Let's Read Some William Carlos Williams 📖

To conclude our National Poetry Month adventure, put your feet up and join me as I read some poetry by William Carlos Williams.

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[PixelatedApollo]

I think "The Red Wheelbarrel" had a massive effect on me and was the catalyst of my love for poetry. I enjoy long poems sometimes, like "the Raven, " but my favorites are short simple poems. Maybe because I am not that smart, but simple poems tend to stay with me, and they are always ringing in my head randomly when I am out and about. Another one I love is Philip Larkin's "This is the First Thing." I love to read that one aloud because it sounds so nice to me.

Anyways, I stepped away from poetry because I always struggled to read and understand more complex poems with rich diction. It was like reading a foreign language, and I just didn't feel like I had strong enough literacy skill to fully enjoy poetry. (I grew up having to go to special reading classes and was always behind my peers when it came to reading and writing.) But your approach and guidance to just enjoying poetry, and not necessarily breaking them down, but rather feeling the poems has made me return to the hobby. I have also just finished reading your book recommendation, "The Poetry Home Repair Manual" by Ted Kooser, and I loved the book. Finished in a few days. It has inspired me to write again, and exposed me to some new great poets.

So, if it counts for anything, your videos have had a huge effect on me, and I think you are a very underrated YouTuber. Thanks for the hard work.

[AsuraSantosha]

Thanks Andrew! Your reading is lovely! And your Poetry April has been marvelous! ❤

This month, I read some Louise Glück, Alan Ginsberg, Emily Dickinson, and Sylvia Plath. And I can now say I listened to some William Carlos Williams.

It's been a good poetry month.

[abotic]

I am greatly enjoying this. Thank you.

[The_Hemline_Scribe]

This was brilliant, really, thank you so much for sharing this, though I know I'm a bit late to celebrate Poetry Month! Your voice is perfect for poetry- soft and mellifluous and moving, your students are very lucky to have you to listen to, indeed! I've binged a couple of your videos since coming across your channel, and I'm quite happy that I did. I just joined the discord too, where I might post an introduction later if that would be okay! I'm not the most well-versed in poetry, so I don't know how much I'll be able to contribute to discussions, but I'm glad to be a part of the community nonetheless. If applicable to you, I hope you're having a lovely holiday weekend, and thanks again!

[jungastein]

Wow you began with my favorite WCW poem, and Sour Grapes is my favorite of his books.

[Serai]

For the last time, WHO ATE MY DAMN PLUMS???

[darkengine]

I'm afraid I completely failed at the exercise. I tried very much to sit back and just take it all in and disengage my analytical mind. Yet even with the first poem, "The Later Singer", I became confused by "late at my singing".

I wasn't sure what that meant even at the most basic level. At first, it seemed most intuitive to me to interpret that as a singer late to attend a performance or recital, yet that doesn't seem to fit with the line, "I am still a young man!" So I was starting to think he's someone who just started taking singing lessons relatively late in life.

Yet the next line about the sparrow, black rain, and dragging at his heart seems to me like he's depressed and suffering from the singing equivalent of writer's block. So perhaps he's a songwriter? Also is "black rain" a reference to an aftermath of a battle? I wasn't sure what it meant, so I just interpreted it literally as black raindrops which sounds like rain from a heavily-polluted environment.

With the question of what's dragging at his heart, I was prepared to think the following lines would answer his own question. It doesn't seem like those lines were intended to do so, since he describes such pleasant imagery. It seems to me as though instead of answering his own question, he was reinforcing it with the following lines. "It's so pleasant outside, so why I am so sad?" Something to this effect, contrasting it against the ugly picture of black rain.

Or did I misinterpret "dragging at my heart", perhaps? Maybe he's constantly so distracted and moved by the beauty of the outdoors that it's tempting him to constantly procrastinate his singing in order to gaze at his surroundings. I usually interpret "dragging at my heart" as something sad and burdensome in an unpleasant way, but I could see a possible interpretation that it's a burden in a pleasant sense (as in the case of falling in love), as though he loves the outdoors so much that he can't get any work done. This seems far less probable to me given the dark image of "black rain on his breast", but I may have misinterpreted it.

Apologies for my abysmal failure! I was able to avoid engaging my analytical mind for the first couple of lines. It's mainly after the third one at which I got hung up and confused by even the most probable meaning. _Wait, what does that mean?_ I had to ask myself the question, and not in a fancy analytical sense, but in the simplest English sense possible.

[catherinvaske]

I still don’t get it …it’s not doing anything for me just mere words 😢