William Carlos Williams: 11 Essential Poems

An episode from 12/15/22: Tonight, I read eleven essential poems from the American poet William Carlos Williams (1883-1963). In the same generation as T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound, Williams is perhaps best known for never becoming an expatriate, and instead living most of his life as a family doctor in Rutherford, New Jersey. His poems can be found in The Collected Poems Volume I: 1909-1939, The Collected Poems Volume II: 1939-1962, and Paterson. The biographies I read from are Paul Mariani’s William Carlos Williams: A New World Naked, and the essay on Williams’ life at The Poetry Foundation.The poems I read are: Pastoral (1917) Danse Russe (1917) Waiting (1921) The Great Figure (1921) The Red Wheelbarrow (1923) Flowers by the Sea (first version) (1931) War, the Destroyer! (1942) Approach to a City (1946) To a Dog Injured in the Street (1954) Deep Religious Faith (1954) from Asphodel, That Greeny Flower (1955)Don’t forget to support Human Voices Wake Us on Substack, where you can also get our newsletter and other extras. You can also support the podcast by ordering any of my books: Notes from the Grid, To the House of the Sun, The Lonely Young & the Lonely Old, and Bone Antler Stone.Any comments, or suggestions for readings I should make in later episodes, can be emailed to [email protected].

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