[William A. Baurle]

Can we have a vote? Is contemporary poetry better off since WCW abandoned formal verse for free verse? Some bemoan and decry the influence of the dreaded Wheelbarrow. I feel the exact opposite.

I vote a resounding yes!

Here's just one example of the kind of poetry William Carlos Williams was writing in 1909:


The Uses of Poetry

I've fond anticipation of a day
O'erfilled with pure diversion presently,
For I must read a lady poesy
The while we glide by many a leafy bay,

Hid deep in rushes, where at random play
The glossy black winged May-flies, or whence flee
Hush-throated nestlings in alarm,
Whom we have idly frighted with our boat's long sway.

For, lest o'ersaddened by such woes as spring
To rural peace from our meek onward trend,
What else more fit? We'll draw the latch-string

And close the door of sense; then satiate wend,
On poesy's transforming giant wing,
To works afar whose fruits all anguish mend.

Williams, William Carlos. The Early Poems of William Carlos Williams [Annotated] (Kindle Locations 337-347). Perscribo Publishing. Kindle Edition.