Home > William Carlos Williams

1 Biography

William Carlos Williams ( September 17, 1883 - March 4, 1963), often abbreviated with the initials "WCW", was an American poet during the Modernist movement. He attended public school in Rutherford, New Jersey until 1897, then was sent to study at Château de Lancy near Geneva, Switzerland and the Lycée Condorcet in Paris, France for two years.

Although he did not subscribe to the Imagist manifesto (essentially the manifesto written by Ezra Pound, H.D., and others that drove the Modernist movement in poetry), his work is often considered to be the epitome of it (see especially The Red Wheelbarrow and This Is Just To Say).

Throughout his lifetime Williams worked as a physician in the town of Rutherford, New Jersey. He received his M.D. from The University of Pennsylvania Medical School; where he also met and befriended fellow poet Ezra Pound.

Williams has often been praised for his observation of "the local" in his poetry and for his pared-down, precise, and sharp style. Williams simplified the mystery of what makes good poetry when he said: "If it's not a pleasure, it's not a poem." Also, he is known for remarking that a poem is like a small "machine of words".

His greatest masterpiece is considered to be the work Paterson, a poetic monument to (and personification of) the New Jersey Town. One of the influential modern American poets, Williams received the Pulitzer PrizeThe Pulitzer Prize is a United States literary award given out each April. Recipients of the award are chosen by an independent board and officially administered by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in the United States. The prize was posthumously in 1963.

2 Works

2.1 Poetry

• Poems ( 1909Events January 5 Colombia recognizes the independence of Panama. January 16 Ernest Shackleton's expedition finds the magnetic South Pole. January 28 United States troops leave Cuba after being there since the Spanish-American War. February 12 The National)
• Spring and All ( 1923Centuries: 19th century 20th century 21st century Decades: 1870s 1880s 1890s 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s Years: 1918 1919 1920 1921 1922 1923 1924 1925 1926 1927 1928 Events January 1 Grouping of all UK railway companies into four larg)
• An Early Martyr ( 1935Events January January 1 Italian colonies of Tripoli and Kyrenaika are joined together as Libya January 7 World War II: Italian premier Benito Mussolini and French foreign minister Pierre Laval conclude agreement in which each power undertakes not to oppo)
• Broken Span ( 19411941 is also the title of a Steven Spielberg movie made in 1979 see 1941 (film). Events January January 6 Franklin Delano Roosevelt delivers his Four Freedoms Speech in the State of the Union Address. January 10 Lend-Lease is introduced into the United St)
• The WedgeThe Wedge is a surf spot located at the extreme east end of the Balboa Peninsula in Newport Beach, California. When supplied with a south swell of the proper size and direction, it can produce shorebreak waves as spectacular, challenging, intimidating, da ( 1944Events World War II January January 4 The Battle of Monte Cassino begins. January 5 Murder of Danish playwright Kaj Munck January 17 British forces, in Italy, cross the Garigliano River. January 20 The Royal Air Force drops 2,300 tons of bombs on Berlin;)
• Clouds, Aigeltinger, Russia, &c. ( 19481948 is a leap year starting on Thursday (link will take you to calendar). Events January January 1 Nationalisation of UK railways to form British Railways. Arab militants lay siege to the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem. First day of the Ital)
• The Desert Music and Other Poems ( 1954)
• Pictures from Brueghel ( 1962)
• Paterson ( 1963)
• Imaginations ( 1970)
• Collected Poems, Volume I: 1909-1939 ( 1986)
• The Collected Poems, Volume II, 1939-1962 ( 1988)