Friday, August 30, 2013

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)

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