So we read a short (a very short) poem by William Carlos Williams in class on Friday. This little poem really popped out at me, although I can't recall the title...
But anyways, I remember a comment made on it by Alistair, that it was "refreshing." And yes this poem was indeed refreshing. We're so used to either confusing observations about nature (Moore) or death (just about everything else), that a simple poem about eating someone's chilled plums was a pleasure to read.
One, the poem provided an escape from norm in subject matter.
Two, the poem was short.
Three, thee poem was simple.
Four, the poem was funny.
Five, the poem proved that even a nice and easy poem can provide discussions for college students.
And I hope we read more of these types in the future. :]
This was an especially surprising entry for it came from the same author as Spring and All, which turned out to be very hard to comprehend and was a completely different experience. Spring and All was lengthy which made it difficult to digest. Also it was full of figurative language that obscured the meaning of much of the poetic sections. I'm sure that the explanatory sections would have cleared things up, but yet again there is so much to digest that it doesn't come so easily.
We followed with a discussion of the sun beams in Spring and All.
And in having the two in front of us, both the one about the plums (I still can't recall the name...) and Spring and All I saw two completely different styles. One was very simple and the other very complex.
So in comparison to all our other poems, I see that just about everything we've read to this point falls towards the more complex side. This other side of Williams was perhaps the most refreshing read of the semester.
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Yes, I can certainly say that the poem "This is Just to Say" was very refreshing indeed. I do want to comment about how this poem is not like Williams work "Spring and All." Although the styles are different, it is just like saying how poem XXII about the red wheel barrow in "Spring and All" is more like "This is Just to Say" in the sense that the language is so different and the experience are quite different as well. I guess what I am trying to say is that the poem about the plums could as well have been in "Spring and All" because this note can be some sort of hint of imagination. Imagine the plums and the icebox. Then the images of the plums being delicious, sweet and cold are depicted as well.
On the other hand, I agree that we should read more of these types in the future and that it is short, simple, and funny.
Although I agree that it was refreshing in its simplicity, I do enjoy reading challenging poetry. I think the best poetry is the poetry that really makes you think and challenges you to piece together all the obscure fragments that are presented to you. Of course it can get really frustrating, but once you start to see a glimmer of connections, and when things slowly start to fall into place, you start to get almost a sense of awe that something like that could be conveyed in such a way.
I too enjoyed “This is Just to Say” very much. I even shared it with a couple of friends. We had already read Kenneth Koch’s variations on that poem and I didn’t realize that those parodies came from an original Williams’ poem when I was reading it. Koch’s variations were very funny, even if the last one was a bit creepy. I felt that they were all extremely witty. When we read “This is Just to Say” in class, I realized that Koch wrote his poems after Williams’. The short poem was “refreshing” as described in class. It seems to be a poem that you can take it just as it is. Analysis is possible, but mostly for the story or reason behind why it was written, rather than the written poem itself. It is unlike any other poem we’ve been reading for this class.
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