same time underlines what was an inevitable romance in the work itself. Inevitable because the reduction on the one hand simplified everything to its function of shining, uncomplicated and spontaneous. On the other, there exists in poorer realized works a retro-ideal that everything is superior in its infancy. There is a subtle line that when crossed confuses the poet himself. When maintained however, the scenes that animate his world are allowed, simply, to be.
Proletarian Portrait
A big young bareheaded woman
in an apron
Her hair slicked back standing
on the street
One stockinged foot toeing
the sidewalk
Her shoe in her hand. Looking
intently into it
She pulls out the paper insole
to find the nail
That has been hurting her
This poem rides this line. If by proletariat we infer that poverty is necessary and sufficient for grace, we fall into Rousseau’s trap of the Noble Savage. If, however, the scene is allowed to stand alone, what is captured is universal, which, really, is the goal of any finished work of art.
To do this properly and be heard a language had to be discovered that followed the lexicon of his day, to resonate in the mind of the modern reader.
And so Williams searched his life for the language of his day:
...I wanted to write a poem
that you would understand.
For what good is it to me
if you can't understand it?
But you gotta try hard--
Kenneth Burke called him the 'master of the glimpse' which accounts for the usual anthologized work, and this is true, but not just this. Glimpse after glimpse, spontaneous as reality itself, constantly appearing, disappearing, appearing again, the poems begin to take on a living world of their own. This is because, to be complete, they must be, in a sense, alive. Poetry at its best is not description of things. A poem takes its cues from life but is not a mirror. Rather than a description of the thing, the thing itself.
"It isn't what (the poet) says that counts as a work of art, it's what he makes, with such intensity of perception that it lives with an intrinsic movement of its own to verify its authenticity.'
The thing itself has a language, a shape and a spontaneous arousal, and so, to be captured, the poem must itself inhabit the interior expression, the exterior contours, the particular and the context out of which it arises. (Say it! No ideas but in things.). The poem, if it be a poem, exists of its own vital force, not as description - that would be ridiculous, flat. Simplified, verbs, not adjectives, set the poem free, prevent it from becoming merely ornate, decorative, nice to gaze upon. To be essential, it must contribute, contribute to life in its fleeting vividness. Therefore, the poem, itself alive, is in relationship with that which it represents. It is not the thing, nor should it be, but is its coequal.
And so, to be true to life, the poet and the poem are spontaneous. And the language accessible, inviting but still troubling to the lazy eye that won’t look more deeply into the essential moment.
Poem
As the cat
climbed over
the top of
the jamcloset
first the right
forefoot
carefully
then the hind
stepped down
into the pit of
the empty
flower pot
The very shape and movement of the moment, the action, exactly as it happened, the lines breaking, pausing at the same pace as life itself, or at least as the powers of perception the poet is capable of transmitting.
In the last decades of his life, Williams discovered what he considered the language of his day, a triadic line he coined the 'variable foot', with the shape and line break operating intuitively in step with the motion and expression of common life. Impossible to quantify, duplicate, verify, destined for the trash bin, unless, by some collective shock of imagination, the mind's eye see perfectly its contours, and apply it with careful abandon. Not free verse, nor does it break down iambically or any other such way.
The only agreement about the Variable Foot is that nobody understands it. Its rules are unstable, guided by the poet's inner sense, an inner sense wholly given in devotion to the act of creation.
The Ivy Crown
The whole process is a lie,
unless,
crowned by excess,
it break forcefully,
one way or another,
from its confinement--
or find a deeper well.
Antony and Cleopatra
were right;
they have shown
the way. I love you
or I do not live
at all.
Daffodil time
is past. This is
summer, summer!
the heart says,
and not even the full of it.
No doubts
are permitted--
Though they will come
and may
before our time
overwhelm us.
We are only mortal
but being mortal
can defy our fate.
We may
by an outside chance
even win! We do not
look to see
jonquils and violets
come again
but there are,
still,
the roses!
Romance has no part in it.
The business of love is
cruelty which
by our wills,
we transform
to live together.
It has its seasons,
for and against,
whatever the heart
fumbles in the dark
to assert
toward the end of May.
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.
Children pick flowers
Let them.
Though having them
in hand
they have no further use of them
but leave them crumpled
at the curb's edge.
At our age the imagination
across the sorry facts
lifts us
to make roses
stand before thorns.
Sure
love is cruel
and selfish
and totally obtuse--
At least, blinded by the light,
young love is.
But we are older,
I to love
and you to be loved,
we have,
no matter how,
by our wills survived
to keep
the jeweled prize
always
at our fingertips.
We will it so
and so it is
past all accident.
