Customer Reviews

Early Poems (Dover Thrift Editions)

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The Dover Thrift Edition of "Early Poems," by William Carlos Williams, includes poems from his books "The Tempers" (1913), "Al Que Quiere!" (1917), and "Sour Grapes" (1921), as well as work taken from periodicals. In these poems, Williams often takes a fresh look at ordinary things. His language is frequently quite arresting, and he often uses personification as a poetic device. Some of the most striking poems in this collection are as follows:

"Dawn," with particularly memorable language ("Ecstatic bird songs pound / the hollow vastness of the sky / with metallic clinkings--"); "Smell!," a wonderfully witty celebration of the speaker's own nose ("Oh strong ridged and deeply hollowed / nose of mine!"); the musical, mythic "Peace on Earth"; the haiku-like "Marriage"; "The Widow's Lament in Springtime," a first-person narration by the title character; "Overture to a Dance of Locomotives," which finds poetry in public transportation; "Winter Trees," an excellent nature poem; "Complete Destruction," an apocalyptic meditation on the death of a pet cat; and "The Thinker," which has the charming opening lines "My wife's new pink slippers / have gay pom-poms." Those are just a few of the poems in this collection. Overall, I would recommend this book both for individual reading and for classroom use.

If you love the "Red Wheelbarrow" poem, you will love this book!