If I were asked this unfortunate and importunate question, I'd tell people to read my books and come up with their own answers. Asked, "What is your favorite Hecht poem," Tony gleefully answered "The most recent one I've committed." Lines, phrases, couplets, can only be appreciated in the context of the poem. So I'm going to answer this for Greg, making reference to poems posted on Mastery or quoted in Alan's essay on Discerning Eye. From Waterfall, I am particularly smitten by the concluding couplet of the second stanza:
Neglecting that the bed will steer
The water as the water steers the bed.
I'm an inveterate hiker of streambeds, and this is chiasmus which rivals any in Greek literature. From Top Priority:
And walk with God, the Top Priority.
Jason Huff has complained on the Discerning Eye and in his embarrassing review of Errors on Amazon.com, that Greg just "beats a joke to death." It is appalling to me that a student of R.S. Gwynn doesn't understand how wit can serve High Seriousness. After this extended, amazing riff of a poem, poking fun at how we massacre our language, Greg turns the whole thing into a serious meditation with his last line. Hint: If you're looking for favorite lines in Williamson, read Greg's last lines.
In Story and Song, the final couplet.
But he recalled the singing of a stream
And that it wore a diamond down to dust.
The diamond is the stylus on an old phonograph, and it's another "killer-diller" ending, in Dick Wilbur's phrase. (And by the way, one of the reasons Dick so admires Greg's work is those endings.)
But Greg also masters the beginnings of poems. (R.P. Warren to 18-year-old Murphy: "Boy, the first line of a poem has to grab your throat and say 'Poetry" just as this Jack Daniels' grabs your throat and says 'Whiskey.'") So here's the first quatrain of Kites:
At fingertip control
These state-of-the-art stunt kites
Chandelle, wingover, and roll
To dive from conspicuous heights,
I love the extraordinary vocabulary, which sends me to the dictionary, and the way the Q sets up the swooping meter which Nyctom so admires in this masterful poem. So Tom and Caleb, there are four favorite snippets from Greg, which he would blush to mention. But maybe he'll comment on these nominees. And Tom, hie thee to Caleb's gorgeous site, and read Williamson. Then buy his books. Tim
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