BROWSING WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS’S POETRY FOR THE IDEAS BEHIND THE THINGS
BROWSING WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS’S POETRY FOR THE IDEAS BEHIND THE THINGS

Summary/Abstract: "William Carlos Williams is presented in this article as initially an imagist (influenced by Ezra Pound and H.D.), who later became a critic of imagism and savant writing of poetry, in favour of simple concrete images conceived in a simple language for the simple common readers’ understanding. This choice of topics and expression was his form of democracy, of addressing the people, and of being understood by the people. His preference for concrete things in his imagery instead of ideas was clearly and repeatedly expressed by him, “no ideas but in things.”He iteratively confessed his preference for choosing painting before poetry writing, and his friendship and collaboration with painters, as well as some poems and volumes on painting show it.The concrete beauty of his poems, however, hides behind the apparently simple images and the taste for the beautiful sights, ideas that this article tries to decode."

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