William Carlos Williams

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William Carlos Williams once said, “It is not what you say that matters, but the manner in which you say it.”(Examiner) This is a view he often incorporated into his poetry. Williams’ purpose through writing poetry was not to teach a moral, but to convey that simple things can be beautiful. Although many of Williams’ poems show this beauty in simplicity, a few good examples are The Red Wheel Barrow, The Great Figure, and Young Sycamore.
William Carlos Williams was born in Rutherford, New Jersey on September 17, 1883. William grew up around different ancestries; His father, William George Williams, was English. His mother, Raquel Helene Hoher, was Puerto Rican (PoemHunter). Williams' parents wanted him to have a very good education and pushed him to become a successful doctor. In order to please his parents, Williams studied hard in school and excelled in math and science. Williams went on to study advanced pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania. While at college, Williams met a life-long friend Erza Pound who encouraged him to write poetry. After graduating from college, William worked as an intern at a hospital in New York until he got a job at a Nursery and Child’s hospital while he continued to write poetry (Poetry Foundation). Williams planned to study in Germany to further his career, but before he left, Williams proposed to Florence Herman, whose sister had already rejected him and married his brother. Florence agreed to marry William when he returned from studying in Germany. As Williams studied in Germany, he often visited with his college friend Erza. Upon his return in 1910 Williams opened his own medical business. Then after three years of being engaged, Williams married to Florence in 1912. They had their fir...

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...s’ poems, his purpose remains to identify with the thing, not just to describe it, and to allow it a way to express itself. In Young Sycamore William uses free verse lines to mimic the real curves and sways of a tree. In doing this, Gray states that it was Williams’ goal is to allow the reader to in essence become like the tree. By creating this effect upon the reader, Williams is able to show how beautiful a regular tree can be if it is looked at in a new way (Gray).
In conclusion, William Carlos Williams’ purpose was not to teach a moral through his poetry, but to show that simple things can be beautiful. Williams was a revolutionary poet who could cause people to see simple things in life as extraordinary. Williams had a different view of the world which gave him the ability to see the beauty a simple everyday object can hold and incorporate it into his poetry.

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