Product Description
Considered by many to be the most characteristically American of our twentieth-century poets, William Carlos Williams "wanted to write a poem / that you would understand / ,,,But you got to try hard—."So that readers could more fully understand the extent of Williams' radical simplicity, all of his published poetry, excluding Paterson, was reissued in two definite volumes, of which this is the first. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

poetry
amazing. wcwis one of me favorites and all hispoetry from stated years are here. splendid

one of our great poets
how do you discuss 23 years, the last half of a great poet's long career, in such a short allotment of space. you really can't. i will say that some of his better works is in the first volume. that isn't much more i can say than pick up his collected works.

by a poet of instinct and high sensibility
Dr. Williams was not trained as a poet, unlike the case of Pound (his friend) or Eliot (his "enemy"). He was thus fortunatrly refrained from any academic formula that might prevent one from being a great writer.Emily Dickison was that way made a great poet as was the case of Williams.But instinct and high sensitivity can provide one with fleeting inspirationfor writing poetry usually of short piece, instead of"long-winded" ones. Paterson has some technical flaws. Yet takeninto seperate parts, it still destinguishes itself. One doubt whether thesepoets can be great novelists at the same time. Writing novels needs moreknowledge in composition, needs "operations" on the skills. Inthis sense, Williams and Dickinson differ from Eliot and Pound. ... Read more

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52 stories, w/ introduction by Sherwin B. Nuland ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Good, but stick with the poetry
Williams was a prolific writer who ventured into a variety of forms, from the formal poetry of his early craft, to the enjambed pile-up of images he made famous with poems such as "The Red Wheelbarrow", to the drama, fiction, and short stories.He tried in his short stories to create the same objective feel which works so well in his poems.However, the short story is a different form, and the mock reader of the stories does not draw the reader into the story in the way it works whimsically in his poetry.My advice: stick with the poems. ... Read more

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Indispensable
This book, handsomely published by Wesleyan University Press,provides an essential and accurate record of Williams' involvement with little magazines and small publishing houses. The format is a model of clarity and accessibility. Many entries reveal his interest in painting and all the visual arts.Poems with the same title, like "Poem" or "Love Song," are carefully kept separate by giving the first line with the title. Section A concentrates on the first editions of all books and pamphlets by Williams.Section B describes the books with contributions by Williams.Section C lists his contributions to periodicals published both in the United States and abroad.Other sections describe recordings, broadsheets and cards, and all manner of miscellanea.Williams' remarkable popularity throughout the world is outlined in the section on translations. And his one known medical article is given its own section. Blank pages are offered for notes and additions. The index provides easy access to all names and titles, but the entries are also cross-referenced in helpful ways. Wallace's introduction titled, in Williams' words, "The Complete Collected Exercises toward a Possible Poem" is charming and incisive. Photographs of Williams, including one by Charles Sheeler, and a facsimile of the title page of his first book of poems is included. This bibliography should be updated and reprinted.

Indispensable
This book, handsomely published by Wesleyan University Press,provides an essential and accurate record of Williams' involvement with little magazines and small publishing houses. The format is a model of clarity and accessibility. Many entries reveal his interest in painting and all the visual arts.Poems with the same title, like "Poem" or "Love Song," are carefully kept separate by giving the first line with the title. Section A concentrates on the first editions of all books and pamphlets by Williams.Section B describes the books with contributions by Williams.Section C lists his contributions to periodicals published both in the United States and abroad.Other sections describe recordings, broadsheets and cards, and all manner of miscellanea.Williams' remarkable popularity throughout the world is outlined in the section on translations. And his one known medical article is given its own section. Blank pages are offered for notes and additions. The index provides easy access to all names and titles, but the entries are also cross-referenced in helpful ways. Wallace's introduction titled, in Williams' words, "The Complete Collected Exercises toward a Possible Poem" is charming and incisive. Photographs of Williams, including one by Charles Sheeler, and a facsimile of the title page of his first book of poems is included. This bibliography should be updated and reprinted. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (2)

Poetry for Young People: William Carlos Williams
A wondferul book for people, young and old. William Carlos Williams paints a visual picture with words, each sparking the imagnination with vivid colors.

WCW for the young
Although I would never have expected it, Christopher MacGowan has done an excellent job in choosing poems from William Carlos Williams collection appropriate for children. In addition the illustrations not only compiment this imagist's poems, but are enjoyable for all ages. I look forward to other books in this series. ... Read more

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WCW, I Wanted to Write a Poem. Williams discusses the procedure of poetry. ... Read more

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Literary small talk
When he was 73 years old, William Carlos Williams held a series of "informal conversations" with a university student working on her degree. She sorted the transcripts chronologically according to the works to which they refer and compiled them in this small volume. The result is a collection of trivia, charming chatter and gossip related to the poems, stories, plays and novels written by Williams between 1909 and 1957.

The subtitle of the book is quite misleading, though. An autobiography (at least in my opinion) tries to impose a certain order or direction or "meaning" on a life. This book never tries to do any such thing for the poems or the other works. Williams does not say much about how he wrote his poems or what their "meaning" should be or in which context they stand. That was rather disappointing. But then again, I should not have expected Williams to be an interpreter of his poems in the first place. As a writer he is pragmatic and straightforward, not inclined to introspection, speculation or interpretation.

Williams seems to work by instinct, and this method works fine for him. In one interesting example in the book, used by Williams to illustrate a point, he deletes just one line from a nine-line poem - and it is an amazing improvement. His explanation for the deletion, however, is typically bland and uninformative: "See how much better it conforms to the page, how much better is looks?"

What the book conveys quite successfully it Williams's unpretentious way of communicating, his often self-deprecating humor and the ease and pleasure with which he looks back over his almost 50 years of writing. Williams has a mischievous streak in him, too. He enjoys risking a small scandal by putting on the record his thoughts at a poetry reading in Wellesley where the college girls "stood on their heels and yelled ... the girls ... my god I was breathless, but I said do you really want more and they said yes so I read what Floss [his wife] knew they would like. They were so adorable. I could have raped them all!"

"I Wanted to Write a Poem" is definitely not a must-have book. I have picked out some (but not all) of the raisins I have found in a book that was, overall, quite plain and trite. And it left me with a feeling that the 73-year old Williams is simply a nice, elder gentleman with a sense of humor, a bit of unobtrusive posturing and an easygoing, mostly sanguine temperament. At a certain point in time he must have reached that desirable and pleasant state in which he decided to take himself not too serious anymore.My favorite quote in this context comes from his wife: "Psychiatry? He used to say, 'I'm nuts and everybody knows it,' and let it go at that."

Incredible meditation on process.
Some of you might know Williams for his "Red Wheelbarrow" poem. Others of you might know his poem "Paterson", an epic about the New Jersey city. Even if you don't know Williams' work, this is necessary reading, as "I Wanted..." showcases an artist at the tail end of his career documenting his artistic evolution by commenting on everything he has ever published.

And indeed, there is much to document. But despite his prolificness -- rarely did a year go by without Williams producing a volume -- Williams was not a figure in the popular consciousness for the first few decades of his career. Time and again through the book, he comments on his lack of exposure, his small print runs, and his feeling of laboring in the shadows of TS Eliot and his acolytes. Perhaps due to not having the classical grounding of Eliot and Pound, Williams worked within his own "limitations" to forge a conversational style that takes the Whitman legacy and builds on it.

I recommend this book to those of you who want to write serious work, or to simply understand the lifetime's apprenticeship that goes into serious work being created. Not surprisingly, by the way, I recovered this volume from a library discard pile, which only goes to show one more example of a society too willing to discard quiet works of grace for corporate billboards in the detention halls that double as public schools. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Good, but limited
For those who enjoy the subtlety of William Carlos Williams’s poetry this book is a great compilation of his later poetic works. Although these are not his most well known works, there are some very beautiful poems included here. Many of these poems are more experimental, and seem to me to often be tinged with a darker mood than his earlier writings. In particular, the poets ability to describe everyday objects in simple yet elegant verse, and to find new meaning in such objects, is unique and refreshing. The Collected Later Poems of William Carlos Williams, however, is probably not a very good introduction to his poetic style. Many of his greatest poems are not included here and this compilation is rather mixed; containing both some really great poems and some of lesser quality. If you are new to the poetry of William Carlos Williams I would advise you to buy any of the more complete compilations that are avalible.

This poem stands out as one of my favorite.

The Term

A rumpled sheet
Of brown paper
About the length

And apparent bulk
Of a man was
Rolling with the

Wind slowly over
And over in
The street as

A car drove down
Upon it and
Crushed it to

The ground. Unlike
A man it rose
Again rolling

With the wind over
And over to be as
It was before.
... Read more

Product Description
"The Letters of Denise Levertov and William Carlos Williams" is the most engaging and lively of their literary correspondences--at once a portrait of two geniuses, the testimony of their remarkable friendship, and a seedbed of ideas about American poetry. With a 1951 fan letter, the young British poet introduced herself to Williams, declaring: "If a man is a force in one's life [and] is felt to enter the fabric of one's thinking & feelings & one's way of trying to work, he certainly ought to know it. So, thank you." The correspondence begins in Levertov's twenties as her first books appear in the US. By 1959, Williams in congratulating Levertov on her growth: "this book challenge[s] me so that I am glad I am not younger....You have not always written so excellently....I am going to read these first half-dozen poems--maybe more--until as an old man I have penetrated to where your secret is his." The letters also chronicle their search (individually and together) for a set of formal poetic principles, a search which culminated for Levertov in 1965, when she coined the term "organic form." The warmth, the directness,, the flavorsome individuality of the letters--thirty-three from Levertov and thirty-one from Williams--increased with their growing intimacy and mutual regard. Always intriguing, their independent-minded letters, which end with the elder poet's death in 1962, have great piquancy and charm. Denise Levertov herself initiated this project, and was then, in the year before her death, "fascinated to read the exchange." Professor Christopher MacGowan, who edited the definitive "Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams," contributes a superb introduction and intriguing annotations throughout. As James Laughlin, founder of New Directions, said: "For me Denise Levertov is the best of the organic form poets. She has that so important ability that Williams had: she knows where to end the line....Almost immediately she figured out from Williams how to write good free verse." ... Read more

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WCW, The Embodiment of Knowledge. Early essays. ... Read more

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William Carlos Williams made his mark on the world as a legendary modernist poet, but he filled an equally significant role on a local level in his native New Jersey—as a doctor. Over the first half of the twentieth century, Williams built a successful practice as a pediatrician and OB-GYN, and while some of his patients made the journey to his office in the affluent town of Rutherford, many more were privileged with house calls. House Calls with William Carlos Williams, MD is a collaborative effort by child psychiatrist Robert Coles and photographer Thomas Roma to retrace Dr. Williams’ rounds, which included patients from Rutherford all the way north to Paterson. Coles, an early fan of the doctor’s literary work, befriended Williams as a young man, and in the early 50s was invited to come along on many of these outings; his experiences are recounted here in engaging first-person anecdotes. Roma was given access to the patients’ addresses in 2001, and plotted a route he would travel with his camera over the course of the next five years; his quiet, contemplative photographs of the streets Dr. Williams walked provide a striking visual counterpoint to Coles’ text. Selections of Williams’ poetry are reproduced throughout, including excerpts from his five-part epic, Paterson. The result is an immersive experience, in which the reader may travel side-by-side with Williams, listening and learning from the famed poet, doctor, and mentor. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

great book for writers and mds
I've read this book many times and I highly recommend it.It's a delight, and the perfect gift for aspiring physicians.

"I have eaten the plums"

William Carlos Williams is known for his huge contribution to American literature during the first half of the twentieth century. He was friend, rival, or mentor to some of the most influential modernist and post-modernist poets of the era. He was also a pediatrician with a practice in and around Paterson, New Jersey for most of the same half-century.

Williams the doctor is the subject of House Calls With William Carlos Williams, MD. In an unusual collaboration, photographer Thomas Roma captured the streets where Williams had made his trademark house calls, and physician Robert Coles contributed the text from his memories of "rounding" with Williams as a medical student.

The linking principle between the photos and text is Williams's own practice of taking in the image and moving from there to the understanding. According to Coles, Williams "connected hearing and thinking to close, attentive watching, all part of the doctor's job." Coles quotes Williams on artists: "They made their house calls on us, got us to stop, look, consider -- the artist become a learner, a teacher, just as a house-calling doctor takes something in through his senses, then comes up with his 'findings.'"

Williams, steeped in urban America, was strongly socialist in his politics, and his doctoring was guided by the need to see patients in their social context. His role as observer is strongly stated in this book -- sometimes the sympathetic observer, sometimes passionate. Coles quotes Williams watching a group of children: "They never did, those big shots in Washington, during the 1930's, ask a lot of kiddos like those ... to talk about what's there, waiting to be heard, seen, handed over to others ... Where was the urban version of the FSA, aiming its sights at ordinary city kids? I guess we've gotten lost a little."

The reference to the Farm Security Administration's photo collection can't be accidental. The FSA collection is a definitive photographic record of rural and small-town life between the Depression and WWII, and Thomas Roma's bleak black-and-white cityscapes, taken in 2006 and 2007 for HOUSE CALLS, have the same feel. Harsh shadows, derelict buildings, drooping utility wires, fire escapes, trees blossoming against chain link fences -- they speak as strongly as the text. Both echo Williams's interest in structures, in juxtapositions, in the life of the city streets that gives modern America its shape and voice.

This small book (107 pages) is half text and half photos, with a few of Williams's poems incorporated; it's impossible, after all, to separate the doctor from the poet. Elusive, thought-provoking, deceptively simple, HOUSE CALLS begs to be read and then read again; like Williams's poetry, the structure and imagery convey as much as the words. Recommended for anyone interested in the poet, or in photography or mid-century urban American life. Five stars for a gift that keeps on giving.

Linda Bulger, 2008 ... Read more

Product Description
Voted by The New York Times as one of the greatest poems of the twentiethcentury, Spring and All is a manifesto of the imagination — a hybrid of alternating sections of prose and free verse that crystallizes in dramatic, energetic, andbeautifully cryptic statements of how language recreates the world. Spring andAll contains some of Williams’s best known poetry, including Section I whichopens, “By the road to the contagious hospital” (now commonly known by thetitle “Spring and All”), and Section XXII, where Williams penned his most famouspoem, “The Red Wheelbarrow.”

Although Spring and All has been always available in collected works suchas Imaginations and Collected Poems: Volume I, this Pearl edition makes it shineas the separate book that William Carlos Williams intended. ... Read more

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In his work as a physician, Williams had learnt the skill of objective observation which he applied to his poetry, examining, as he said, 'the particular to discover the universal'. Marked by a vernacular American speech and direct observation of the landscape and people of his native New Jersey, his poetry explores the 'raw merging of American pastoral and urban squalor. Emotionally restrained but rich in sensory experience, the poems were written according to the guiding concept: 'no ideas but in things' and those 'things', a red wheelbarrow, a group of trees, a river, convey the local and the particular with a vivid intensity. ... Read more

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Long unavailable, The Selected Letters ofWilliam Carlos Williams is now reissued asa New Directions Paperbook. Spanning fifty-fouryears, this collection record the creativegrowth of one of the twentieth century's mostinfluential and versatile writers.

... Read more