Poet, Reader & Imagination

There is a bond between the poet and reader expressed by William Carlos Williams:

I wanted to write a poem

that you would understand.

For what good is it to me

if you can't understand it?

   But you got to try hard --

from "January Morning" (XV)

 

There is also the power of imagination: 

"The flower dies down

and rots away

But there is a hole

in the bottom of the bag.

It is the imagination

which cannot be fathomed.

It is through this hole

we escape"

from Paterson, Book Five 

Paterson by William Carlos Williams. New Directions, 1995 (1992)

Selected Poems by William Carlos Williams. New Directions, 1985 (1949)