Katie Arnold on William Carlos Williams

William Carlos Williams was very important in the imagist movement as well as the modernist movement during his time. He wanted to create an entirely new poetry specifically and exclusively for America. When I wrote the inspired poetry I tried to keep America in mind but I am no William Carlos Williams. The poems I wrote were each inspired by an aspect in one of Williams’ poems and I took the part of the poem that moved me the most and wrote with it in mind. An example of this would be in my poem Station Wagon compared to William’s poem The Red Wheelbarrow. In this poem I was enthused about how he took a simple object and surrounded it by simple words and yet it still told a story.

The Red Wheel barrow

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens

•

Station wagon

We leave home in a station
Wagon

Past the abandoned
Barns

Scratched by the claws of
Time.

I tried to make the poems very similar in form and also in content. The way they lay out is very similar but obviously Williams is better. This is similar to what I did with some of the other poems of Williams as well. If one were to compare Goodnight to To Meet You there are a couple similarities. Williams uses the idea that dreaming and thinking back about these girls, it is a simple poem about daydreaming. I took a similar approach with my poem, I used a similar first line “In the dim street light” and he used “In brilliant gas light”. I wanted to start out with that same idea of light. In mine I wrote about someone waiting for a letter, and I took the idea of waiting from Williams’ poem, which he repeated a few times throughout it. I also tired to use a similar format.

In William’s Poem Mezzo Forte he used a tone of annoyance. I wanted to use that same voice in a poem so I came up with the idea of In Response to Jaywalkers and Annoying Pedestrians. I tired to use simple language like the imagist as well.

In my poem Body Detached in Heat I was inspired by Williams’ poetry in general. The thing that I wanted this poem to have was a simple object and the format that Williams was famous for. I decided to use nature because some of Williams’ poems contain simple objects of nature like in The Red Wheelbarrow he used the idea of chickens and a simple wheelbarrow.

The Poor, written by Williams, motivated me to write the poem Small Girls and Little Boys. I liked his poem because it spoke of acceptance and little children of the opposite sex do not accept each other. I tried to use a similar format that Williams might have used thinking a lot about the placement of words, which was so important to him.

In my poem With You in Mind, I used the format of The Red Wheelbarrowand the idea of a note or letter from This is Just to Say. I thought it would be fun to combine two of my favorite poems of his into one idea. I used the simple words again and tired to make the words that felt I wanted to emphasize on the next line alone:

In the park I thought of you
Yesterday

I really enjoyed going into more depth about William Carlos Williams. I had studied him in high school but did not get a chance to really appreciate his works. There were many interesting things about William Carlos Williams I liked, but I think the most important things about him are the voices he uses in this poems, the format he uses to lay out his poems, and lastly his word choice.

This poem is adapted from the tone of William Carlos Williams’ poem “Mezzo Forte”:

In response to jaywalkers, and annoying pedestrians

“Hmmm here comes a huge semi-truck looks like a good time for Timmy and I to cross.”
No lady it is not a good time to cross, do you not see that unstoppable truck?
Do you like to get hit by them?
Why don’t you keep Tiny Tim and yourself on that side of the street till the massive led truck passes!
It really does not take a scientist to wait for the traffic to disperse and the walk light to flash before one can cross the street.
This is not Frogger!
Why are drivers punished for these suicide attempts of some careless pedestrians?
Good grief, if we all just walked across the street whenever we felt like it there would be complete ciaos and more people on the side of the road than animals.
Why take the chance of getting hit?
The light will flash and the time will come for jaywalkers to run across the street at proper time.

This poem is adapted from William Carlos William’s poetry format.

Body detached in heat

A relentless cactus
Stands
Tall in the blurring heat.
Dry, grainy sand and dust
Rid the       mouth
of any moisture.
The glaring, pulsing sun
pushes
me to my       knees
with blazing       arms.
A small rodent
shrieks in the distance
as a snake
hissssssesssss and sinks it’s       fangs
into the helpless animal.

This poem was inspired by William Carlos Williams’ poem The Red Wheelbarrow.

Station wagon

We leave home in a station
Wagon

Past the abandoned
Barns

Scratched by the claws of
Time.

This Poem was inspired by William Carlos Williams’s poem The Poor

Small girls and little boys

An entire chuck of hair
Ripped from the head of the small girl
The little boy was angry
And when his mother confronted him
He lied!
He was sent to his room
But when the anger subsided
He went outside and picked flowers
For the small girl.

This Poem is inspired by both William Carlos William’s The red Wheelbarrow and This is Just to Say

With you in mind

In the park I thought of you
Yesterday

Under a tree I looked through the entangled
Branches.

And in the cool shade with closed eyes I felt
Alright

For the first time since you had
Left.

This Poem was inspired by the tone and style of William Carlos Williams’ poem Goodnight

To meet you

In the dim streetlight
I walked to the mailbox and
Pulled out the crisp white envelopes
That sat at attention like little soldiers
And decorated in metals with faces of presidents
And flags.
          Waiting
Nothing is there that I want
I walk back up the steep driveway
Sigh
To myself and wonder when you are going
To write while I keep
                    Waiting

additional web links on William Carlos Williams gathered by Katie Arnold