William Carlos Williams: Trending quotes

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William Carlos Williams: 166 quotes4 likes

“If it ain't a pleasure, it ain't a poem.”

William Carlos Williams

“That which is possible is inevitable.”

William Carlos Williams

“so much depends
upon a red wheel
barrow glazed with rain
water beside the white
chickens”

William Carlos Williams book Spring and All

"The Red Wheelbarrow"
Source: Spring and All (1923)

“But the sea
which no one tends
is also a garden”

William Carlos Williams book Pictures from Brueghel and Other Poems

Source: Pictures from Brueghel and Other Poems

“It is almost impossible to state what one in fact believes, because it is almost impossible to hold a belief and to define it at the same time.”

William Carlos Williams

“A poem is this:/A nuance of sound/delicately operating/upon a cataract of sense/… the particulars/of a song waking/upon a bed of sound.”

William Carlos Williams

Source: The Collected Poems, Vol. 2: 1939-1962

“As birds' wings beat the solid air without which none could fly so words freed by the imagination affirm reality by their flight.”

William Carlos Williams book Spring and All

Source: Spring and All

“Of asphodel, that greeny flower,

::like a buttercup

::::upon its branching stem —

save that's green and wooden —

::I come, my sweet,

::::to sing to you.

We lived long together,

::a life filled,

::::if you will,

with flowers. So that

::I was cheered

::::when I first came to know

that there were flowers also

::in hell.

::::Today

I'm filled with the fading memory of those flowers

::that we both loved,

::::even to this poor

colorless thing —

::I saw it

::::when I was a child —

little prized among the living

::but the dead see,

::::asking among themselves:

What do I remember

::that was shaped

::::as this thing is shaped?
while our eyes fill
::with tears.
::::Of love, abiding love
it will be telling
::though too weak a wash of crimson
::::colors it
to make it wholly credible.
::There is something
::::something urgent
I have to say to you
::and you alone
::::but it must wait
while I drink in
::the joy of your approach,
::::perhaps for the last time.
And so
::with fear in my heart
::::I drag it out
and keep on talking
::for I dare not stop.”

William Carlos Williams book Journey to Love

Journey to Love (1955), Asphodel, That Greeny Flower

“My first poem was a bolt from the blue … it broke a spell of disillusion and suicidal despondence. … it filled me with soul satisfying joy.”

William Carlos Williams book The Autobiography of William Carlos Williams

The Autobiography of William Carlos Williams (1951) [W. W. Norton & Co., 1967, ISBN 978-0811202268]
General sources

“Among
of
green stiff
old
bright broken
branch
come white
sweet
May again”

William Carlos Williams book An Early Martyr and Other Poems

"The Locust Tree in Flower"
An Early Martyr and Other Poems (1935)

“So different, this man
And this woman:
A stream flowing
In a field.”

William Carlos Williams

Poetry Chicago, 1916)
Marriage (1916)

“Poetry demands a different material than prose. It uses another facet of the same fact … the spontaneous conformation of language as it is heard.”

William Carlos Williams

Detail & Prosody for the Poem Patterson given to James Laughlin (1939), now at Houghton Library
General sources

“Among the rain
and lights
I saw the figure 5
in gold
on a red
firetruck
moving
tense
unheeded
to gong clangs
siren howls
and wheels rumbling
through the dark city.”

William Carlos Williams book Sour Grapes

"The Great Figure"
Sour Grapes (1921)

“He's come out of the man
and he's let
the man go —

the liar
Dead

his eyes

rolled up out of
the light — a mockery

which

love cannot touch — just bury it
and hide its face
for shame.”

William Carlos Williams

"Death"
Collected Poems 1921-1931 (1934)

“Your case has been reviewed by high-minded
and unprejudiced observers (like hell
they were!) the president of a great
university, the president of a noteworthy
technical school and a judge too old to sit
on the bench, men already rewarded for
their services to pedagogy and the enforcement
of arbitrary statutes. In other words
pimps to tradition”

William Carlos Williams

"Impromptu: The Suckers"
Collected Poems 1921-1931 (1934)

“Prose may carry a load of ill-defined matters like a ship. But poetry is the machine which drives it, pruned to a perfect economy.”

William Carlos Williams

Introduction
The Wedge (1944)