The remains of a downward fall and a movement beyond that fall resonate throughout the poem, whilst the poem mirrors that fall and subsequent movement. It is reflective rather than condemning and follows changes - “new kinds” leading to new places as the words move downwards. The attention Williams pays to form, shows the dignity the object holds for Williams, which transgresses to the reader’s own perception.
Another poem where the attention to form is evident is ‘This is Just to Say” When questioned on what makes ‘This is Just to Say’ a poem, Williams answered, illustrating my point above, that, “it is metrically absolutely regular…so, dogmatically speaking, it has to be a poem because it goes that way….” So, by Williams’ definition itself, it is how he arranges the words on the page that creates the poem, raises the life he sees in the subject, giving it a justified place in people’s thoughts and grants it new status and importance, thus giving it dignity. However, it is not always the same kind of dignity that he gives his chosen subjects.
With the poem ‘This is Just to Say’, Williams gives us literal and metaphorical food for thought. Although on the surface, the poem is concerned with the finding of plums in the icebox, and subsequently the eating of these plums,
“I have eaten
the plums
that were
in the icebox”
critics are unable to decide upon the theme. Whether it is about a lack of will power, about temptation (as I believe),
“they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold”
or as Stephen Matterson suggests, more drastically a re-enactment of the fall, it is undeniable that Williams has placed a modest amount of plums at the centre of a poetic debate. This situation at first appears unusual, a discussion centred around 28 words chosen by Williams’ and arranged to form a poem, and a subject matter consisting of devoured plums originally belonging to someone else. However, this is entirely consistent with the modern art movement of the time, the throwing out of old traditions and experimenting with new approaches. Although minimal, the content gives us something to ponder and envisage and surpasses the otherwise day-to-day and normal associations with the subject matter. The poem typifies Wallace Stevens’ opinion of Williams that he “has spent his life rejecting the accepted sense of things”. This could certainly account for his choice of subject matter and ideas on what makes a poem a poem. It also demonstrates his disdain for inessential words and his sparing attitude towards description and open praise for his subject matter. He was certainly amongst other things an enthusiast on what he wrote about, which also gives otherwise commonplace objects some of the dignity Williams obviously believed they deserve.
This quality also highlights how Williams sees no need to over complicate the subject. In holding back on the description, Williams displays how he doesn’t need to convince us that Wallpaper, or plums, or Christmas decorations are worthy of our attention. He rejects a method often employed by poets, to drum up the subject matter with extravagant, unnecessary description and thus displays how dignified his subjects are without embellishment or romanticising.
This is clear in another poem of Williams’ of a similar nature ‘The red wheelbarrow’. This poem is just 16 words long, but actually has a more regular rhythm to it than ‘This is Just to Say’. Where ‘This is Just to Say’ looks regular on the page as the verses are all of a similar shape (i.e. the typography is regular) The Red Wheelbarrow is rhythmically far more regular at least syllabically and structurally. Again, “because it goes that way” is undeniably a poem, by Williams’ definition.
Amongst other contrasts in the poem, Barry Ahearn observes the contrast “between the universal and age-old scene depicted in the poem and the radically new free verse form in which it exists . . ..” This is true of the poem (of sixteen words) that describes a wheelbarrow, “glazed” by new rainwater and beside white chickens. With a considered word choice and of course line breaks, Williams has created a poem from an ordinary sentence. Henry M Sayre goes further, and comments on, “the form into which Williams moulds his material, not the material itself . . .. The wheelbarrow's accidental but very material presence in this new context invests it with a new dignity” which brings me back to the title, and the statement that Williams does have the ability to raise the life he sees and give it dignity.
“On Gay Wallpaper” is another poem of Williams’ that suggests a necessity to discuss otherwise ‘normal’ objects in his poetry that is often of a very different theme from this initial starting point. The writing in this poem imitates and mimics the wallpaper itself and its repetitive design,
“threes, threes and threes
Three roses and three stems.”
This repetition of significant words has been employed by many poets to emphasise the worth and importance of the subject matter – however, Williams is using this technique to emphasise the repetitiveness of his subject matter, ironically as the wallpaper is supposed to be ‘gay’.
“Repeated to the ceiling
to the windows
where the day
blows in”
Again this is another example of his continual practice to use everyday, accessible items to emphasise his points and themes. ‘On Gay Wallpaper’ seems to represent false ideas about attainable happiness, the acquiring of tangibles (such as patterned wallpaper) to give us the intangibles – happiness, or contentment for instance.
“And on this moral sea
of grass or dreams lie flowers
or baskets of desires”
The poem discusses the falsities of the printed scenes on our ‘gay wallpaper’ and how we try to envisage these things as everyday – ‘mat roses’, ‘leaves of gold’ and yet, through the window - the break in the wallpaper, Williams in the poem, and we in our homes, let back in the tedium, the evident reality we are continuously trying to deny and screen with our wallpaper.
Although the subject matter seems at first simple – a description of a wallpapered room, Williams has used the wallpaper as a tool, making his philosophy accessible to all through the common object. It is because of this new importance that the wallpaper now holds that it has gained dignity in what it is, even though Williams is far from praising it. By placing it in such an insightful poem, Williams has been raised from the life that Williams took it from.
Not only do I agree that the purpose of the artist is to raise the life that he sees, and give it dignity, but I also agree that Williams achieves this with much of his poetry convincingly. The examples above also display the array of techniques Williams uses to achieve this. The expanse between the subject matter and the theme the poem deals with, the minimal description, the sparing approach to words and the arranging of words that would otherwise feel everyday are all employed by Williams and evident as techniques that elevates the everyday and give it new dignity.
