"This Is Just To Say" William Carlos Williams poem READ BY POET HIMSELF American Literature

• Report rights infringement
• published: 14 Jun 2013
• views: 4368

This Is Just To Say By William Carlos Williams I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox and which you were probably saving for breakfast Forgive me they were delicious so sweet and so cold Among other "meanings," this poem insists that poetry doesn't have to be fancy! It says we can hear music in everyday language if we listen carefully. Lines may be short, and punctuation is optional! When the poem was written in 1934, "icebox" was the term used, not "refrigerator." Get it? This poems seems like a note stuck on a refrigerator door. Williams teaches us to look more closely the language we take for granted, including words scribbled on the ordinary notes found in kitchens throughout America. Actually, Williams' poem is more playful and richer in sound than notes that I've left on kitchen counters and refrigerator doors. This famous poem was carefully composed by Williams--he made it up!--but in the sense that it seems like an ordinary note found in kitchens throughout America, it helped fuel a Dadaist movement towards the new verse called "found poetry." Here is how "found poetry" works: take words and/or phrases from other sources (novels, newspapers, advertisements) and adjust them so they take on the shape of a poem, invariably free verse. Make changes, play with spacing, invert what had been stolen from the original source--do anything! It becomes a poem if you call it a poem! The Williams poem is easy to imitate. _________________________________ DIALOGUE FOR MY STUDENTS: READ THIS: Is this poem Harlem Renaissance? No, the poet is white. This is an example of “Modernism”--that’s a new word to learn. What’s “Modernism”? It was a new way of writing literature in and around the 1920s. Writers were trying hard to be modern, to write in new ways, to break old rules. They experimented. Well, this poem does break rules. No punctuation! That’s right. Nobody had done that before in poetry. But the poem isn’t really a poem at all! It is like a note someone stuck on the door of a refrigerator. When the poem was written in 1934, "icebox" was the term used, not "refrigerator." Anyway, this poem suggests that poetry doesn't have to be fancy! Yes, that’s the point of the poem. The poet thought we can hear music in everyday language if we listen carefully. You mean I’ll hear poetry if I listen to some random conversation in the SFHS parking lot? That’s what the poet is suggesting. Hmm, I googled the poem and found G-Dawg’s imitation of the poem. I bet next week we’ll have to write our own imitation. I'm Now In A Sour Mood By Mr. Gracyk someone finished the loaf of bread-- stupid pig! it gives me me anger issues since I wanted more toast or maybe you put the stale loaf in the trash due to mold and bugs-- but it's fine for toast