge of the sea
concerned
with itself
sweating in the sun
that melted
the wings' wax
unsignificantly
off the coast
there was
a splash quite unnoticed
this was
Icarus drowning
- Pictures from Brueghel, II. Landscape with the Fall of Icarus
Summer!
the painting is organized
about a young
reaper enjoying his
noonday rest
completely
relaxed
from his morning labors
sprawled
in fact sleeping
unbuttoned
on his back
the women
have brought him his lunch
perhaps
a spot of wine
they gather gossiping
under a tree
whose shade
carelessly
he does not share the
resting
centre of
their workaday world
- Pictures from Brueghel, VII. The Corn Harvest
This is a schoolyard
crowded
with children
of all ages near a village
on a small stream
meandering by
where some boys
are swimming
bare-ass
or climbing a tree in leaf
everything
is motion
elder women are looking
after the small
fry
a play wedding a
christening
nearby one leans
hollering
into
an empty hogshead
- Pictures from Brueghel, X. Children's Game, I
Williams's last collection includes poems about/addressed to his wife ("To Be Recited to Flossie on Her Birthday" and "To Flossie") and grandchildren ("3 Stances", "Suzy", and "The Turtle")...
your long legs
built
to carry high
the small head
your
grandfather
knows
if he knows
anything
gives
the dance as
your genius
the cleft in
your
chin's curl
permitting
may it
carry you far
- 3 Stances, III. Emily
women your age have decided
wars and the beat
of poems your grandfather
is a poet and loves you
pay attention
to your lessons an inkling
of what beauty means to
a girl your age
may dawn soon upon you
- Suzy, I
Let him who may
among the continuing lines
seek out
that tortured constancy
affirms
where I persist
let me say
across cross purposes
that the flower bloomed
struggling to assert itself
simply under
the conflicting lights
you will believe me
a rose
to the end of time
- To Be Recited to Flossie on Her Birthdaywho showed me
a bunch of garden roses
she was keeping
on ice
against an appointment
with friends
for supper
day after tomorrow
aren't they beautiful
you can't
smell them
because they're so cold
but aren't they
in wax
paper for the
moment beautiful
- To Flossie
Not because of his eyes,
the eyes of a bird,
but because he is beaked,
birdlike, to do an injury,
has the turtle attracted you.
He is your only pet.
When we are together
you talk of nothing else
ascribing all sorts
of murderous motives
to his least action.
You ask me
to write a poem,
should I have poems to write,
about a turtle.
- The Turtle for my grandson
September 26, 2014
This book is actually a compilation of three William Carlos Williams works: Pictures from Brueghel, The Desert Music and Journey to Love.
I really enjoyed the first ten poems in Pictures from Brueghel, which are about actual paintings by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, a Dutch Flemish Renaissance artist c. 1525-1569.
Here is LANDSCAPE WITH THE FALL OF ICARUS:
According to Brueghel
when Icarus fell
it was spring
a farmer was ploughing
his field
the whole pageantry
of the year was
awake tingling
near
the edge of the sea
concerned
with itself
sweating in the sun
that melted
the wings' wax
unsignificantly
off the coast
there was
a splash quite unnoticed
this was
Icarus drowning
I really enjoyed the first ten poems in Pictures from Brueghel, which are about actual paintings by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, a Dutch Flemish Renaissance artist c. 1525-1569.
Here is LANDSCAPE WITH THE FALL OF ICARUS:
According to Brueghel
when Icarus fell
it was spring
a farmer was ploughing
his field
the whole pageantry
of the year was
awake tingling
near
the edge of the sea
concerned
with itself
sweating in the sun
that melted
the wings' wax
unsignificantly
off the coast
there was
a splash quite unnoticed
this was
Icarus drowning
December 26, 2016
The ten poems on pictures painted by Brueghel (Self-portrait, Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, The Hunters in the Snow, The Adoration of the Kings, Peasant Wedding, Haymaking, The Corn Harvest, The Wedding Dance in the Open Air, The Parable of the Blind, Children's Games) depict them with extraordinary verve, clarity and precision and, in my opinion, constitute the high point of the poems not included in Williams' previous books The Desert Music (1954) and Journey to Love (1955), which I have reviewed separately. Each of the ten poems deserves a four star rating at least...
July 31, 2007
just read through these poems the other day for the first time in several years, and I can't get over how beautiful they are. I can't imagine a better to book to end one's life with, kind of a last gift for us all.
May 5, 2008
My favorite poet of all time. This book won him a Pulitzer. Need I say more?
August 16, 2008
Some of the world's most beautiful poetry is found in this volume; in particular, "The Ivy Crown."
March 19, 2013
Maybe to read the poem first
each poem first
first each word set against
each other word first
and then
the first thing to do
is do
each poem first
first each word set against
each other word first
and then
the first thing to do
is do
September 7, 2014
Many splendid poems in this Pulitzer prize winning volume. I especially enjoyed the opening sequence that took me into several of Brueghel's paintings with different eyes.
June 8, 2016
Some beautiful, some sweet--almost all over my head, I suppose.
I do not
understand his
spa-
cing on a
page.
I do not
understand his
spa-
cing on a
page.
September 8, 2016
"All men by their nature give praise
it is all
they can do."
it is all
they can do."
May 4, 2022
Read the first selection (Pictures from Brueghel), which contains mostly his short poems. I tend to prefer those.
Some are really really good
Some are really really good
September 17, 2018
William Carlos Williams , on his birthday September 17
Strangeness and dreamworlds, nonsequitors and wordplay, fantasies which intrude into our reality and realities which fragment and grow in kaleidoscopic transforms of gorgeousness; William Carlos Williams jostles our expectations and unbalances his readers to make us see anew. Like so much of American poetry, his was built on the foundation of Walt Whitman's poetics of natural speech and the rythms of human breathing, but also influenced by Surrealism and other forms of artistic radicalism.
He wrote fantastical prose ephemera and experimental works; The Embodiment of Knowledge, a bizarre notebook intended as the publisher describes ""to show that knowledge is an ongoing process by which we create our selves from day to day." The Great American Novel, the love story of a Ford auto and a Mack truck, an allegorical satire of near-random poeticisms, is astounding and wonderful. Writing in a Goodreads post, Vincent St. Clare called Kora In Hell , "One of the strangest books out there. Poetic gibberish, free association, imagism, and stream of consciousness." I agree; also it is glorious.
Yet there is greatness too, and intelligibilty among his prose works for those not inclined to Dadaist-Surrealist aesthetics or the set-piece games and constructions of Calvino or Perec. His play Tituba's Children, which preceded Arthur Miller's The Crucible by three years, brilliantly compares the Salem witch trials of 1692 and the McCarthyism of the 1950's. And his translation of Last Nights of Paris by Philippe Soupault, a friend of his Paris times in which he wrote The Great American Novel, is an exquisite rendering of a noir underworld.
Rigor of Beauty: Essays in Commemoration of William Carlos Williams by
Ian D. Copestake, Editor, is a great guidebook to his work.
Strangeness and dreamworlds, nonsequitors and wordplay, fantasies which intrude into our reality and realities which fragment and grow in kaleidoscopic transforms of gorgeousness; William Carlos Williams jostles our expectations and unbalances his readers to make us see anew. Like so much of American poetry, his was built on the foundation of Walt Whitman's poetics of natural speech and the rythms of human breathing, but also influenced by Surrealism and other forms of artistic radicalism.
He wrote fantastical prose ephemera and experimental works; The Embodiment of Knowledge, a bizarre notebook intended as the publisher describes ""to show that knowledge is an ongoing process by which we create our selves from day to day." The Great American Novel, the love story of a Ford auto and a Mack truck, an allegorical satire of near-random poeticisms, is astounding and wonderful. Writing in a Goodreads post, Vincent St. Clare called Kora In Hell , "One of the strangest books out there. Poetic gibberish, free association, imagism, and stream of consciousness." I agree; also it is glorious.
Yet there is greatness too, and intelligibilty among his prose works for those not inclined to Dadaist-Surrealist aesthetics or the set-piece games and constructions of Calvino or Perec. His play Tituba's Children, which preceded Arthur Miller's The Crucible by three years, brilliantly compares the Salem witch trials of 1692 and the McCarthyism of the 1950's. And his translation of Last Nights of Paris by Philippe Soupault, a friend of his Paris times in which he wrote The Great American Novel, is an exquisite rendering of a noir underworld.
Rigor of Beauty: Essays in Commemoration of William Carlos Williams by
Ian D. Copestake, Editor, is a great guidebook to his work.
March 26, 2021
Buhhhh, my review skills are rusty. and it's late. i need to sleep. anyway,
I actually really liked a lot of this. Williams' tone is playful and earnest in a way that I normally cringe at, but I found it here to be delightful and welcoming. My main issue was actually not with Williams himself, but with whichever persnickety college student annotated this copy I got at a used book store. Seriously, all of the annotations are either a checkmark, indicating something they liked, or some snide comment to indicate something they found repulsive, like "ugh!", "boo", or simply "NO!". It was like there was a heckler from some dive bar stand-up set harassing my inner narrator as I was trying to read *checks notes* one of the most celebrated poets of the 20th century. I don't say that to sound pretentious; I say that because I'm puzzled as to how William Carlos Williams could really elicit such a vile reaction.
Anyway, it's fine. Would recommend if you find it at a used bookstore. Just check for any annotations.
I actually really liked a lot of this. Williams' tone is playful and earnest in a way that I normally cringe at, but I found it here to be delightful and welcoming. My main issue was actually not with Williams himself, but with whichever persnickety college student annotated this copy I got at a used book store. Seriously, all of the annotations are either a checkmark, indicating something they liked, or some snide comment to indicate something they found repulsive, like "ugh!", "boo", or simply "NO!". It was like there was a heckler from some dive bar stand-up set harassing my inner narrator as I was trying to read *checks notes* one of the most celebrated poets of the 20th century. I don't say that to sound pretentious; I say that because I'm puzzled as to how William Carlos Williams could really elicit such a vile reaction.
Anyway, it's fine. Would recommend if you find it at a used bookstore. Just check for any annotations.
January 1, 2018
I feel bad reviewing this book of poetry as I'm not really big on poetry.
The book contains three separate books of poetry. Pictures from Brueghel, The Desert Music, and Journey to Love.
I wasn't impressed with Pictures from Brueghel. The poems were much more descriptive and the structure was a bit trippy for me as it was almost like Yoda speaking. The latter half of lines would actually start the sentences that had preceded them.
The Desert Music was much more interesting to me. The poems felt more philosophical. I loved The Descent.
Journey to Love, as the name hints, is oriented more around romance and love poems. Within its pages, I really enjoyed The Ivy Crown, Shadows, and of course, Of Asphodel, That Greeny Flower.
For me though, poetry is hard to read. I would probably give the set five stars if it had analysis after each poem to help me understand it. Still, this set is a great value.
The book contains three separate books of poetry. Pictures from Brueghel, The Desert Music, and Journey to Love.
I wasn't impressed with Pictures from Brueghel. The poems were much more descriptive and the structure was a bit trippy for me as it was almost like Yoda speaking. The latter half of lines would actually start the sentences that had preceded them.
The Desert Music was much more interesting to me. The poems felt more philosophical. I loved The Descent.
Journey to Love, as the name hints, is oriented more around romance and love poems. Within its pages, I really enjoyed The Ivy Crown, Shadows, and of course, Of Asphodel, That Greeny Flower.
For me though, poetry is hard to read. I would probably give the set five stars if it had analysis after each poem to help me understand it. Still, this set is a great value.
May 26, 2023
William Carlos Williams’ “Pictures from Breughel, '' winner of the 1962 Pulitzer Prize for poetry, exemplifies both the strengths and the failures of Williams’ project. While no serious scholar disputes the influence of Williams on nearly every subsequent American poet; it is legitimate to question a poetic movement putatively dedicated to guileless simplicity.
At his best, Williams’ poems can be sensuous and engaging. However, his focus on the objects of experience produces a sense of spontaneity that occasionally overshadows his artistry. When focusing on the paintings of a master, this technique comes close to vindication, and his pose as an auteur of “relaxed colloquialism" resonates with many readers. That said, Williams rootedness can be poignantly eloquent, but it is a rootedness in things that also creates a void. As Kant aptly wrote: "Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind."
At his best, Williams’ poems can be sensuous and engaging. However, his focus on the objects of experience produces a sense of spontaneity that occasionally overshadows his artistry. When focusing on the paintings of a master, this technique comes close to vindication, and his pose as an auteur of “relaxed colloquialism" resonates with many readers. That said, Williams rootedness can be poignantly eloquent, but it is a rootedness in things that also creates a void. As Kant aptly wrote: "Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind."
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