The Collected Poems of Williams Carlos Williams 1939-1962

by Williams, William Carlos; MacGowan, Christopher

• ISBN13: 9780811211888
• ISBN10: 0811211886
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1991-09-17
• Publisher: New Directions

Summary

So that readers could more fully understand the extent of Williams' radical simplicity, all of his published poetry, excluding Paterson , was reissued in two definite volumes, of which this is the first.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. xix
Poems 1939-1944
1939 The Swaggering Gait	p. 3
The Deceptrices	p. 3
Illegitimate Things	p. 4
The Poet and His Poems	p. 4
Defiance to Cupid	p. 6
Tailpiece	p. 6
The Rocking Woman	p. 7
The Genius	p. 7
The Approaching Hour	p. 8
1940 A Portrait of the Times	p. 9
Cherry Blossoms at Evening	p. 10
The Ritualists	p. 10
The Graceful Bastion	p. 10
The Sleeping Brute	p. 11
From a Window	p. 11
River Rhyme	p. 12
Sketch for a Portrait of Henry Ford	p. 12
An Informative Object	p. 13
To a Woman Seen Once	p. 13
The New Clouds	p. 14
1941 For the Poem Paterson	p. 14
Detail (Her milk)	p. 14
Sparrows Among Dry Leaves [first version]	p. 15
St. Valentine	p. 15
Sometimes It Turns Dry and the Leaves Fall Before They are Beautiful	p. 16
In Sisterly Fashion	p. 16
Detail (I had a misfortune)	p. 17
Raleigh Was Right [first version]	p. 17
The Unknown	p. 18
Fertile	p. 19
Detail (Hey!)	p. 19
The Thoughtful Lover	p. 19
The End of the Parade	p. 20
Detail (Doc, I bin)	p. 20
A Fond Farewell	p. 21
The A B and C of It [first version]	p. 21
A Love Poem	p. 22
Comfort	p. 22
Flattery	p. 23
Pigheaded Poet	p. 23
Details for Paterson	p. 24
River Rhyme II	p. 24
Brief Lief	p. 25
Election Day	p. 25
Conventional Ballad	p. 26
10/14	p. 26
The Predicter of Famine	p. 27
The Last Turn [first version]	p. 27
Three Poems for Horace Gregory	p. 28
The United Front	p. 28
To a Chinese Woman	p. 28
The Fight	p. 28
Jean Sans Terre	p. 29
John Landless at the Final Port [first version]	p. 29
Jean Sans Terre Circles the Earth Seven Times	p. 30
Jean Sans Terre Leads the Caravan	p. 32
Jean Sans Terre at the Final Port [second version]	p. 34
Jean Sans Terre Reviews the Fathers	p. 35
Jean Sans Terre Discovers the West Pole	p. 36
Jean Sans Terre at the Final Port	p. 37
Nicolas Calas: Four Poems	p. 38
Wrested From Mirrors	p. 38
The Agony Among the Crowd	p. 39
Narcissus in the Desert	p. 40
To regain the day again	p. 40
Defense	p. 41
The Petunia	p. 41
An Exultation	p. 42
The Yellow Season	p. 42
1942 War, the Destroyer!	p. 43
Passaic, N.J.	p. 44
From a Play	p. 44
Prelude in Boricua	p. 45
1943 Gothic Candor	p. 47
The Gentle Negress (No other such luxuriance)	p. 47
1944 To the Dean	p. 48
The Virtuous Agent	p. 48
Thinking Back Toward Christmas: A Statement for the Virgin	p. 49
The Wedge 1944	p. 51
Author's Introduction	p. 53
A Sort of a Song	p. 55
Catastrophic Birth	p. 55
Paterson: the Falls	p. 57
The Dance (In Brueghel's great picture)	p. 58
Writer's Prologue to a Play in Verse	p. 59
Burning the Christmas Greens	p. 62
In Chains	p. 65
[In Sisterly Fashion]	p. 65
The World Narrowed to a Point	p. 65
The Observer	p. 66
A Flowing River	p. 66
The Hounded Lovers	p. 66
The Cure	p. 67
To All Gentleness	p. 68
Three Sonnets	p. 73
The Poem	p. 74
The Rose (The stillness of the rose)	p. 74
Rumba! Rumba!	p. 75
A Plea for Mercy	p. 75
Figueras Castle	p. 76
Eternity	p. 76
The Hard Listener	p. 78
The Controversy	p. 79
Perfection	p. 80
These Purists	p. 80
A Vision of Labor: 1931	p. 81
The Last Turn	p. 82
[The End of the Parade]	p. 83
The A, B and C of It	p. 83
[The Thoughtful Lover]	p. 83
The Aftermath	p. 84
The Semblables	p. 84
The Storm	p. 86
The Forgotten City	p. 86
The Yellow Chimney	p. 87
The Bare Tree	p. 88
Raleigh Was Right	p. 88
The Monstrous Marriage	p. 89
[Sometimes It Turns Dry and the Leaves Fall Before They are Beautiful]	p. 90
Sparrows Among Dry Leaves	p. 90
Prelude to Winter	p. 90
Silence	p. 91
Another Year	p. 91
The Clouds [first version]	p. 91
A Cold Front	p. 92
Against the Sky	p. 93
An Address	p. 94
The Gentle Negress (Wandering among the chimneys)	p. 94
To Ford Madox Ford in Heaven	p. 95
Poems 1945-1948	p. 97
1945 Sunflowers	p. 99
Threnody	p. 99
The Rare Gist	p. 100
To a Sparrow	p. 100
The Phoenix and the Tortoise	p. 101
1946 The Yellow Tree Peony	p. 102
Translations of Paul Eluard--Poet of France	p. 103
A Wolf (The good snow)	p. 103
A Wolf (The day astonishes)	p. 103
Uncertain of the Crime	p. 104
Curfew	p. 104
From the Outside	p. 104
From the Inside	p. 105
Hey Red!	p. 105
Death by Radio	p. 106
East Coocoo	p. 106
At Kenneth Burke's Place	p. 106
"The Rock-Old Dogma"	p. 108
Approach to a City	p. 108
The Usurers of Heaven	p. 109
1947 Rogation Sunday	p. 110
Lustspiel	p. 111
The United States	p. 111
The Resemblance	p. 112
1948 The Birth of Venus	p. 112
Seafarer	p. 114
The Sound of Waves	p. 114
The Counter	p. 116
Period Piece: 1834	p. 116
The Pause	p. 116
April is the Saddest Month	p. 117
For G.B.S., Old	p. 117
The Modest Achievement	p. 118
No Good Too	p. 119
The Clouds 1948	p. 121
Aigeltinger	p. 123
Franklin Square	p. 124
Labrador	p. 124
The Apparition	p. 125
The Light Shall Not Enter	p. 125
A Woman in Front of a Bank	p. 126
The Night Rider	p. 127
Chanson	p. 127
The Birdsong	p. 128
The Visit	p. 129
The Quality of Heaven	p. 130
To a Lovely Old Bitch	p. 131
The Bitter World of Spring	p. 132
Lament	p. 133
A History of Love	p. 134
Mists Over the River	p. 135
When Structure Fails Rhyme Attempts to Come to the Rescue	p. 135
Education a Failure	p. 136
The Banner Bearer	p. 137
The Goat	p. 137
Two Deliberate Exercises	p. 138
Lesson From a Pupil Recital	p. 138
Voyages	p. 139
The Mirrors	p. 139
His Daughter	p. 140
Design for November	p. 140
The Maneuver	p. 141
The Horse	p. 141
Hard Times	p. 142
The Dish of Fruit	p. 143
The Motor-Barge	p. 143
Russia	p. 144
The Act	p. 147
The Savage Beast	p. 147
The Well Disciplined Bargeman	p. 148
Raindrops on a Briar	p. 148
Ol' Bunk's Band	p. 149
Suzanne	p. 150
Navajo	p. 150
Graph	p. 151
The Testament of Perpetual Change	p. 152
The Flower (This too I love)	p. 152
For a Low Voice	p. 153
The Words Lying Idle	p. 154
Lear	p. 154
Picture of a Nude in a Machine Shop	p. 155
The Brilliance	p. 156
A Unison	p. 157
[The Semblables]	p. 158
The Hurricane	p. 158
The Province	p. 158
The Mind's Games	p. 159
The Stylist	p. 160
Note to Music: Brahms 1st Piano Concerto	p. 161
The Injury	p. 161
The Red-Wing Blackbird	p. 163
A Place (Any Place) to Transcend All Places	p. 163
The Old House	p. 166
The Thing	p. 167
The Mind Hesitant	p. 168
Tragic Detail	p. 169
Philomena Andronico	p. 169
The Clouds	p. 171
The Pink Church 1949	p. 175
Choral: the Pink Church	p. 177
The Lion	p. 180
Mama	p. 181
New Mexico	p. 182
A Rosebush in an Unlikely Garden	p. 182
Song (If I)	p. 183
The Words, the Words, the Words	p. 183
Venus Over the Desert	p. 184
"I Would Not Change for Thine"	p. 184
[Mists Over the River]	p. 185
The Love Charm	p. 186
Poems 1949-1953	p. 187
1949 May 1st Tomorrow	p. 189
Apres le Bain	p. 190
Spring Is Here Again, Sir.	p. 190
The Hard Core of Beauty	p. 191
Tolstoy	p. 193
Cuchulain	p. 193
Twelve Line Poem	p. 194
Nun's Song	p. 195
Another Old Woman	p. 195
Wide Awake, Full of Love	p. 196
Song (Pluck the florets)	p. 197
Song (Russia! Russia!)	p. 198
Translation	p. 198
Convivio	p. 199
The Rat	p. 199
The Horse Show	p. 200
Two Pendants: for the Ears	p. 201
The Sale	p. 215
All That Is Perfect in Woman	p. 216
An Eternity	p. 218
The Three Graces	p. 220
3 A.M. The Girl with the Honey Colored Hair	p. 220
1950 The Self	p. 221
Moon and Stars	p. 222
The Girl (The wall, as I watched)	p. 222
Poem (Looking up, of a sudden)	p. 223
And Who Do You Think "They" Are?	p. 223
The End of the Rope	p. 223
The Gentle Rejoinder	p. 224
The Woodpecker	p. 224
Ballad of Faith	p. 225
The Non-Entity	p. 225
Childe Harold to the Round Tower Came	p. 225
Io Baccho!	p. 227
Jingle	p. 227
Every Day	p. 228
The Complexity	p. 229
A Note	p. 229
Drugstore Library	p. 230
The R R Bums	p. 230
Incognito	p. 230
Turkey in the Straw	p. 231
The Lesson	p. 231
To Close	p. 232
Death (So this is death)	p. 232
The Marriage of Souls	p. 233
How Bad It Is to Say	p. 233
Christmas 1950	p. 234
1951 June 9	p. 235
Still Life	p. 235
December	p. 236
Fragment (My God, Bill)	p. 236
Mistrust of the Beloved	p. 237
Passer Domesticus	p. 237
Descent	p. 238
1952 The Wrong Door	p. 238
Paterson, Book V: The River of Heaven	p. 238
1953 The Problem	p. 239
The Clock of the Years	p. 240
The Desert Music 1954	p. 243
The Descent	p. 245
To Daphne and Virginia	p. 246
The Orchestra	p. 250
For Eleanor and Bill Monahan	p. 252
To a Dog Injured in the Street	p. 255
The Yellow Flower	p. 257
The Host	p. 259
Deep Religious Faith	p. 262
The Mental Hospital Garden	p. 264
The Artist	p. 267
[Work in Progress (Asphodel, That Greeny Flower: Book 1)]	p. 268
Theocritus: Idyl I	p. 268
The Desert Music	p. 273
Journey to Love 1955	p. 285
A Negro Woman	p. 287
The Ivy Crown	p. 287
View by Color Photography on a Commercial Calendar	p. 290
The Sparrow	p. 291
The King!	p. 295
Tribute to the Painters	p. 296
To a Man Dying on His Feet	p. 298
The Pink Locust	p. 299
Classic Picture	p. 301
The Lady Speaks	p. 303
Address	p. 303
The Drunk and the Sailor	p. 305
A Smiling Dane	p. 306
Come on!	p. 307
Shadows	p. 308
Asphodel, That Greeny Flower	p. 310
Poems 1955-1962	p. 339
1955 On St. Valentine's Day	p. 341
Hymn Among the Ruins	p. 342
1956 To Friend-Tree of Counted Days	p. 344
Reverie and Invocation	p. 344
Ballad	p. 345
1957 The Birth	p. 345
This is Pioneer Weather	p. 347
Sappho	p. 348
The Loving Dexterity [first version]	p. 348
At the brink of winter	p. 348
1958 Five Translated Poems	p. 349
Green Eyes	p. 349
Naked (The azure yielder)	p. 350
Piano Solo	p. 350
The Infinite Horses	p. 351
Ode to Laziness	p. 352
1959 An Old-Fashioned German Christmas Card	p. 354
Ali Chumacero: Two Poems	p. 355
Widower's Monologue	p. 355
The Wanderings of the Tribe	p. 356
1960 Tribute to Neruda the Poet Collector of Seashells	p. 357
Midwinter	p. 358
The Cassia Tree	p. 359
Popular T'ang and Sung Poems	p. 359
The Maid	p. 360
Lament of a Graying Woman	p. 361
Society of Poets	p. 361
To Li Po	p. 361
To Meng Hao-jan	p. 362
To Wang Wei	p. 362
After the Party	p. 363
Late Spring	p. 363
Ce-Lia the Immortal Beauty	p. 363
The Peerless Lady	p. 364
A Letter	p. 364
Spring Song (A young lass)	p. 365
Summer Song (The Mirror Lake)	p. 365
In the Wineshop of Chinling	p. 366
Solo	p. 366
The Youth on Horseback	p. 367
The Knight	p. 367
Drinking Together	p. 368
The March	p. 368
Long Banister Lane	p. 368
The Visitor	p. 369
Profile of a Lady	p. 370
Visit	p. 371
Chant of the Frontiersman	p. 372
The Newlywed's Cuisine	p. 373
Bella Donna Iu	p. 373
In Dream's Wake	p. 373
From Phoenix Undying	p. 374
Spring in the Snow-Drenched Garden	p. 374
The Old Man and the Child	p. 375
Three Generations	p. 376
1961 Construction	p. 376
Cezanne	p. 376
Bird Song	p. 377
The Art	p. 377
Greeting for Old Age	p. 378
Still Lifes	p. 378
Trala Trala Trala La-Le-La	p. 379
The Moral	p. 379
1962 The Orchard	p. 380
Stormy	p. 380
Pictures from Brueghel 1962	p. 383
Pictures from Brueghel	p. 385
Self-Portrait	p. 385
Landscape with the Fall of Icarus	p. 385
The Hunters in the Snow	p. 386
The Adoration of the Kings	p. 387
Peasant Wedding	p. 388
Haymaking	p. 388
The Corn Harvest	p. 389
The Wedding Dance in the Open Air	p. 390
The Parable of the Blind	p. 391
Children's Games	p. 392
Exercise	p. 394
Song (beauty is a shell)	p. 394
The Woodthrush	p. 395
The Polar Bear	p. 395
The Loving Dexterity	p. 396
The Chrysanthemum	p. 396
3 Stances	p. 396
Elaine	p. 396
Erica	p. 397
Emily	p. 398
Suzy	p. 398
Paul	p. 400
Fragment (as for him who)	p. 401
To a Woodpecker	p. 401
Song (I'd rather read)	p. 402
The Children	p. 402
The Painting	p. 403
The Stone Crock	p. 404
He Has Beaten about the Bush Long Enough	p. 405
Iris	p. 406
Song (you are forever April)	p. 406
The Dance (When the snow falls)	p. 407
Jersey Lyric	p. 408
To the Ghost of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings	p. 409
To Be Recited to Flossie on Her Birthday	p. 410
Metric Figure (gotta hold your nose)	p. 410
The Intelligent Sheepman and the New Cars	p. 411
The Italian Garden	p. 411
Poem (The rose fades)	p. 413
A Formal Design	p. 414
Bird	p. 414
The Gossips	p. 415
Exercise No. 2	p. 415
The World Contracted to a Recognizable Image	p. 415
The Fruit	p. 416
Short Poem	p. 416
Poem (on getting a card)	p. 417
To Flossie	p. 417
Portrait of a Woman at Her Bath	p. 418
Some Simple Measures in the American Idiom and the Variable Foot	p. 418
Exercise in Timing	p. 418
Histology	p. 419
Perpetuum Mobile	p. 419
The Blue Jay	p. 420
The Existentialist's Wife	p. 420
A Salad for the Soul	p. 421
Chloe	p. 421
The Cocktail Party	p. 422
The Stolen Peonies	p. 422
The High Bridge above the Tagus River at Toledo	p. 423
15 Years Later	p. 424
The Title	p. 425
Mounted as an Amazon	p. 425
The Snow Begins	p. 426
Calypsos	p. 426
An Exercise	p. 427
Three Nahuatl Poems	p. 428
Sonnet in Search of an Author	p. 429
The Gift	p. 430
The Turtle	p. 432
Sappho, Be Comforted	p. 433
To My Friend Ezra Pound	p. 434
Tapiola	p. 434
Poem (The plastic surgeon)	p. 435
Heel and Toe to the End	p. 436
The Rewaking	p. 437
A Note on the Text	p. 439
Annotations	p. 446
Tables of Contents for The Broken Span, Selected Poems and Collected Later Poems	p. 517
Two additional translated poems from ... and Spain sings (1937)	p. 526
Acknowledgments	p. 529
Index of Titles in Volumes I and II	p. 533
Index of First Lines in Volumes I and II	p. 543
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