Selected Poems (William Carlos Williams) (Paperback)

~ (Author), Charles Tomlinson (Editor) "Even in the time when as yet I had no certain knowledge of her She sprang from the nest, a young crow,Whose first flight circled..." (more)
Key Phrases: behold yourself, New York

Editorial Reviews

Review

1.
Adam
Against The Sky
Apology
Arrival
At The Ball Game
At The Faucet Of June
The Attic Which Is Desire
Autumn
The Banner Bearer
The Bare Tree
A Bastard Peace
The Bitter World Of Spring
Blueflags
Book 2
The Botticellian Trees
Burning The Christmas Greens
The Catholic Bells
Classic Scene
The Cod Head
The Complete Collected Poems 1906-1938 (1938): The Sun
The Crimson Cyclamen
The Dance (1)
The Dance (2)
Death
Death The Barber
Dedication For A Plot Of Ground
The Defective Record
The Delineaments Of The Giants
The Descent Of Winter: 10/21
The Descent Of Winter: 10/22
The Descent Of Winter: 10/28
The Descent Of Winter: 11/1
The Descent Of Winter: 9/30
An Early Martyr
El Hombre
Every Day
The Eyeglasses
The Farmer
Fine Work With Pitch And Copper
A Flight Of Birds, All Together
Flowers By The Sea
The Forgotten City
Franklin Square
The Great Figure
The Hard Core Of Beauty
Hard Times (1)
His Daughter
The Horse
The Host
It Is A Living Coral
Item
The Ivy Crown
Jersey Lyric
Labrador
The Last Words Of My English Grandmother
The Lesson
The Library
The Locust Tree In Flower (first Version)
The Locust Tree In Flower (second Version)
The Lonely Street
The Maneuver
The Mind Hesitant
Morning
The Motor-barge
Nantucket
New England
A Note
On Gay Wallpaper
The Orchestra
Overture To A Dance Of Locomotives
Pastoral
Pastoral
Paterson: The Falls
Philomena Andronico
Pictures From Brueghel: 1. Self-portrait
Pictures From Brueghel: 10: Children's Games: 1
Pictures From Brueghel: 10: Children's Games: 2
Pictures From Brueghel: 10: Children's Games: 3
Pictures From Brueghel: 2. Landscape With The Fall Of Icarus
Pictures From Brueghel: 3. The Hunters In The Snow
Pictures From Brueghel: 4. The Adoration Of The Kings
Pictures From Brueghel: 5. Peasant Wedding
Pictures From Brueghel: 6. Haymaking
Pictures From Brueghel: 7: The Corn Harvest
Pictures From Brueghel: 8. The Wedding Dance In The Open Air
Pictures From Brueghel: 9. The Parable Of The Blind
The Pink Locust
The Poem
Poem
The Polar Bear
The Poor
A Portrait Of The Times
The Pot Of Flowers
The Predicter Of Famine
Preface
Proletarian Portrait
Raindrops On A Briar
The Raper From Passenack
The Red Wheelbarrow
The Right Of Way
The Rose (3)
The Sea-elephant
Seafarer
The Semblables
Song
Sonnet In Search Of An Author
A Sort Of A Song
The Sound Of Waves
Spring And All
Spring Strains
The Storm
The Sun Bathers
Sunday In The Park
Sunday In The Park With Soutien-george
Sunday In The Park, Sels.
Suzanne
The Term
These
This Is Just To Say
To A Poor Old Woman
To A Solitary Disciple
To Daphne And Virginia
To Have Done Nothing
To The Ghost Of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
To Waken An Old Lady
Tract
Tract
Trees
Tribute To The Painters
Two Pendants: For The Ears
View Of A Lake
The Wanderer: Abroad
The Wanderer: Advent
The Wanderer: Broadway
The Wanderer: Clarity
The Wanderer: Soothsay
The Wanderer: St. James' Grove
The Wanderer: The Strike
The Well Disciplined Bargeman
What's That?
The Widow's Lament In Springtime
A Woman In Front Of A Bank
The Woodthrush
The Yachts
The Yellow Chimney
Young Sycamore
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder®

Product Details

• Paperback: 302 pages
• Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation; Ninnth Printing. Thi edition (June 1985)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 081120958X
• ISBN-13: 978-0811209588
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #164,924 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars So much depends upon..., September 14, 2005

By	S. C. Watson (NY) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

You know the red wheelbarrow poem? The bloody dumb red wheelbarrow beside those idiot white chickens? Glistening in sunlight? The wheelbarrow, not the chickens. Glistening. Though if plucked and cooked for a good two hours at 275 degrees, the chickens are bound to glisten too.

Fifteen years and many humbling events later, I can honestly say I've come around. Mr. Williams is an amazing and brilliant poet. I've even grown fond of The Red Wheelbarrow, mostly because it has remained a point of irritation and amusement. I guess it's like a little jazz riff of a poem. Williams' voice is said to be almost Cubist in language. Fractured. Yet the words recall simple things from rural life. Despite my initial dislike, The Red Wheelbarrow's a pretty good example of this. But it's his other poetry that I find really moving. I am reminded a bit of Steinbeck in his choice of images that are at times harsh and other times comforting. Just as Steinbeck was a very American author, Williams Carlos Williams is a very American poet.

Politically liberal and Unitarian, Williams practiced medicine as a pediatrician and delivered over 2,000 babies in his lifetime. It seems bizarre to think that this very busy doctor, who actually visited his patients in home (complete with leather bag), had a succesful literary career and keen and discerning interest in poetry of a modern bent. Williams wrote in the evenings after work and on the weekends. The image of the in-call doctor is so old-fashioned. A good juxtaposition with his writing style.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Great Poet. Poor Selection, November 7, 2004

By	R - See all my reviews

(Skip to the bottom of this review if you want the quick version.)

The title of this edition is "Selected Poems." I don't know exactly what process of "selection" Tomlinson used in choosing the poems to include in this collection, but I imagine it involved something in the way of either dice or some variation of dart throwing or the close-your-eyes-and-see-where-your-finger-lands method.

Let me now say that I truly love the poetry of William Carlos Williams. While his work did not really become popular until the post-modern era, Williams is a strictly imagistic modernist, and in my eyes he is the epitome of modernist poetry. Like I said, his strict adherence to literal _things_ and images, combined with his genius use of the line (unmatched to this day), and a beauty that resonates far beyond the page makes for one of the greatest poetry collections of the twentieth century.

My problem, as I said, is not with Williams (far from it), but with this collection (I can no longer bring myself to call it a selection). This collection, while obviously containing "The Red Wheelbarrow," has excluded some of Williams's crucial poems. The following poems have been ommitted from this collection: "The Young Housewife," "Queen-Anne's-Lace," "Portrait of a Lady, "Willow Poem," "The Dead Baby," and "Lear." While the poetry in this edition is certainly great, simply because it is taken from the portfolio of William Carlos Williams, these poems are critical to any reader of Williams's poetry, and, for some reason, have been left out, overlooked, or forgotten, I am not sure. I would suggest that anyone who is intereste in Williams's poetry just spend the extra money and purchase the complete works (whose publisher eludes me at this time, and which I think is in two volumes).

While I have bashed Tomlinson for his choice of works to include in this collection, I will say that one good part about this book is his introduction. I provides a helpful analysis to understanding Williams if you need help with that.

If you enjoy only lofty diction and language such as that used by T.S. Eliot (whose work _The Waste Land_ Williams actually called a "catastrophe"), you may want to look into some of Williams's poetry before purchasing a collection. Williams uses direct, literal, and simple (though absolutely not simplistic) language. The beauty of it lies in the actual view of the images his poetry presents.

QUICK VERSION

Do not buy THIS collection, because it is vastly incomplete. William Carlos Williams is a great poet, and crucial works have been omitted. Purchase at least one of the volumes of his complete works instead.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Pictures from Brueghel ..., April 23, 2008

By	Steffan Piper (Palm Desert, CA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

Looking like an unassuming college professor or a local pharmacist in all the photos that you'll ever see, William Carlos Williams was a man who was touched by genius, brilliance and even boldness. Here was a man who was surrounded by some of the great modern writers of his day and was beset on all sides by `New Modernists' and yet still had the strength not to acquiesce or cow-tow under the weight of the ivory tower grumblers. Becoming a literary great in his off time from being a General Practitioner was probably just a hobby for him that went further than he would've imagined.

The New Modernists would struggle today to ignore someone like Williams, claiming a lack of form, meter and pacing. These people are all fools. If Bill Shakespeare were alive today he'd probably be writing haiku's with a sharpie on the bare bottoms of New York runway models at 3am - not policing writers to follow the iambic pentameter.

In this book is a set of poems titled: Pictures from Brueghel (1962). All of these are poetic reflections upon Brueghel's paintings (with the h) and are all absolutely moving and thoughtful. These are some of my favourite poetic pieces from Western literature.

I purchased this book in 2003 and have yet to remove it from my nightstand. William Carlos Williams delivers with a wry smile and a heavy shadow.

As for the Red Wheelbarrow ... it never moved me either. Literally or figuratively.