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3.74 AVERAGE
3.74 AVERAGE
challenging
reflective
medium-paced
Some of my favourite poems:
-The Widow's Lament in Springtime
-The Descent
-The Ivy Crown
-The Widow's Lament in Springtime
-The Descent
-The Ivy Crown
challenging
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Beautiful collection! A few of my favorites: Poem, Queen-Anne’s-Lace, The Descent, Danse Russe
WCW is definitely a poet I need to read a few times over to truly understand his work, but it doesn't change how much I enjoy letting his words roll off my tounge. His writing is stunning.
So much depends upon
A red wheelbarrow
Glazed with rainwater
Beside the white chickens
A red wheelbarrow
Glazed with rainwater
Beside the white chickens
"These things astonish me beyond words."
This is an excellent small collection of WCW's absolute best. And for being so small it does a pretty good job of displaying his poetic range. From small town odes, to singular images, to over-awed reflections on this cruel state of affairs we call life (and love), Williams has got some great stuff goin on. I've read Paterson which I did a far too extensive review on and a book of essays on him. I know he hated symbolism and was trying to do something different with his poetry. I also know he was kind of an arrogant prick who thought he could bend poetry to his will. But he's also a fairly sensitive poet, not without a certain graceful impartiality and a knack for phrasing.
You can enjoy these poems, representative of him, without getting into all that, making this an excellent recommendation to first time WCW-readers. Otherwise it's got a nice red color to it and the silhouettes of red chickens dotting every other page. I was drawn to the minimalism of it, but it's an otherwise very small book so it wasn't going to take up much shelf-space or time either way. Even if you're not looking to get into WCW, his style of free-verse poetry has been enormously influential in American poetry and is not a bad place to start if you would just like to become more familiar with American poetry of the past century. None of the poems come off as particularly out of date which speaks to WCW's timelessness. I've got two other small collections like this but not quite as new and shiny that I'm planning on reading in the next few months. So I'll continue my discourse on him with them.
I ran across a few I had never read before which were very enjoyable and others were old friends, pleasant to read again. "The Descent" was probably my favorite of the new to me poems. It features the offsetting of text down the page line by line-something usually associated more with Cummings.
" For what we cannot accomplish, what
is denied to love,
what we have lost in the anticipation--
a descent follows,
endless and indestructible ."
"The Yachts," "These," and "The Ivy Crown" were also really good.
This is an excellent small collection of WCW's absolute best. And for being so small it does a pretty good job of displaying his poetic range. From small town odes, to singular images, to over-awed reflections on this cruel state of affairs we call life (and love), Williams has got some great stuff goin on. I've read Paterson which I did a far too extensive review on and a book of essays on him. I know he hated symbolism and was trying to do something different with his poetry. I also know he was kind of an arrogant prick who thought he could bend poetry to his will. But he's also a fairly sensitive poet, not without a certain graceful impartiality and a knack for phrasing.
You can enjoy these poems, representative of him, without getting into all that, making this an excellent recommendation to first time WCW-readers. Otherwise it's got a nice red color to it and the silhouettes of red chickens dotting every other page. I was drawn to the minimalism of it, but it's an otherwise very small book so it wasn't going to take up much shelf-space or time either way. Even if you're not looking to get into WCW, his style of free-verse poetry has been enormously influential in American poetry and is not a bad place to start if you would just like to become more familiar with American poetry of the past century. None of the poems come off as particularly out of date which speaks to WCW's timelessness. I've got two other small collections like this but not quite as new and shiny that I'm planning on reading in the next few months. So I'll continue my discourse on him with them.
I ran across a few I had never read before which were very enjoyable and others were old friends, pleasant to read again. "The Descent" was probably my favorite of the new to me poems. It features the offsetting of text down the page line by line-something usually associated more with Cummings.
" For what we cannot accomplish, what
is denied to love,
what we have lost in the anticipation--
a descent follows,
endless and indestructible ."
"The Yachts," "These," and "The Ivy Crown" were also really good.
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
N/A
Strong character development:
N/A
Loveable characters:
N/A
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
N/A
A solid collection of poems. A few of these really put me in the shoes of the protagonist. With very limited space and words, Williams paints a perfect picture for you. A great lesson in the phrase "less is more". The poems are great and I suppose the only reason I'm not giving this book 5 stars is simply because the more melancholy pieces didn't seem as effective/ emotionally evocative as the happier, observant, or wistful ones. However, I have to admit that part of that could be because I read a very emotional novel just yesterday and perhaps it upped my resistance a little.
"The Red Wheelbarrow," like so many other poems by Williams, is an experiment. It lacks punctuation, relies on chaotic or odd lineation, and generally blurs the customary distinctions between one thing or thought and another. He had a famous adage, "No ideas but in things," which I interpret to mean that when we talk about ideas, emotions, and abstractions, we must anchor them firmly in the world's things.