What do they mean when they say : « I do not like your poems ; you have no faith wha­te­ver. You seem nei­ther to have suf­fe­red nor, in fact, to have felt any­thing very dee­ply. There is nothing appea­ling in what you say but on the contra­ry the poems are posi­ti­ve­ly repel­lant. They are heart­less, cruel, they make fun of huma­ni­ty. What in God’s name do you mean ? Are you a pagan ? Have, you no tole­rance for human frail­ty ? Rhyme you may per­haps take away but rythm ! why there is none in your work wha­te­ver. Is this what you call poe­try ? It…

I rea­lize that the chap­ters are rather quick in their sequence and that nothing much is contai­ned in any one of them but no one should be sur­pri­sed at this today. THE TRADITIONALISTS OF PLAGIARISM It is spring. That is to say, it. is approa­ching THE BEGINNING. In that huge and micro­sco­pic career of time, as it were a wild horse racing in an illi­mi­table pam­pa under the stars, des­cri­bing immense and micro­sco­pic circles with his hoofs on the solid turf, run­ning without a stop for the mil­lionth part of a second until lie is aged and worn to a…

Thus, wea­ry of life, in view of the great consum­ma­tion which awaits us — tomor­row, we rush among our friends congra­tu­la­ting our­selves upon the joy soon to be. Thoughtless of evil we crush out the mar­row of those about us with our hea­vy cars as we go hap­pi­ly from place to place. It seems that there is not time enough in which to speak the full of our exal­ta­tion. Only a day is left, one mise­rable day, before the world comes into its own. Let us hur­ry ! Why bother for this man or that ? In the offices of the great…

Rather notice, mon cher, that the moon is til­ted above the point of the steeple than that its color is shell-pink. Rather observe that it is ear­ly mor­ning than that the sky is smooth as a tur­quoise. Rather grasp how the dark conver­ging lines of the steeple meet at the pin­nacle— per­ceive how its lit­tle orna­ment tries to stop them— See how it fails ! See how the conver­ging lines of the hexa­go­nal spire escape upward— rece­ding, divi­ding ! —sepals that guard and contain the flo­wer ! Observe how motion­less the eaten moon lies in the pro­tec­ting lines. It is true : in the…

Oh strong-rid­­ged and dee­ply hol­lo­wed nose of mine ! what will you not be smel­ling ? What tact­less asses we are, you and I, boney nose, always indis­cri­mi­nate, always una­sha­med, and now it is the sou­ring flo­wers of the bedrag­gled poplars : a fes­te­ring pulp on the wet earth beneath them. With what deep thirst we qui­cken our desires to that rank odor of a pas­sing spring­time ! Can you not be decent ? Can you not reserve your ardors for some­thing less unlo­ve­ly ? What girl will care for us, do you think, if we conti­nue in these ways ? Must you taste eve­ry­thing ? Must you…

Is what I have writ­ten prose ? The only ans­wer is that form in prose ends with the end of that which is being com­mu­ni­ca­ted — If the power to go on fal­ters in the middle of a sen­tence — that is the end of the sen­tence — Or if a new phase enters at that point it is only stu­pi­di­ty to go on. There is no confu­sion — only dif­fi­cul­ties. William Carlos Williams Spring and All 22 Contact Publishing 1923 78 0…

Why should I go fur­ther than I am able ? Is it not enough for you that I am per­fect ? William Carlos Williams Spring and All 18 Contact Publishing 1923 68 0…