WikiSysop: Created page with "== William Carlos Williams - On poems as machines made out of words == To make two bold statements: There's nothing sentimental about a machine, and: A poem is a small (or la..."

2016-10-16T08:03:04Z

Created page with "== William Carlos Williams - On poems as machines made out of words == To make two bold statements: There's nothing sentimental about a machine, and: A poem is a small (or la..."

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== William Carlos Williams - On poems as machines made out of words ==

To make two bold statements: There's nothing sentimental about a machine, and: A poem is a small (or large) machine made out of words. When I say there's nothing sentimental about a poem, I mean that there can be no part that is redundant. Prose may carry a load of ill-defined matter like a ship. But poetry is a machine which drives it, pruned to a perfect economy. As in all machines, its movement is intrinsic, undulant, a physical more than a literary character.

''From: Williams's introduction to The Wedge, in Selected Essays of William Carlos Williams (NY: New Directions, 1969), p. 256.''

This is just to say

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
For breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

Poetry as Machine - Revision history

WikiSysop: Created page with "== William Carlos Williams - On poems as machines made out of words == To make two bold statements: There's nothing sentimental about a machine, and: A poem is a small (or la..."