Carlos Williams Ordinary Life

William Carlos Williams shows his readers that ordinary life can be poetic.
Williams’s poems represent the simple, small, or quick occurrences in everyday life. This may be a scene, image, or event, but Williams seems to capture the essence of these ordinary items and describe them in great detail. A possible reason for these simple ideas showing up in his poems may be because he was a doctor. Doctors are taught to see the smallest details in trying to determine what is wrong with their patients, and in some cases these small issues can be very important. This may explain why Williams portrayed seemingly insignificant aspects of life as complex or important. Another possible reason for these praises in Williams’s poetry according to Poet

Macha Rosenthal may be the fact that Williams had great respect for his female patients who were of the middle-class, especially those whose babies he delivered. Williams seemed to admire these women because of the courage they had. Williams may have realized these women are not appreciated as much as they should have been because they are the common people. This may be why Williams showed ordinary life as more than it is originally thought to be.
One of Williams’ poems that displays his appreciation for ordinary life is “Portrait of a Lady” In this poem Williams describes the image of a lady, but uses various aspects of nature to do it.

This poem according to Poet Mordecai Marcus, alludes to a painting by Jean-Honoré Fragonard called “The Swing” which depicts a woman swinging on swing with several women on the ground below. Behind her is a ray of light hitting her and dense forest. Also in the background of the painting there is a snowy mountain. Williams uses simple body parts of the woman and relates them to more complex aspects of nature, for example, Williams writes “Your thighs are apple trees whose blossoms touch the sky” (qtd. in “Portrait of a Lady”). Williams also compares the woman’s knees to nature when he writes “Your knees / are a southern breeze-or / a gust of snow…” (qtd. in “Portrait of a Lady”). Williams in this poem may be showing respect for this woman or in fact any woman. This may allude to Williams respect for his female patients. Professor Barry Ahearn believes Williams wrote this poem to try and address a poem of praise to the lady. Later in the poem though the lady seems to reject the praise or tries to take the attention off of her when she says “Which Shore?” (qtd. in “Portrait of a Lady”). Barry Ahearn also believes the woman in the poem seems to want a larger context for the metaphor “Your thighs are apple trees” (qtd. in “Portrait of a Lady”). The woman may have tried to take the

attention off of her because she believes she is an ordinary woman which may allude to the middle class. Ahearn also states she wants to know where these apple trees are to try and distract the man speaking to her. Another important part of this poem is the fact that Williams wrote it in a new style of love lyric which may reflect the intent to make this poem “special” (Ahearn). This may also mean that Williams is trying to portray this woman in the poem as “special.”
Another one of Williams’ poems that displays a more indepth look on ordinary life is “Spring and All” Williams describes the scene of a dreary and cold day near a hospital.

Williams also describes the contrast between winter and spring, but the way that he does this makes spring and winter seem like living things. American poet John Hollander believes that, “[t]his is a poem of discovery of the gradual emergence of the sense of spring from what looks otherwise like a disease of winter.” This poem may also be Williams way of comparing good from bad, but he adds complexity to spring and winter to create a bigger impact on his readers. Williams takes simple scenes of dead plants and portrays winter as a very bad season in his statement, “Beyond, the / waste of broad, muddy fields/ brown with dried weeds, standing and fallen.” Williams describes spring as a season that is questionable in the beginning, but later is beautiful when he describes all the plants sprouting back out of the ground when he writes “One by one objects are defined- / It quickens: clarity, outline of a leaf” (qtd. in “Spring and All”). The plants in the poem are also described as complex almost like humans. Another important part of this poem is the part where Williams writes “They enter the new world naked and cold, / uncertain of all” (qtd. in “Spring and All”) This may allude to Williams respect for his female patients whose babies he delivered. Williams once said “Beauty at its best seems truth

incompletely realized” (qtd. in Bufithis) Williams in this poem may be trying to show the beautiful side of spring when nature grows and flourishes; however, because it occurs every year its beauty is not realized. Even though this poem may seem like Williams is just adding complexity to the subjects he is describing, he is also adding complexity to the format the poem is written in. John Hollander points out, in the lines “Under the surge of the blue / mottled clouds driven from the / northeast” the line break suggests “blue” is totally separate from “mottled.”