John Latta has a characteristically intelligent post today about William Carlos Williams’s love of “looking and seeing,” which Latta calls “the painterly chore.” There is no doubt that Williams loved looking at the world, especially into overlooked corners of it, but there is more to it for him. Latta notes this but presents it as support for his “looking and seeing” thesis when it’s actually something more. He writes: “Williams, replying to a questionnaire by the editors of The Little Review, under ‘What do you consider your strongest characteristics?’: ‘I like most my ability to be drunk with the sudden realization of value in things others never notice.'” My point is simply that looking and seeing are not enough and Williams knew it. The root of genuine poetry is “the sudden realization of value in things.” An important word, that “realization.” Williams posits not a projection of value upon things by the poet, but a discovery of value “in things.”
This seems to contradict the very next Williams quotation that Latta presents, which deals with French painting:
Well, what does one see? to paint? Why the tree, of course, is the facile answer. Not at all. The tree as a tree does not exist literally, figuratively or any way you please–for the appraising of the artist–or any man–the tree does not exist. What does exist, and in heightened intensity for the artist, is the impression created by the shape and color of an object before him in his sensual being–his whole body (not his eyes) his body, him mind, his memory, his place: himself–that is what he sees.
I have yet to locate this essay of Williams, so I lack the context for informed assessment; but I don’t believe that the poet is praising the French (evidently Impressionist) view. I sense that he’s critiquing it, because it projects value rather than discovering it, and in doing so the tree is rubbed out, obliterated by the artist’s own impressions. This strikes me as the opposite of Williams’s practice.
Williams–consistently, obsessively–discovers value in things. I would say he discovers the imaginal in things, and that the greatness of his poetry lies in its persistent creation of imaginal space wherein the reader can make the same discoveries. We see it, for example, in his poem “Spring and All”:
Spring and All
By the road to the contagious hospital
under the surge of the blue
mottled clouds driven from the
northeast–a cold wind. Beyond, the
waste of broad, muddy fields
brown with dried weeds, standing and fallenpatches of standing water
the scattering of tall treesAll along the road the reddish
purplish, forked, upstanding, twiggy
stuff of bushes and small trees
with dead, brown leaves under them
leafless vines–Lifeless in appearance, sluggish
dazed spring approaches–They enter the new world naked,
cold, uncertain of all
save that they enter. All about them
the cold, familiar wind–Now the grass, tomorrow
the stiff curl of wildcarrot leaf
One by one objects are defined–
It quickens: clarity, outline of leafBut now the stark dignity of
entrance–Still, the profound change
has come upon them: rooted, they
grip down and begin to awaken
The onrush of discovery here outstrips the conventions of syntax and punctuation, which helps to create the imaginal space for us to enter in. How different from visiting the banks of the Wye above Tintern Abbey with Wordsworth! We learn a hell of a lot about Wordsworth, but precious little about anything else.
This is why Williams’s work, 80 or so years on, still feels revolutionary, luminous, open, expansive in even his smallest poems. Not because he looks and sees, but because he discovers value in things and helps us to experience those discoveries for ourselves.
I don't know how I missed this post. I really appreciate "Spring and All" not only because of the onrush of discovery, but it also reveals kind of a general overview of discovery in general, of awakening into the realization of what is happening in a poem or an experience.<br /><br />And now I've peppered comments throughout your blog all in one morning. That may be a party foul.
Ah! Thanks so much for the link, Don. I see that WCW is making a point different from both John's and mine….<br /><br />Cheers!<br /><br />Joe
Hi, Joseph!<br /><br />The WCW essay can be read <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=jtTsZ3wyOjwC&lpg=PA24&dq=%22tree%20as%20a%20tree%20does%20not%20exist%20literally&pg=PA24#v=onepage&q=%22tree%20as%20a%20tree%20does%20not%20exist%20literally&f=false" rel="nofollow">here</a><br>
I'll have to track down Hillringhouse's article, Lyle. Thanks for the lead.<br /><br />Also … I like your post on Williams a lot (its link to McGrath's piece alone is worth the visit). The sound dimension is crucial in Williams; sometimes he's Ives, sometimes Copland. And I think you're right about his imagery–though primarily in the early poems. As he moved beyond the
In the current (Jan-Feb 2010) American Poetry Review is an article, with photographs, by Mark Hillringhouse about life in Paterson and several other towns on the Passaic river, in the present time (Hillringhouse lives in Paterson, according to his article) and inklings of life there when Williams was writing about the place. I really liked his article, also (especially) his photos.<br /><br />The