Selected Poems

Media:	Paperback
Author:	William Carlos Williams, Charles Tomlinson
Publisher:	New Directions Publishing Corporation
Release date:	01 June, 1985
List price:	~~$10.95~~
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Selected Poems

Average rating: Stars

Great Poet. Poor Selection

(Skip to the bottom of this review if you want the quick version.)

The title of this edition is "Selected Poems." I don't know exactly what process of "selection" Tomlinson used in choosing the poems to include in this collection, but I imagine it involved something in the way of either dice or some variation of dart throwing or the close-your-eyes-and-see-where-your-finger-lands method.

Let me now say that I truly love the poetry of William Carlos Williams. While his work did not really become popular until the post-modern era, Williams is a strictly imagistic modernist, and in my eyes he is the epitome of modernist poetry. Like I said, his strict adherence to literal _things_ and images, combined with his genius use of the line (unmatched to this day), and a beauty that resonates far beyond the page makes for one of the greatest poetry collections of the twentieth century.

My problem, as I said, is not with Williams (far from it), but with this collection (I can no longer bring myself to call it a selection). This collection, while obviously containing "The Red Wheelbarrow," has excluded some of Williams's crucial poems. The following poems have been ommitted from this collection: "The Young Housewife," "Queen-Anne's-Lace," "Portrait of a Lady, "Willow Poem," "The Dead Baby," and "Lear." While the poetry in this edition is certainly great, simply because it is taken from the portfolio of William Carlos Williams, these poems are critical to any reader of Williams's poetry, and, for some reason, have been left out, overlooked, or forgotten, I am not sure. I would suggest that anyone who is intereste in Williams's poetry just spend the extra money and purchase the complete works (whose publisher eludes me at this time, and which I think is in two volumes).

While I have bashed Tomlinson for his choice of works to include in this collection, I will say that one good part about this book is his introduction. I provides a helpful analysis to understanding Williams if you need help with that.

If you enjoy only lofty diction and language such as that used by T.S. Eliot (whose work _The Waste Land_ Williams actually called a "catastrophe"), you may want to look into some of Williams's poetry before purchasing a collection. Williams uses direct, literal, and simple (though absolutely not simplistic) language. The beauty of it lies in the actual view of the images his poetry presents.

QUICK VERSION

Do not buy THIS collection, because it is vastly incomplete. William Carlos Williams is a great poet, and crucial works have been omitted. Purchase at least one of the volumes of his complete works instead.

Selected Poems - William Carlos Williams, Charles Tomlinson

Red Wheel Barrow--lots more going on than meets the eye

In my poetry class we had this big discussion about Red Wheelbarrow and how it has a lot more going for it than meets the eye. Something with the etemology of "wheelbarrow" and the way he separates it in the second stanza.

That said, the poem taken at face value is, as many of WCW's poems are, a simple, beautiful image. The stark contrast of the red wheelbarrow and white chickens on a gray rainy day instantly paints a picture in my mind. WCW had a lot of new ideas (at the time) of how poems should be written and what they should accomplish. He can write the most simple, poignant verse about a flower that on a closer examination turns out to be about atom bombs. He is a very accessible poet--even for those unitiated with this seemingly scary world--and yet offers so much for those who wish to analyze.

William Carlos Williams, Charles Tomlinson - Selected Poems

The Red Wheelbarrow

I really don't see how anyone can say that William Carlos Williams' "The Red Wheelbarrow" is an outstanding peice of work. I'm not going to trash the rest of his work because I find some of it to be quite good, but I would love to know how on earth that poem got published. I find it pointless and quite frankly, boring. And how people get three-page analyses of this poem leaves me in utter amazement that there actually are people with no life.

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