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Unread 04-28-2012, 05:45 PM
William A. Baurle William A. Baurle is offline
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Join Date: Sep 2001
Location: Arizona, USA
Posts: 1,844
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I'd give my left nut to have written this poem:

Quote:
Pastoral

When I was younger
it was plain to me
I must make something of myself.
Older now
I walk back streets
admiring the houses
of the very poor:
roof out of line with sides
the yards cluttered
with old chicken wire, ashes,
furniture gone wrong;
the fences and outhouses
built of barrel staves
and parts of boxes, all,
if I am fortunate,
smeared a bluish green
that properly weathered
pleases me best of all colors.

No one
will believe this
of vast import to the nation.
or this, one of the first poems that got me interested in writing:

Quote:
The Great Figure

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.


Williams, like his fellow New Jerseyan a generation later, Allen Ginsberg, started out writing mediocre (or worse) traditional poetry. Formal verse didn't suit either one of them, and it was a good thing for all that they broke into something new and exciting. Here's a sample of WCW's early verse:


Quote:
To the Unknown Lady

So shall thy praise, thou whom I love so well
As praise long spent grow stale and meaningless,
Yielding to Time, who still doth bid men spell
More deep and deep to Wonder's wilderness.

For, not thine arm which wields a huntress' spear,
Nor shall thy lovely parts, nor shall thy grace,
These outworn badges of some vanished peer,
Awake that fire which bids all these give place.

But 'tis thy mind, that realm of sovereignty,
That viewless orb, that world in duplicate,
That more than world, from whose empowered see
Quick doubling fancy holds unrivaled state.

Yet when this praise too, wears, my love shall hold,
In iron crowns rusted as gleams the untouched gold.
See what I mean? Anyway, I'm a huge admirer of WCW. And I really don't get all this about him being unintellectual. He tried to keep Ezra Pound from making an ass of himself, but to no avail.
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