Loren over at In a Dark Time talks about the similiarities and differences of Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams, and I am reminded of several things: one, that I too have always preferred the seemingly simplistic, everyman style of Williams and two, that one of the most inspiring things (to me) about him was that while he is known for his poetry, his profession was originally that of a doctor.
Thinking about that always makes me feel better in this world full of overblown creative writing degrees with the seeming requirement that poets have to teach and lecture to be successful or remain so. Pick up any literary journal and the ads say it all...poet in residence at such and such university...get your MFA at this expensive private college and you too will be famous! While you are at it, stop and pick me up a Diet Coke, too. I want to be famous and skinny at the same time.
Thinking about Williams, working as a doctor but writing passionately in his spare time, makes me feel more human in my struggles as a poet--especially a poet who makes her living as an executive in the high-tech corporate world. I find that I am always torn between what I love and what makes me money. Except that I rather do love what makes me money (my work in marketing), nearly as much as I love literature and poetry.
In choosing what my M.A. should be, I couldn't settle on an MBA and I didn't know what I would do, practically speaking, with an MFA, so in the end I chose to work towards my masters in Critical and Creative Thinking. The degree completely applies toward both of my halves--the writer and poet, and the marketing exec in a busy software company. I feel so lucky to have stumbled upon such an option...the happy medium that can nurture both personalities.
What I really love about Williams is his style...his specificity, the clear and bright imagery and the way that nearly anyone can connect directly to the meaning. He does cut right into the core of our fundamental values and understanding.
One of my favorite Williams poems is:
Landscape With The Fall of Icarus
William Carlos Williams
According to Brueghel
when Icarus fell
it was spring
a farmer was ploughing
his field
the whole pageantry
of the year was
awake tingling
near
the edge of the sea
concerned
with itself
sweating in the sun
that melted
the wings' wax
unsignificantly
off the coast
there was
a splash quite unnoticed
this was
Icarus drowning
From Collected Poems: 1939-1962, Volume II
I'm reading Ovid's Metamorphoses at the moment, so this is wonderful synchronicity. The story of Icarus is one of the more famous in Greek and Roman Mythology...the idea of not flying too high, pride before a fall, the price of overconfidence, not listening to your parents, etc., all playing roles as morals of the story. I love that Williams adds in another dimension, that of how having too much self-importance may end up being pretty darn inconsequential in the grand scheme of things.
Such a true thought, found in a poem, found in a painting, and found again in a poem.
Posted by crystallyn at May 27, 2003 08:10 PM | TrackBack