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William Carlos Williams
William Carlos Williams
(17 September 1883 – 4 March 1963 / New Jersey)
Poems by William Carlos Williams : 119 / 133
This Is Just To Say - Poem by William Carlos Williams
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
Poems by William Carlos Williams : 119 / 133
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Poem Submitted: Friday, January 3, 2003
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This is not a comment, but a question. Does anyone know when (and where) the poem first appeared in print? (Report) Reply
One of the seminal poems (and poets) of the 20th Century. This poem establishes two important and separate signposts for future poets: 1: the title is part of the poem. This is Just to Say is both the title and first line of this poem; 2: it is acceptable to write a poem about an everyday experience (i.e. eating plums) that helps the reader live the experience along with the poet. Universal themes and short length - this is the start of (Report) Reply
Plump, and
Plump, and
Waiting for
Digestion
Inhaled, and with glee
Exhaled... The remnants
Leaving an after taste
(...and held onto less forgotten
After time the chaser
Leaves marks the throat forgets)
Like a wheel barrow, red
Frozen with linger the ploy
The mind provides as if
Death knew what to do anyway
What do you notice,
She asked
He looked away and said
Nothing
Thinking
Plump, and
C Trevor Andres (Report) Reply
The beauty of honesty is best stated directly and simply, thus at the heart truth is poetry, in it's own right.
The message here is not regret, rather a confession to and for love. (Report) Reply
I came to sit
And ponder deeply
the life of which
I lived so sleeply
alone at last
some time to share
a drift at peace
with others fair
Tomorrows world
so proud and loud
can lift you up
onto the clouds
-poems are hard (Report) Reply
This write cannot be called a poem. It is not even a piece of literature but only a random, very common thought. (Report) Reply
Who died and made you God? I'm confounded by statements like this. Why do you need a poem definition? Some of the most common thoughts and feelings have made the most profound poetry. Shall I part my hair behind?
I've read and heard this poem before. I'm not fond of this poem, because it always leaves me feeling like, And? I love simple verse - love it - but this one consistently renders me chilled and emptied, like the inside of the icebox. (Report) Reply
I've read and heard this poem before. I'm not fond of this poem, because it always leaves me feeling like, And? I love simple verse - love it - but this one consistently renders me chilled and emptied, like the inside of the icebox. (Report) Reply
Desire to eat and confession to tease lovely one (Report) Reply
............you know why he ate those plums.....cause he was trying to get her attention.... (Report) Reply
rather funny and cute. quite pleasant and relatable! (Report) Reply
I saw this in either a high school or college text book and it stuck in my head because of its simplicity and sincerity. It also shows that simple notes can become poems. (Report) Reply
A vignette. The poetry in a marital spat. (Report) Reply
Would from be better than that were in? The past tense in I have eaten implies the plums are no longer there.
I quite like this poem. It has an ironic tone suggesting the kind of relationship Williams has with his wife(?) . It is a very 60s relationship in which the present pleasure overrides any moral sense. She will not leave him for the plums, but this incident bodes no good for the future if he carries this attitude into more serious concerns. (Report) Reply
Well, I like the poem the way it is...cute, nice...sounds like a note from someone who cares... (Report) Reply
Written as though it were a note left on a kitchen table, Williams' poem appears to the reader like a piece of found poetry. Metrically, the poem exhibits no regularity of stress or of syllable count. Except for lines two and five (each an iamb) and lines eight and nine (each an amphibrach) , no two lines have the same metrical form. The consonance of the letters “Th” in lines two, three, and four, as well the consonance of the letter “F” in lines eight and nine, and the letter 'S' in lines eleven and twelve give rise to a natural rhythm when the poem is read aloud.
A conspicuous lack of punctuation contributes to the poem’s tonal ambiguity. While the second stanza begins with a conjunction, implying a connection to the first stanza, the third stanza is separated from the first two by the capitalized “Forgive.” In a 1950 interview, John W. Gerber asked the poet what it is that makes This Is Just To Say a poem; Williams replied, In the first place, it's metrically absolutely regular... So, dogmatically speaking, it has to be a poem because it goes that way, don't you see! Critic Marjorie Perloff writes, on the page, the three little quatrains look alike; they have roughly the same physical shape. It is typography rather than any kind of phonemic recurrence that provides directions for the speaking voice (or for the eye that reads the lines silently) and that teases out the poem's meanings. Additionally, this typographical structure influences any subsequent interpretation on the part of the reader. (Report) Reply
In reality, this isn't a poem but merely a couple of remarks. It never should've been seen (not to mention HAILED) as a poem. Its funny how WCW accused Eliot of taking poetry out of the hands of the 'people' through using dense language and obscure allusions. But I feel WCW did much more to ruin poetry's 'popularity' by ridding it of music and meter, by making it so plain as to be 'unmemorable.' At least Eliot kept the rhythms and the sense of meter. Williams changed the art of poetry completely - thus watering it down. -LP (Report) Reply
I first saw this poem as a plaque on someones kitchen wall some 10 years ago.
I thought then as now, this is so sweet...I would love someone who wrote it. (Report) Reply
Well I think that it doesn't need to be prodded and examined by 'sucker, sheepheaded academics'... I quite like it just as a collection of words. It's sweet somehow. (Report) Reply