William Carlos Williams Analysis

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Williams wanted to write his poems based on what he perceived to be common. In essence, he wrote about things we deal with on an every day basis. Although one of his earliest influences was someone by the name of Ezra Pound, it wasn’t long before he drifted and decided to write a more innovative type of poetry that wasn’t based on European tradition, but rather, American life. It is incredible how Williams conveys such large ideas into such simple poems that honestly give a first impression of being mindless and unintelligent. Since so much imagery is packed into a few words, Williams is able to tell a story with his poems without actually writing the story. It makes his poems surprisingly effective, and inspires me to make my readers think beyond themselves as well. Almost every single poem that I read by William Carlos Williams included something about the seasons, nature and/or the temperature. Since his subjects are everyday events, sights, and feelings, describing the season helps covey the overall tone of the poem. The warm sun is usually viewed as optimistic and joyous, while the bare trees in the cold winter aren’t as exciting, but rather, lonely and empty. William’s poem, “Dawn”, is the perfect example of taking a simple subject and making it into art by applying to the five senses. He perfectly describes the rising of the sun in the morning which is such an extremely common occurrence, but the imagery Williams uses in his poem makes the sun set come to life. He specifically chooses words such as “triumphant”, “bursting wildly”, and “glorified” in order to get his readers to feel a sense of excitement and freedom that the sun “runs free at last”. Another example of how Williams takes a common object and forms it into something more meaningful through his use of imagery and metaphors is “A Sort of a Song”. This poem can mean anything to anyone. It

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