Carlos Williams Research Paper

Reaching for a goal. Striving to be different. Attempting to meet the expectations of others.
William Carlos Williams worked hard throughout his career to reach his goal of perfecting his own simple and modern style of poetry, along with the help of some friends. William lived in the era of modernism and was considered to be an imagist poet. Williams strived to write poetry that focused on modern people and everyday situations in the simplest of words. But how did the events and people in his lifetime influence the way Williams wrote poetry? William Carlos Williams poetry was heavily influenced by the modernist era, poet, Ezra Pound, Imagism, and his many European travels. As a poet, novelist, and physician, born in Rutherford New Jersey, William Carlos Williams developed an understandable and meaningful style of poetry. He first went to school in Geneva, Switzerland, and later attended the University of Pennsylvania where he received his Medical Degree in 1906. He continued to study pediatrics when he returned to Rutherford in 1910. He focused on his medical career for 40 years
not writing much, only writing in his spare time. Williams met his lifelong friends, poets Ezra Pound and Hilda Doolittle at the University of Pennsylvania (William Carlos Williams). Williams travelled throughout Europe and made visits to his friend Ezra Pound in England. Pound and H.D. guided Williams to write a more modern type of poetry that focused on the common people and everyday situations which soon became an influence to other poets of that time. William Carlos Williams is still remembered for his great poetic expertise in his hometown of Rutherford today (Crumbley, Paul.). William Carlos Williams was considered a modernist poet.
He lived in the Modernist Era which started in the late 19th Century and continued up until the early 20th Century. Modernism focused on modern life, everyday concepts, and situations easy to understand. Modernism was also a combination of ideas like futuristic and nihilistic. Modernists expressed the idea of modernism through poetry, writing, and music. In modernist poetry, free verse was used by poets. Free verse is a literary device that is used to express free thought. Free verse commonly does not include regular meter or a particular rhyme scheme although it could (Notaro, Anna.). A feature of modernism is imagism which was a precursor to modernism. A smaller literary movement below modernism was Imagism which happened in the same era (Materer, Timothy.). The Modernist Era shaped the way William Carlos Williams wrote
poetry. To begin, William Carlos Williams most influential person in his life was Ezra Pound. Like Williams, Ezra Pound was a modernist poet and critic. Williams met at the University of Pennsylvania along with the famous poet Hilda Doolittle. Both being writers, they influenced Williams to focus on his writing career rather than his medical practice (Kakutani, Michiko.). He was both a friend and literary advisor for poets like Williams, H.D., T.S. Eliot, and Robert Frost. Williams was heavily influenced by Ezra Pound’s style of image and sound. When visiting Pound, Williams asked for literary advice on his 1909 poems. For example, in his poem Between Walls, Williams wrote, “the back wings/of the /hospital where /nothing /will grow lie /cinders/in which shine /the broken/pieces of a green/bottle” (Williams, William Carlos). Pounds criticized these poems as “derivative and behind the times”. In his next book, Williams focused more on modern times, hoping to fulfill Pounds vision (Crumbley, Paul.). From this, Williams and Pound shared a deep poetic relationship. In 1914, Pound published an anthology that included some of William Carlos Williams poems. The imagist movement greatly influenced William Carlos Williams poetry. He and other poets like Ezra Pound, Richard Aldington, and F. S. Flint were all apart of what is known as the original imagist group (Ezra Pound). Mentioned before, imagism is a feature of modernism which was actually a precursor to modernism. A smaller literary movement below modernism was Imagism which happened in the same era (Materer, Timothy.). Imagism dealt with a single observed image and observed details. Imagist poems were usually written in free verse and they are direct and short. Imagist poems focus on an object rather than a certain idea that the poet is trying to express. An example of Williams poetry that shows imagism is his poem The Red Wheelbarrow. Williams wrote, “so much depends/upon/a red wheel/barrow/glazed with rain/water /beside the white/chickens” (Williams, William Carlos). Imagism was founded by poet Ezra Pound, one of William's influences for writing (Materer, Timothy).The Imagist Movement shaped the way William Carlos Williams wrote poetry. Along with William's engagement with Ezra Pound and the Imagist Movement, his poetry was influenced by his many different travels. His travels around Europe and the United States was the true reason that his poetry was a great success. On his travels throughout Europe, Williams met other poets, and saw different ways in which poetry had been written. One major travel of Williams was his trip to London in 1910. Williams visited his friend Ezra Pound in London, to receive literary advice on his poems he had written one year before. An example from his 1909 poems is a poem called “The Uses of Poetry.” Williams wrote, “I’ve fond anticipation of a day/O'er Filled with pure diversion/presently,/For I must read a lady poesy/The while we glide by many a leafy bay,” (Williams, William Carlos.). Pound criticized poems like these as “behind the times” which gave Williams the motivation to make his poetry better. Not only did Williams visit his friend in London, but he also travelled much to Paterson, New Jersey where he wrote Paterson (Messent, Peter ). Paterson, Williams major work was fully published in 1963 and is a five volume impressionistic poem. His work became greatly influential by the new generation of American Poets (William Carlos Williams). Travels to different regions of the world helped Williams determine his style of poetry from his sights and experiences and the literary advice that had been given to him. In conclusion, not only did the era of Modernism influence Williams poetry, but his experiences with acquaintances such as Ezra Pound, events like the Imagist Movement, and his many days of travelling. Williams goal was to perfect his own style of poetry using a simple and modern language that anyone would be able to understand. Williams worked for years to perfect his poetry and learned what to do, what not to do, and how to do it. His main focus was to give people poetry that they could relate their own lives to. As a great poet, Williams went on to inspire other famous poets like Allen Ginsberg. The big picture of William Carlos Williams life is that if want to achieve your goal, you first have to experience failure and also to focus on the simple things in life.