William Carlos Williams was a medical doctor, a dedicated poet blazing a path to modern poetry. Being a doctor is enough for us to admire him. Being a doctor and prolific brave doctor is even more to be admired. But Dr. Williams was also a man of principal, he had spine, grit, and for that I find the man amazing.Perhaps the two most famous poems by Dr. Williams deal with rain falling on a red wheelbarrow and a note left to explain to a host that he had eaten the prunes he found in the ice box. At a time when most poems told a story and were restricted by inflexible rules of meter and rhyme, these simple little poems were stunning. Few of us are stunned today, but at the time those poems were written almost no one was brave enough or forward looking enough to conceive of such poetry.
Dr. Williams was born in Rutherford, New Jersey, in 1883. Apparently poetry had a hold on him very early in his life because there are actually poems still in existence that he wrote while a student in high school It is claimed that in high school the young Williams made an overt decision to become both a writer and a medical doctor.
Dr. Williams earned his M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. It was at the University of Pennsylvania that he met another Poet Laureate candidate who never actually severed, Ezra Pound. While Pound is accepted by the world as a great poet, his most profound contribution to the art is, in my opinion, his influence on other poets, Dr. Williams being only one of a long list of notable poetic artists. For example, Pound is responsible for getting a London publisher to produce Dr. William’s second volume of poetry The Tempers.
Dr. Williams returned to his hometown of Rutherford, where he set up and maintained a medical practice that remained active throughout his life. Eventually Dr. Williams began publishing in small magazines and embarked on a prolific career as a poet, novelist, essayist, and playwright. Today Dr. Williams is recognized as one of the principal poets of the Imagist movement, a movement also closely associated with Ezra Pound.
Dr. William’s major works include:
- Kora in Hell (1920),
- Spring and All (1923)
- Pictures from Brueghel and Other Poems (1962)
- Paterson (1963, 1992) a the five-volume epic, and
- Imaginations (1970).
Dr. Williams' health began to decline after a heart attack in 1948 and a series of strokes.
It is at this point in the good doctor’s life that he demonstrated that old and ill as he was, he had a spine of still and was unwilling to bend to the political winds of his time.
You see, Dr. Williams was appointed as the Library of Congress Consultant in Poetry and thus began the last significant strangeness of his life, and of the Poet Laureate position. You see, like many intellectuals of the 1920s and 1930s he explored some interest in communism. Many intelligent thinking Americans did this, and most drew back from it once they noted the tendency of that political system to spawn dictatorships and a loss of human rights. Dr. Williams was appointed to this Consultant in Poetry position (later the name was changed to Poet Laureate) near the end of his life. The proposed appointment of the old and ailing William Carlos Williams in the early 1950s was problematic. He may have been one of the most famous and widely-respected poets in the country, but he was investigated by the FBI for Communist sympathies. Any questions regarding his political carelessness took place years before, but we were in the midst of a Cold War, and the country was in the clutches of that fear mongering Witch Hunting jerk Joseph McCarthy. So in 1952 Library of Congress halted, his appointment was cancelled, then he was told by the Librarian of Congress that he had been appointed to the job again effective May 15, 1953 ‘or as soon thereafter as loyalty and security procedures are successfully completed.’ The Library of Congress wanted this life long small town doctor and world recognized poet to go down to his local police department and be fingerprinted like a common criminal.
Dr. Williams flatly refused to comply with these requirements. Dr. Williams stated that he considered all this fingerprinting nonsense to be an indignity. This act of protest was not a protest against finger printing so much as it was a protest against McCarthyism and the fear mongering of the United States Government. Time ran out, and Williams was never appointed.
If you go to the Library of Congress website and click on the list of Poet Laureates you will see that they list William Carlos Williams as one of the Poets Laureate, but in truth, he never actually served in that position.
At the time of this literary brouhaha, The Washington Post editorial called the affair ‘surprising, shocking and distressing’ and quoted the critic John Barkham, who said, “Williams is the concentrated essence of Americanism in everything he says and does’, and the poet himself was quoted as saying, ‘For heavens’ sake, what kind of country is this?’
The Williams question is one that I continue to ask. What follows are three short examples of Dr. Williams’ work:
The Red Wheelbarrow by William Carlos Williams
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens.
This Is Just To Say by William Carlos Williams
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
The Uses of Poetry by William Carlos Williams
I've fond anticipation of a day
O'erfilled with pure diversion presently,
For I must read a lady poesy
The while we glide by many a leafy bay,
Hid deep in rushes, where at random play
The glossy black winged May-flies, or whence flee
Hush-throated nestlings in alarm,
Whom we have idly frighted with our boat's long sway.
For, lest o'ersaddened by such woes as spring
To rural peace from our meek onward trend,
What else more fit? We'll draw the latch-string
And close the door of sense; then satiate wend,
On poesy's transforming giant wing,
To worlds afar whose fruits all anguish mend.
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