As Janice May Udry once said, “A poem is nice.” Actually she said “A tree is nice,” which is actually a poem. But the point is poems are nice. So in honor of nice things and nice September afternoons, Bwog honors the 125th Birthday of William Carlos Williams. Although the actual date of his birth, September 17th, has passed, the celebration continues. All weekend long, aspiring poets, ancient troubadours and bibliophiles alike will convene just ten miles west of Hamilton Hall in Rutherford, NJ (Williams’ hometown), to sing praises of the man and his work.
Bwog offers some of its favorite Williams’ poems. Feel free to share your own suggestions.
Danse Russe
If I when my wife is sleeping
and the baby and Kathleen
are sleeping
and the sun is a flame-white disc
in silken mists
above shining trees,–
if I in my north room
dance naked, grotesquely
before my mirror
waving my shirt round my head
and singing softly to myself:
“I am lonely, lonely.
I was born to be lonely,
I am best so!”
If I admire my arms, my face,
my shoulders, flanks, buttocks
again the yellow drawn shades,–
Who shall say I am not
the happy genius of my household?
The Botticellian Trees
The alphabet of
the trees
is fading in the
song of the leaves
the crossing
bars of the thin
letters that spelled
winter
and the cold
have been illuminated
with
pointed green
by the rain and sun –-
The strict simple
principles of
straight branches
are being modified
by pinched-out
ifs of color, devout
conditions
the smiles of love–
. . . . . .
until the stript
sentences
move as a woman’s
limbs under cloth
and praise from secrecy
quick with desire
love’s ascendancy
in summer–
In summer the song
sings itself
above the muffled words–
11 Comments
@Oldie I weep for America’s youth.
@my own wcw old jiffy peanut butter
lying in the window
sill
expedient increments of everlasting taste
can you delight in wonder bread with
mold
as it gets cold
in the corner me alone
in solitude find myself
eating
feasts of
truth
@makes me smile... 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
@what aw hell no
@FUCK WHO THE FUCK ATE MY FUCKING PLUMS I WAS SAVING THOSE FOR BREAKFAST GODDAMN IT THEY LOOKED FUCKING DELICIOUS SWEET AND COLD
@oh wow beat me to it.
@mundane! Of Asphodel, bitch.
@TS Eliot Williams is a rather… mundane poet.
@wcw is basically the greatest person ever
@duh so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens.
@Ernest http://www.theonion.com/content/node/48461