I agree with Dave Mason. It's the audacity of the thing's calling itself a poem that strikes me first and makes me argue with it. Then, by the very act of arguing with it, I realize I've granted it the importance that it claimed... In addition, I think it does qualify as that rarest of the rare, a true experiment in verse. Williams proclaimed "No ideas but in things" (and I agree, keeping in mind that he didn't merely say "No ideas"), and in this poem he tries to get as close to "things" as he can. There are lots of poems that do it far more successfully, however.
For me, a big problem with the poem is, ironically, that it's all intellectual. There's nothing in the sound that resonates with me.
Richard
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